Tea Parties
 

I heard about this growing fad from my husband - people who are meeting peacefully at major cities across the nation in protest President Obama's economic plan. They're calling them tea parties. Here's an article about one in Orlando.

Do you know anyone who has attended a tea party?
Would you consider attending a tea party yourself? If so, why?
Are you opposed to the idea of people meeting peacefully to exercise their freedom of speech in the form a tea party?
Do you see this trend as an insult to the founding fathers of the US constitution, or do you see it as a method of standing up for basic rights?
What is the real meaning behind these tea parties - is it as simple as disagreeing with economic policy, or do you think it means more?

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My thoughts. Feel free to agree, disagree, or what-not.

Do you know anyone who has attended a tea party?
No, I really don't. Though I have family members and friends who would likely attend one if they learned about it.
Would you consider attending a tea party yourself? If so, why?
No. I am not a fan of protests in general. Standing in a huge crowd of people holding a sign doesn't seem like it'd be a fun or productive way to spend an afternoon.
Are you opposed to the idea of people meeting peacefully to exercise their freedom of speech in the form a tea party?
No. People can protest or support whatever they want as long as no one gets hurt. I am honestly relieved to see that there doesn't seem to be a trend of counter groups meeting at the tea parties with the intent to create friction or incite violence.
Do you see this trend as an insult to the founding fathers of the US constitution, or do you see it as a method of standing up for basic rights?
Honestly, I don't like the name "Tea Party." Taxation without representation - that's what the original tea party was about, wasn't it? The conservatives that are drawn to the tea parties are represented in congress. They simply don't have the majority at the moment, which means that their suggestions aren't likely to pass into law.
What is the real meaning behind these tea parties - is it as simple as disagreeing with economic policy, or do you think it means more?
After listening to the Hannity radio show last week, and how frequently he plugs these tea parties - I honestly think the conservatives attempting to create a revolution of sorts within their party. They feel they are not being represented. They are attempting to vocalize to their congressmen that they are not pleased with any deviation from the conservative agenda.

I don't understand why there is a palatable paranoia among conservatives that this election means the end of political conservatism. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on that respect.

Do you know anyone who has attended a tea party?
Nah, but I'm in liberal country. If we had a tea party here it would consist of maybe three internet libertarians and the one guy in San Jose that's in the NRA.
Would you consider attending a tea party yourself? If so, why?
I think the stimulus plan is a bit short-sighted, but not enough to protest it.
Are you opposed to the idea of people meeting peacefully to exercise their freedom of speech in the form a tea party?
Not at all, though I hope they're not wasting tea.
Do you see this trend as an insult to the founding fathers of the US constitution, or do you see it as a method of standing up for basic rights?
The latter. I don't agree with their conclusions, but I fully support their right to voice their opinion. It's actually kinda nice to see conservatives protesting.

Still, I think they misunderstood the meaning of the tea party. Taxation without representation was and is a big deal, but really isn't in play here. Obama won by a decent margin. I know Republicans absolutely adore their understanding of the founding fathers, though, and I suspect the name is simply meant to evoke that whole revolutionary patriotism thing.
What is the real meaning behind these tea parties - is it as simple as disagreeing with economic policy, or do you think it means more?
Without attending one, it's tough to say. It sounds kinda like a fair, a laissez-fair. Nyuk nyuk. :thumbsup:

Do you know anyone who has attended a tea party?

Yes, a few that are going in Kentucky and Michigan.


Would you consider attending a tea party yourself? If so, why?

I would go if I had the time, because our nation's leaders are not bettering the country for all. Massive bailouts with tax payer money to banks that are raising their credit card rates, fees and tightening credit is a joke. People's lives have been destroyed and the government just doesn't care. People can't pay back student loans, where's the help there? People are barely able to live working 40 hours a week and the government is giving BILLIONS to banks and the rich. There's something truly wrong with this picture.


Are you opposed to the idea of people meeting peacefully to exercise their freedom of speech in the form a tea party?

Absolutely not!!!!!! Of course my parents were hippies and participated in demonstrations against the war in 'Nam. I do feel however, that the government will try to suppress the demonstrations as much as possible, harassing and threatening the participants or even arrest them on trumped up charges. While the media will portray the participants as kooks and weirdos.


Do you see this trend as an insult to the founding fathers of the US constitution, or do you see it as a method of standing up for basic rights?

Absolutely. You cannot tax the middle class into oblivion. My wife and I make close to $50,000 by the time we pay taxes we are on paycheck to paycheck life support. But we do not qualify for any aid from the government. Hell, I can't even get the financial aid to go finish school (even taking cheap online classes) and the loans I do have want paid and we can't afford it. If I take deferments they only last so long but the interest accrues and I end up owing more. But the banks, the rich, get bailouts with my tax money??????? Our infrastructure is falling apart our manufacturing sector is dying and the rich get bailouts?????? Something is very wrong here.


What is the real meaning behind these tea parties - is it as simple as disagreeing with economic policy, or do you think it means more?

I think people are fed up. They are barely making it and the past 30 years government has been moving towards stricter laws against people's rights but using monies to protect the wealthy. We have seen far too many corruptions, scandals, pork spending that makes no sense and helps NOONE, events that show government raids our tax dollars but the people who are out there busting ass and trying hard just to own a little piece of the American dream are being used up, burnt out and thrown away. The government won't help small businesses grow but they'll bend over backwards to help the conglomerates, the government will not help those who work their asses off to go to school to better their lives but will build billion dollar bridges to nowhere. It's both parties raiding the coffers and flat assed stealing from the American people. If the AIG bonuses had not been leaked, NOTHING would have been done, Obama's people knew, Congress knew and NOT one expressed outrage until the news of the bonuses leaked out...... makes me wonder what HASN'T leaked out, where the bailout money is truly going. Banks aren't loaning money, but they are increasing fees, credit card rates and so on.

Something has to be done and to be quite blunt, the man who promised change is more of the same if looked at without any bias either way. He promised he would veto bills until pork spending was taken out... then said "well, I never said that and it's just Bush's fault." He promised change then loaded his cabinet up with cronies that have been in power for many years one way or another and they aren't changing. Congress is pushing through all kinds of new laws but not doing a God Damned thing to help the people except the rich.

In the end when you tax and tax and tax people and do nothing to help them in their time of need and then you legislate them and tackle freedoms away instead of letting private businesses, communities and states decide what is best for their constituents.... the time has come to speak out and demand the voices be heard.

poor old conservative and their brand problem that won't go away.
interesting idea for some agit-prop though, i suppose, even though it leans on that old, outmoded conservative obsession with taxes as if they were ends in themselves and so afflictions visited upon the Righteous and not an instrument for the redistribution of wealth in order to carry out specific political objectives--and if anyone should have clear political objectives right now, it's the obama administration--but when it comes down to it, they prefer to pretend, like the right does, that everything is basically the same as its always been--when it isn't---that this economic problem is a blip and not a function of stuctural problems created in particular by 30 years of conservative domination in the united states--and that if everyone just holds hands and gets optimistic that things will somehow go "back to normal"--and god knows that there should be no taxes because in times like this when wealth bloody well should be redistributed....

well apparently folk think that it should just happen magickally.

i don't understand what conservatives are thinking at this point, beyond clinging to the same ways of seeing things that brought us this wreckage and the same absurd notions concerning taxation (and a host of other things) that enabled it.

teaparties?
go for it. have fun.

See and that is part of the problem. We label people so we don't have to listen to them.

I'm not conservative but I'm not the far left liberal so to people like you, I'm conservative. When you go too far on the spectrum everything else is wrong to you. RB you are so far left anything in the middle is too far right for your views.

I stated it has been both sides. But that is missed because we love to finger point and again if it isn't in our extremist view then it is to be brushed away and defined as protecting one side.

If tax money were truly used to help build small business, knowing big business can take care of itself or they have become too big and need to downsize so that smaller business will grow.... then the tax money has been spent wisely.

If we bail out banks and credit card rates, fees, go down and loans are easier then the bail out has done what it was meant to do.

If we use tax money for what is there for a strong defense, an infrastructure that is growing and not falling apart, building a better future which includes affordable education for ALL, to give the poor help and the means to better their lives, then the tax money is going to good use.

To just give it to the outrageously rich and expect them to "share" the wealth is ludicrous and WILL NO NOT NEVER HAPPEN. BOTH SIDES ARE GUILTY OF DOING THIS.

The American people are a great people, we are the most charitable and generous people this planet has ever seen, so if the tax money is spent in ways they can see helping the people and themselves I predict they would be ok with the spending.

However, when you take and take their money and give no signs of improvement and then take rights away and push legislation that takes their guns away, their smoking rights, tax their mileage, and on and on and have scandal after scandal, pork spending, no true direction to help the people see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a locomotive chasing them down, they will eventually say enough.

Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, Coulter the far right, the Libertarian movement and so on have a growing following because the government and media is pushing them to the far left extreme. People are stuck in the middle and by this country's nature, we are very moderate and centrist.

We're on a rubber band being pulled in 2 directions that in the end seemingly want the same goal.... protect the rich, control people's lives and pass what the deem as laws that help achieve only their goals.

Meanwhile, the people are being squeezed in the middle.

When you pull a rubber band beyond it's ability to hold it breaks and the middle collapses and the band is destroyed. That is where this country is headed unless we start getting politicians that truly understand you can pull the band a little and it's ok, but the more you pull the weaker it gets and the more pressure you give those in the middle.

yeah see the problem i have with all this is that it seems to me geared around the wrong side of the equation--and i'm not sure if this is the thread for this discussion really---but it seems to me that the obama people need a plan that takes account of how the actual economy is really organized and which, based on that, develops a set of objectives, which can then be benchmarked etc., that would shape how the state is to roll into a more active relation to the machinery that enables folk to function day to day within capitalism in its present dysfunctional form.

it makes little sense to me to continue acting as though the form of capitalism that's developed under since the 1980s is either functional or sustainable--but it also makes little sense to talk about changing directions without having a clear idea of what changes, in what sectors, for what reason---which would enable a coherent use of tax money for specific purposes.

i understand that obama came into power in the midst of a whirlwind of problems left behind by neoliberalism, but still i think there is a *real* danger that the administration will find itself eaten alive by them because it seems more concerned with playing nice with the center-right than in being aggressive--and i think it needs to be aggressive---people are hurting because the organization of the economy is about the holders of capital and not about folk who work--and this because for 30 years or more the mantra has been that capital creates wealth.

i hope that explains my impatience with the emphasis on taxation to the exclusion of other, more important factors in the present situation.

and in this context, i'm not operating from a particularly left political position---i find myself arguing a more or less social-democratic line but in a context where the old social-democratic models do not and will not work. there's nothing particularly left about that. it seems to me a sane view of things, even couched in the very general terms that i think a messageboard forces onto us.

so the short version: the right and its ways of thinking, particularly about taxation, are entirely irrelevant. break with them, be done with it. better now than later.

Pan...these "tea parties" are absolutely a "conservative thing".

Look at the website for this "New American Tea Party" organizing these events.

...sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, and the Young Conservatives Coalition.

Not a conservative thing?

And its not all that surprising that with Rush's (and Drudge's et al) nationwide promotion, they can get 4,000 people at some of their rallies.

Those being duded are the ones who dont see it for what it is.

Will, were you not around for last years open carry event? :oogle:

You have some interesting points and in another thread worthy of discussion, but I have to comment on this one.

From talking with friends going to these "tea parties", it's not about party affiliation belief that one side is right and one is wrong, it's about how OUR tax dollars are being used and the rights that are being taken.

My problem with the above quoted statement from you is that we should not "break" either side as BOTH have their good and bad views. I think the solution lies in taking from BOTH sides that which can work and discarding that which won't.

We tried it both ways and both ways have worked until they became too overcomplicated and too tunnel visioned.

Finding true compromise that betters the whole and not just the few is what our government needs to focus their energies on. Not bail outs, taking away rights, trying to "break" one party or philosophy. None of those accomplish a bettering of the country, they only divide people more and make government stronger.

I'm calling shenanigans.

The republicans regained control of the house in 1994, after decades of democratic control. By my math, thats only 15 years of republican house rule, half of that with a democrat president.

how is that 30 years of conservative domination again? :confused:

---------- Post added at 04:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 PM ----------

Pan, you can't go there. I've had this conversation with many a liberal and they refuse to believe that anyone but a conservative would be against the administrations bailout. Those who are 'moderate' are now right wing for opposing the rescue of the countries economy. It's that or they are just not intelligent enough to 'get it'.

Then what is your solution. At the very least it's a start to get people to open their eyes and see the fucked up problem we have in our government and the destruction of the middle class. We have one party that economically wants to strengthen the wealthy and fuck over everyone else. We have another party that wants to destroy the wealthy and push forth programs we cannot afford meanwhile tax the middle class out of existence without helping them. In the meantime, they work on taking away all our rights so that we cannot do anything to show our displeasure against what is going on.

We have allowed government to become to strong and now the parties don't give a damn about right or wrong, helping the whole... it's all about winning, power, greed and destroying those who disagree and speak out.

We shouldn't be at war in this country with the opposing political/socio/economic philosophies, but we are. Instead, we should be looking to BETTER the whole and not destroy it and we aren't. Hopefully, the tea parties while inspired by one side can evolve into something that promotes and forces the change we need. That change is to listen to the people, stop taking away rights and be accountable to ALL not just those getting your party the power they want.

pan...my only point is that this New American Tea Party is a front group for the conservative movement.

I'm all for "getting people to open their eyes..."

I'm just suggesting, that in regard to these "tea parties, people open their eyes fully and understand who is controlling the message.

Very good point.

I know. People are so polarized that anything they do not agree with is extreme on the other end and they are unwilling to listen and see what the true center is.

I don't think it's their intelligence it's the goods they are being sold and they have been brainwashed to believe that anything anyone other than their leaders say is wrong and doesn't even deserve true debate. It's too extreme for them to want to understand because that would require thinking for themselves and maybe seeing their leaders are wrong and have been leading them down a wrong path.

It's not 30 years of Republican domination in Congress. It's 30 years of a conservative (nee neo-liberal) economic construct that we've been living under.

I think that while that may have been the original idea... it has gained steam and is no longer about political affiliation or philosophy but about what is right and what is wrong and trying to get government to be accountable.

This is a start.... it opens eyes, what happens from this point is the true purpose. Hopefully, we get government opening their eyes and listening to the people.

I believe the vast majority of people would demonstrate against the way things are going if they believed change was possible. These "tea parties" may take on a life of their own and begin people to speak out for the needed change and their belief that they do in fact have voices and may be able to make changes.

The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam movements, unions, prove to us that when the people rise up and fight for truth and what is right and the betterment of the future.... change can and will happen government and political party be damned.

They're only now having these "tea parties" in protest to runaway government spending... ?!

:orly:

Give me a break. Where the f**k were these self-proclaimed "God-fearing patriots", the past eight years during the Bush administration?

:rolleyes:

Then change it, the Democrats have control of both houses and the presidency. Nothing should stop you now. The problem is that the present policy just more of the same bullshit with the added twist of blaming 30 years of neo-liberal monetary policy. I personally don't know what the fix is but what we are doing now is not fuckin' working so lets do something different. Everyone voted for change and all we are getting now is the same bullshit packaged a little different. This bailout bullshit is just Reagonomics on steroids, trickle down economics without the trickle. Why are we spending all this money to prop up a system everyone agrees is broken beyond repair? After it's all said and done all we will have accomplished is delayed the inevitable collapse. We cannot continue to lose jobs and decrease our tax base forever.

With the sponsors of these tea parties cited..it is absolutely about political affiliation and philosophy.

I cant speak from any firsthand knowledge, but I would be surprised if they are screaming for "MORE FEDERAL REGULATIONS!!!" as opposed to "GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR LIVES AND LET THE FREE MARKET TAKE CARE OF ITSELF!!!"

Oh, I do believe that the bail out deserves true debate.

What I don't believe is that you will get true debate at these "tea parties."

First of all, several of the sponsoring organizations maliciously conflate the stimulus bill with the bailout.

Second, and most importantly, the discourse never moves beyond faux outrage.

I disagree with the plan to save the banks as currently designed, but let's see the alternatives being proposed to the bailout:

- let them fail, don't use our money to bail them out... ok, that is fair, except... When a bank fails, the FDIC moves in, uses "our" money to pay the deposits that are ensured, breaks up the banks, sells off the parts that are profitable and liquidates the ones that are not. So basically "letting them fail" also requires paying off the deposits with "our money." What would happen, and this is unequivocal, is that the recession would be significantly deeper (although some people argue that it would be also shorter). People with accounts in the troubled banks would probably lose access to their money for a while, and would then only recoup what was insured later on, people and business who were owed by these banks would never see the money again, and people who relied on them for credit would have to set up arrangements with other banks. They would most likely take other banks and business with them, especially small business.


- Do what Obama and Bush have done, which is giving them money to try to boost value of troubled assets and make them solvent again. It uses "our money," but if works, the treasury stands to make a profit off of it. But if it doesn't work, it was basically a transfer of money from tax payers to people who own the stocks of those banks.


- Nationalize banks temporarily, make them solvent, resell them. It uses "our money" to make a bank solvent, but the treasury can make quite a bit of money. This avoids the problem of the Obama plan of being a transfer to stock holders: the banks are bought at their current, worthless values and propped up.


You see, ANY way you deal with it, tax payers end up paying part of the bill. That is the dishonesty of the organizations backing the tea parties. So there is brainwashing going on alright, but it certainly includes the tea party organizations.

Now, can an argument be made with regards to just "letting them fail?" Sure, and people have tried to make it by saying that the recession would be deeper but at least it would be shorter. I don't agree with this particular perspective, but at least its an honest one.

Being against the "bail out" because you don't want "our money" being use to salvage banks? Sorry, but that is simply not possible, unless you dissolve the FDIC and basically give the finger to anyone with a bank account. In fact, the "let them fail" approach is the only one where the tax payer has no shot at making some of the money back.

We'll see how many of the sponsoring organizations and tea-parrty goers support the regulatory overhaul that Obama is expected to announce this week.

Including tighter regulation of hedge funds, credit default swaps and other related financial instruments that helped bring about the financial crisis....or tighter federal standards for mortgage lenders and tougher enforcement of mortgage regulations....or more transparency in executive compensation of publicly traded companies.

I'm sorry, what? fiscally conservative democrats during the reagan years is now considered neo-liberalism?

---------- Post added at 05:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 PM ----------

things like the republicans posed to the democrats a couple of years ago? why now and not back then?

There was very little of fiscal conservativism going on during the Reagan years.

And, again, Neoliberalism has no relationship to the modern American specific division of "conservatives vs liberals."

What exactly did the Republicans propose in the six years they controlled Congress and the White House...or even in the last two years?

When were the Republicans ever the party of regulating Wall Street?

Maybe a bail out and a stimulus program full of pork is pushing the people to the edge.

This country has gotten so far polarized that maybe people are tired of electing officials that don't listen.

For anyone to just say it is political pandering by the right or where were they when????? Is freaking blind to the last 20 years of growing population and polls showing distrust of the government.

Maybe that distrust and the anger and simmering has come to a boil over bailouts, stimulus pork filled packages that are nothing more than failed trickle down economic policies.

Maybe the "Right" is sponsoring it but it is the people that are making it grow, it will be the people's voices that are hopefully heard.

People want hope and a belief that this train we are on can change direction. They are no longer getting either of those from their political parties and their leaders (except the extreme rightists and leftists).

The rubber band is being stretched to the max and the people the were even leaning one way are being squeezed to the breaking point. The only people getting anything out of the stretch now are those on the very far edges and even those people are starting to get squeezed.

The squeeze is getting more intense and people are wanting it to stop before it breaks...... demonstrations such as tea parties are the only voices we have now.

The only people who don't want those voices heard are those profiting from the stretching and eventual break and destruction that will ensue.

Time is short, bailouts aren't doing shit, stimulus programs loaded with failed trickle down economics won't work..... the squeeze is getting to much and the break is coming.... we best do something now or we are done, game over and this wonderful country of hope and greatness will dissolve into a history book and what the ends break down into will never be as great as what once was for anyone but those that broke the rubber band.

ok, short of me spending the entire night researching the roots of neo-liberalism and how it applies over the last 30 years, someone try to give me the cliff notes version.

---------- Post added at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:04 PM ----------

It's been my belief, just by things i've seen over the last couple of weeks, that many warnings were given about this coming economic catastrophe and each one was stonewalled by democrats. What specifically was offered by republicans I don't have readily at hand, and it may not be anything at all, but what I get tired of hearing is the back and forth bickering between republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals, about who's damned fault this is. I'd just as soon that all the little children take their toys and go home letting the adults (yes, that would be libertarians, constitutionalists, and other 'free market' parties) deal with the issue because I can tell you right now, whats being done is not working. What's being proposed is not going to work.

---------- Post added at 06:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:08 PM ----------

This is what i'm talking about. The political divide between two groups of people trying to point fingers at the other is the majority reason why the country is coming apart.

thank you derwood. that did help.

so from what I gathered from that education is that chicago is the hotbed of neo-liberalism. A philosophy where publicly held trusts are relegated to privately held interests in the desire to keep public costs down and providing the illusion of a free market principal.

Thanks for the link, Derwood.
Here's a quote from the thread starter that Derwood linked:

They should have started during Nixon's presidency, or better yet during Wilson's.

Well, until the Democrats took over Congress, they were probably working at their jobs, which have since disappeared.

I researched and of course April 15th they have "tea parties" in almost every major Ohio city. It's a Wednesday, I have Wednesdays off. I think I just may e mail my RSVP to the one in Mansfield. Go see my mom, step dad, hit the tea party then visit my 98 yr old grandma.

Seeing Obama laughing about bailing out the auto industry and having watched a 60 minutes interviewer ask a sitting president on television if he was punch drunk, is the final straw. It shows me this man we call president is either on serious drugs or just plain insane, either way it follows then that the stimulus plan he has gotten passed was a joke. He obviously felt it was funny enough to laugh about. What's the joke Mr. President??? At least let us in on the punchline.

It's pretty much to me the equivalent to Marie Antoinette saying, "let them eat cake." There is nothing funny no humor to be found in this economic disaster.

What does one wear to a tea party? It's time to stand up and be counted and show our disapproval.



The least of your problems a year ago would be Iraq???? Ummm last year gas was closing in on $4, the real estate crisis was at full height and EVERY one of the candidates talked about how poorly the economy was. YOU FREAKIN KNEW THEN. And it's a joke to you now???????

[/COLOR]It's not a PARTY issue. That's part of the problem. We have had 30 years of different party control and the results stayed the same. The Dems promise something and instead take care of only their own. The GOP made a contract with America and instead only took care of their own. How many GOPer's signed that promised to limit their term and are still in Congress some 16 years later?

Both parties are to blame. The parties made sure we lost trust in government because when they weren't in power they worked to destroy the one that was. Neither party has tried to rebuild America, both have tried to tear it down. Look at the last 5 presidential candidates... none of them were true leaders or visionaries. Bush, Gore, Kerry, McCain and Obama? Those were the best we had these past few years? And since we have no viable 3rd party the country was stuck with that. Wow.

We have been having warning signs on this economy for almost 20 years and no one did anything in government except increase spending (but education is bankrupt, small business loans are non existent, the infrastructure is falling apart, health care/welfare were cut, and so on.... so where did all the money go?) They ignored everything. and it was BOTH parties.

pan--i understand the sense of bewilderment and frustration, but i see the problem in entirely different terms than you do. but rather than rehearse what i put up earlier to this thread and what i've been arguing from the point this explicit fiasco got rolling, i'll ask you a simple question:

what do you propose as an alternative? what do you think should be happening?

to some extent. what you say is predicated on what you think is going on--because what you think should be done has to be hedged round with assumptions, otherwise is arbitrary---little more than ï don't like it--but who the hell does like this, pan?

how do e start to talk about this mess? seriously...you're right about what's been neglected under the rule of neoliberalism, which worked in part on the assumption that somehow a radical redistribution of wealth toward the holders of capital and elimination of transfers of wealth through taxes was equivalent to rational choices in a market context and because they were rational and because markets are so wonderfully self-regulating and because everyone benefits--it'd follow that somehow these areas were supposed to just magically take care of themselves. infrastructure? why when i look around, it's just there, like trees--so nature must take care of it--so choke off taxation to the federal government and the states and localities and transfer money to the holders of capital and, if this market nonsense meant anything, voila--awesom infrastructure.

except it didn't happen.

30 plus years of this lunacy and the problem is barack obama? that he laughed at a strange time in a tv interview? what are you talking about?

think about it--maximizing shareholder profits quarter to quarter is nuts as a strategy--even some of the main corporate ideologues who popularized this nonsense have now started running away from it, captains of industry like rats from a ship, you know how it goes. 30 plus years of focus entirely on the movements of capital enabled a wholesale transfer of manufacturing away from the old factory model and away from the idea that actual people depend on jobs to live==because so long as the focus was entirely on capital, it didn't matter--you and i and everyone else didn't matter--the movement of capital mattered--and people bought into it.

anyone who was awake and looking could make a long list of such insanities---you could too.

the point is that the problems revealed by this latest fiasco that neoliberal well-running deregulated markets full of rational actors who make rational choices based on elightened self-interest so that what benefits some benefits everybody are STRUCTURAL problems, and dealing with them is NOT a small task and it makes NO sense to complain about taxation in this kind of context because the only reason the money's being thrown around as it is is in order to play for time.

to my mind, if you want to complain about something, complain about the lack of a plan. complain about the fact that geithner's new "plan"" is the bush administration's "plan"that the same fucking people are still in treasury, that the same ideology is still bought into by folk in a position to actually do something to move into an alternate model of capitalism--because that's what we're up against---there is no going back to the way things were before--there is no normal in that sense any more--that game is over.

but if any of this is accurate--and i think it is within the confines of what messageboard compression allows--then what do you propose should be done?

seems to me you get mightily worked up about comparatively little things like that interview footage because the bigger picture scares the hell out of you--and it should--it scares the hell out of everyone who looks at it.

so what do you propose?

This is what I and many others who are no longer scared to lose what little we have because WE NO LONGER HAVE ANYTHING BUT OURSELVES, propose:

YouTube - We The People Stimulus Package


As for Obama, I was willing to believe that he inherited a mess, he would try to better things.

His first mistake loading his cabinet with cronies who have been in power for many years.... some change there.

Strike 2 he names a man who has had serious tax problems to Secretary of the Treasury?????

Then he kowtows to Pelosi and Reid extremists that bully into silence anyone who dares to speak out against them in the Dem party. They are in NO way leaders in my eyes. If Obama were truly wanting change and his own man he'd tell those 2 to shut the Hell up.

He and Congress KNEW about the AIG bonuses and DID NOTHING until the news leaked out and people got outraged??? What other little things is the bail out financing that we don't know about??? Those are OUR tax dollars, where's the help for those who can't pay student loans, who are a paycheck away from losing everything, who live by the laws and believed in this country only to have lost everything because the bailout monies are going to the banks and the ultra rich with hopes of an already trickle down philosophy????? And he laughs?

Strike 5 came Sunday night, laughing about the economy, then stating in so many words he didn't know how bad it was last year when he campaigned on how bad it was. Having to have the interviewer on national television ask if he, a sitting president, were punchdrunk...... the man looked fucking stoned.

I'm done. I hated Bush, but hate doesn't describe the anger and how much I despise this man in office now and the people in Congress that have no spine to speak out for fear Pelosi and Reid may take them off a committee or punish their constituents by now giving them money they need.

It is time for every hard working man and woman in this country to rise up and say, ENOUGH.... I want to hear Twisted Sister's "We're not Gonna Take it" coming from cars as they caravan to "tea Parties". I want to see the people take back this country and watch every scandal riddened, spineless, self serving greedy politician resign from office and be tried for the crimes they committed in office... namely theft, treason (refusing to secure our borders, giving money to countries that hate us?), abuse of power, misrepresenting the people..... and whatever else each one is guilty of.

This is a country for the people, by the people, and of the people.... not just certain groups our politicians decide to listen to while they ignore the vast majority. It is time to take it back. Peacefully I hope, but these are power hungry, greedy pukes who won't relinquish power. Even with elections the 2 parties are still controlled ultimately by the ultra rich and they don't give a damn about the people.

pan....there is not one proposal in that video to deal with the worst economic downtown this country faced in half a century.

Term limits? Congress paying into SS? English as the official language? Abolish the electoral college?

How is any of that going to help turn the economy around? Or doesnt that matter?

Sorry, lost me there. Propaganda = fail.:no:

I'm still curious why these tea partiers arent yelling about:

regulatory reform
Extensive regulatory overhaul planned

procurement reform
Obama Announces Procurement Reform Effort

or applauding:
more open government
Attorney General Overturns Strict FOIA Guidelines

or the plan to help responsible home owners facing foreclosure because of losing their jobs
Making Home Affordable


The We the People Stimulus Package?


Rather than an emotional laden diatribe in costume with nonsense about English as the official language, term limits and God fearing patriots

They are points that Congress refused to listen to the majority of the people. And no I do not agree with all of them, but again, the majority of people wanted them, Congress rode roughshod and refused any of them.

1994 the GOP won Congress because they had written "Contract with America".... it proposed term limits and many of these items. IT WAS HOW THEY GOT ELECTED.

After the election, they didn't uphold 1 of those items, instead they basically spent 6 years trying to destroy Clinton. How many of those GOPer's who signed onto term limits are still in office or ran until they got tired, had enough lobbyist money and now live on our tax dollars?

How many times have we heard that there would be laws against lobbyists, yet where are they and where is the enforcement?

How many times in recent years has one party promised something only when elected into power done the complete opposite?

The real kicker, how many of our Congress truly read every page of the stimulus plan and the bailouts and questioned them freely for debate on the floor before passing them???????????????

They have lost touch with what the majority wants. That is what I get from the video.

See the extremists (especially the left), the ultra rich controlled media and the politicians want to blow this all off as BS and partisanship and propaganda and blah, blah blah. They want people to believe that those standing up are the true insane ones, that those who attend these "tea parties" and speak out are just sheep being led around.

Well John Lennon said it best:


It's time for the people to stand up and use another Lennonism as a cry for true change:

POWER TO THE PEOPLE..... POWER TO THE PEOPLE..... POWER TO THE PEOPLE....... POWER TO THE PEOPLE RIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pan...you are avoiding the most pressing issues.

What would you suggest be done to stop the unemployment growing by 1/2 million/month?

What would you suggest be done to address the soaring costs of health care?

What would you suggest be done to help responsible homeowners who have been paying their mortgage on time but now face foreclosure because they are now among those 1/2 million/month who have lost their job.

What would you suggest be done with AIG in light of the facts that The Jazz raised about the far reaching impact if it is left to fail?

Nothing?

POWER TO THE PEOPLE and quotes from John Lennon are not a plan. IMO, it is an emotional appeal devoid of substantive solutions to the problems we face as a nation.

---------- Post added at 12:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:06 AM ----------

And what is so bad about:

regulatory reform
Extensive regulatory overhaul planned

procurement reform
Obama Announces Procurement Reform Effort

more open government
Attorney General Overturns Strict FOIA Guidelines

No response?

Raise tariffs on imports, give loans to small businesses, increase education and require colleges that receive federal monies to lower their tuition, with revenue from the tariffs able to offset the losses offer loans to the manufacturing sectors to build more efficient cars and offer tax breaks if they find ways to hire people.

REBUILD the infrastructure by cutting aid to foreign countries and putting that money into roads, our inner cities and urban renewal programs.

Regulate the industry, demand companies show how much they paid in R&D for that new med and the projections they have on how much it will make, then formulate a price that is affordable. In doing this offer them a longer patent on the med so that they aren't trying to get as much out of the system as fast as they can (which is one reason why they charge outrageous prices.)

Offer better programs for the poor, less paper work, less bureaucracy and streamline the help. Offer companies tax credits if they offer insurance. Make the insurance companies more responsible for show why they need to charge so much. Limit bullshit malpractice suits and offer doctors incentives to work in inner city ERs and hopsitals.

Well, the banks received how many billion????? Make the banks responsible to helping the homeowner. Tell the banks they have to offer hardship deferments and cuts in payments. If we bailed the banks out then they should in return do their best to help the people who are responsible. Raising fees and credit card rates after the bail out????? Using the money to buy solvent banks out because the solvent bank refused bailout money (PNC's buyout of National City is a great example.) Come on now, that is wrong.

Really, where's Jazz's post in this thread? I must have missed it.

The government picked and chose who survived and who went under. Did they help Lehman? It's one thing to help, it's another to give money and then watch them give bionuses to the very people that destroyed the company and made that company in dire need of bailout money.

Oh those rich executives had contracts for those bonuses.... well so did the Auto workers but you made them go back and renegotiate contracts and make concessions.... then blamed them for the mess in the industry. Why didn't Congress and Obama do the same to AIG executives until it was leaked out, then they fake anger, nonawareness and act all innocent..... right.



Sorry you are so offended, but you are to the extreme left and I have yet to see you truly be harsh on anything this administration and DEM controlled Congress do. I believe you have even gone so far as to imply that polls don't matter what the majority of the people want doesn't matter only getting through the DEM platform matters.

Let's see the bills when they are signed and implemented. But it's too little too late IMHO and that isn't necessarily Obama's fault.

Oh you mean giving our Congress what 24/48 hours to read the stimulus package, not letting the people see it, then taking a vote without any debate whatsoever?????

What's in the stimulus package that is going to help the average citizen DC? And what is pork lining our politicians and their backers pockets?

Going against the majority of citizens and ramrodding whatever they want through?

Yeah very open.

Again, let's wait and see what these new Guidelines are and how well they are applied. But again... too little too late and not necessarily Obama's fault.

But forgive me and the majority of the people, we have heard all this before (1994 Contract with America, Bush, the Dems in 2004) and nothing changed. I think people want to see immediate actions not just lip service anymore.

I responded. Did you think I wouldn't?

Thanks Pan, I thought it was a great video.

I don't think either of the two main parties is willing to do what it is going to take to turn things around. Every party change spends its time undoing what the other set in place. Neither focusing on the the Fed an entity carrying the chase of a debt that by design can never be repaid. Today is ever more prevalent the going attitude is this is the way its supposed to be.

Many arguments have surfaced over taxable income. Questions over funding for civil service, roads, etc are presented to any opposing the income taxation has evolved to. So set income tax aside. Here are few, but not all tax considerations.
• Building Permit Tax
• Capital Gains Tax
• CDL license Tax
• Cigarette Tax
• Corporate Income Tax
• Court Fines (indirect taxes)
• Deficit spending
• Dog License Tax
• Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
• Fishing License Tax
• Food License Tax
• Fuel permit tax
• Gasoline Tax
• Hunting License Tax
• Inflation
• Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
• Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
• IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
• Liquor Tax
• Local Income Tax
• Luxury Taxes
• Marriage License Tax
• Medicare Tax
• Property Tax
• Real Estate Tax
• Septic Permit Tax
• Service Charge Taxes
• Social Security Tax
• Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
• Sales Taxes
• Recreational Vehicle Tax
• Road Toll Booth Taxes
• School Tax
• State Income Tax
• State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
• Telephone federal excise tax
• Telephone federal universal service fee tax
• Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
• Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
• Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
• Telephone state and local tax
• Telephone usage charge tax
• Toll Bridge Taxes
• Toll Tunnel Taxes
• Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
• Trailer Registration Tax
• Utility Taxes
• Vehicle License Registration Tax
• Vehicle Sales Tax
• Watercraft Registration Tax
• Well Permit Tax
• Workers Compensation Tax
The best is yet to come with carbon taxes.

“I have unwittingly ruined my country. The growth of the nation, and therefore all of our activities, are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world”
source - “National Economy and the Banking System," Senate Documents Co. 3, No. 23, 76th Congress, 1st session, 1939

So was the name tea party chosen because of the Boston tea party? And is this the movements way of saying we need to overthrow the government?

I think only a fusion center would be able to answer that.

This is one of the problems with things like this tea party... It's all outrage, no math.

Ok, let's cut aid to foreign countries. I've no problem with that, since so much of it goes to things like weapons to Israel, Egypt and Pakistan, and plan Colombia. But all outrage aside, foreign aid is about one tenth of one percent of American GDP. In terms of reverting the current economic situation, that is pretty much meaningless.

Then we might require colleges to lower their tuition. Except that most federal monies that go to universities are tied to specific scientific grants, and except that virtually every college is facing budget cuts, increasing class sizes and letting faculty go. So this is another proposal that might make one feel good, but yet again is either meaningless or harmful. After all, either colleges that are already facing budget shortfalls have to go deeper into the hole and cut more spending, or we cancel stuff like funding for laboratories because they won't lower tuition.

And then we raise tariffs. And while people may argue about tariffs and trade during normal times, the first thing one has to keep in mind is that in the short term, prices go up, and cost of business goes up.


Won't disagree with much here, except that this costs a lot of money. In fact, that is the precise reason why I find the so-called tea parties ridiculous. It's all about "our money," "our taxes" and so on, but they ignore the basic math of the budget. There is no free lunch. Healthcare is already close of 20% of the budget. Defense is close to 21% of the budget. Soc. sec. pensions are another 18%. In fact, if you look at the three levels of government, education, pensions, military, public safety, infrastructure and interest on previous debt you are talking pretty much about 3/4 of total spending.

Does that mean that we can cut the other 25% and reduce our taxes? No. Current tax levels cannot pay for even that without running a deficit. In other words, even cutting all money to banks, all "pork projects," all welfare spending, all foreign aid, and running the government, elections, the court system, congress, regulatory agencies and etc. for free, taxes would still not be enough to pay for these things.

And so people get together, and work themselves into a fit over "our money," but the fact is, this is nothing more than a distraction. People love the things they get from government, and only in the minds of dishonest politicians can we run these things and get tax breaks.


Yeah, those bonuses sure do suck. But other than fuel outrage, it's really irrelevant. It is 1/1000 of the money being given to AIG. Of course, that doesnt mean that they are alright, but simply that, despicable as they might be, they don't change much.

Do I like the way the Obama team is handling the banking crisis? I've said again and again that no, I don't. But, as I posted above, it is simply dishonest to think that there is an alternative that doesn't involve public money. I've said what I had to say about this above, and since that didn't elicit a response, I am not going to repeat myself.


I don't know if polls matter of not, but the majority of the people, according to all polls, are still behind Obama.



Well, the bill has been available for a long time now and people still haven't read it.

So here you are either conflating the bailout with the stimulus bill, or you haven't read the stimulus bill.

Taking Apart the $819 billion Stimulus Package - washingtonpost.com

22% are tax cuts, so I guess that helps the average citizen. 11% is education, and since you said you are in favor of more education spending, I guess that also helps the average citizen. And on and on.


Pollster.com: National Job Approval: Pres. Barack Obama

Pollster.com: US: Obama, Stimulus (CNN-2/18-19)




Outrage is no substitute for a plan.

All of these, in some form or to some extent, are in the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ERRA)


The largest investment in rebuilding the infrastructure in 50+ years is in the ERRA (not the cutting foreign aid part)

See the Making Home Affordable Program...that is pretty much what the program does.

Much of what you were asking for above as well is in other initiatives like the Making Home Affordable program


Despite all of the above that you want to see, you are highly critical ...calling it lip service after only 60 days.

Sorry, but IMO, that is an emotional response.

it's interesting the extent to which what the administration is doing is being buried beneath a chorus of calls for the administration to do something.
there appears to be a basic communication disconnect.
some of this obviously comes from conservatives---when i have the ambiguous fortune of seeing one nattering away on television, doing that thing that the right has perfected, which is talking in sound bytes--simple statements that work witin the constraints of an ADD medium---the dominant "ideas" are double: the obama administration should implement an entirely conservative economic agenda, despite the fact that such an agenda would do NOTHING to address ANY of the problems that the administration--and the rest of us--are facing down, coherently or not--and the flip is to say that unless an entirely conservative economic agenda is adopted, that nothing is happening.

or that what is happening is anathema.

which indicates that the framework which shapes conservative economic thinking is being outstripped by reality, but that the folk who invest in that framework still repeat it, as if it were adequate descriptively, as if it was able to generate coherent actions. but it can't do either, and you can watch this being demonstrated on any number of "fair and balanced" television presentations.

but i think there is another problem as well, but i'm not sure i have a handle on it exactly--but it seems to me that the administration does have an idea of the direction it intends, but that for some reason it is shy about coming out and saying it, preferring instead to present it piecemeal. this seems a tactical decision, but i am not sure i understand the rationale behind it. it's as if there's something to be gained by presenting the moves they are making as extensions of "normalcy" and therefore as ways "back to normal" when the fact is that that "normal" is in all probability finished.

there's a real gap between how this situation---the crisis if you like---looks at a transnational level and how it's being spun for domestic consumption. it's curious.

i take these tea parties as a meaningless gesture conditioned by the strangely myopic views of what's happening that emerge from domestic infotainment cycles, and the administration as having adopted information tactics that are geared perhaps too much around those cycles.

its a strange business.

Really? You had a hard on for Obama since before the election, so I highly doubt you would have been willing to believe anything about Obama aside from that he's doing a shitty job in your mind. Remember those posts pan? The ones that turned into hate Obama and pity you threads? I sure do. Also I've been reading your posts with a Bush voice in my head, sounds pretty good, dubya could have written those posts.

They do have a catchy anthem:

dc, those suggestions/recommendations are not put up there as a cure to fix the economy, they are there to prevent FUTURE occurrences of what we are no experiencing. A major portion of blame for this economic mess lies squarely in the laps of elected people/groups that have been there for YEARS and DECADES. Entrenched power often finds ways to bend, stretch, and then break the lines of ethics and morality for it's own convenience and enrichment, usually at the expense of those that put them there.

Our job as 'we the people' is to rein in and limit the governments power, not to praise it for doing the job we tell it to like it's our child.

---------- Post added at 09:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

The original boston tea party was not a call to overthrow the government. At the time of that 'party', we were still under english rule. The tea party was a tax protest, just like this one is.

One thing I'd truly enjoy seeing from alot of people entrenched in the left or right is to realize that protestation does not equate wanting to overthrow the government.

dk---i don't think you understand what's taking place--if this really is a mutation in the overall organization of capitalism (at the political level more than at the economic--and if you look at what's going in, things certainly appear to be heading in that direction) it follows that there is almost no likelihood that this sort of situation will repeat. so i don't understand what your motivation would be in preventing something that is impossible. but whatever.

it seems to me that your a priori fear of the state makes it impossible for you to think of anything that can or should be done in the present situation beyond allowing everything to implode. maybe that is your idea--such an implosion might be the greatest opportunity for the extreme right to creep out from total marginalization you'll see in your lifetime--but if that's the idea, you should be up front about it, and not pretend that you have something constructive to add if the question is what should happen, what the administration should be doing that it isn't doing, etc.

because your position about the state is rigidly a priori, and requires no new information to function, it follows that your position about taxation would also be rigid.

enjoy the teapartying then.
it may be fun theater, but it's not about relaying a coherent message.

rb, I really tried to read and understand your post, but it's completely impossible to take it seriously when you take something that is polar opposite of what you believe in, label it as an extreme opposite of what you believe in, slap the generalization that it's only being done because it's polar opposite of what you believe in and that those polar opposites don't have anything else to offer that agrees with what you believe in, and then dismiss it out of hand because it's polar opposite of what you believe in.

you and i are never going to agree on anything and that is fine. we're polar opposites and will continue to butt heads and i'm not even going to try to offer rebuttals to your labels of 'extremism on the right', because it will do no good.

you do your thing, i'll do mine.

dk---here's a simple version.

you oppose state power in principle. that's fair, right?
you have a problem with taxation because it is an expression of state power, right?
your view of the proper role of the state is of a piece with your interpretation of the constitution, which is that it says what it says and should not be interpreted (strict construction).

that's basically how i see your positions, from reading alot of your posts.

if that's the case, then i don't see what you could possibly support that could be done to address the ongoing economic crisis.

but let me ask you rather than try to derive things: what do you think can and/or should be done to address the situation we collectively find ourselves in?

we've had several threads where my views on the constitution are very plain. put simply, I do firmly believe that the constitution LIMITS government power and that those limits should be strictly enforced to protect the freedom and liberties of the people.

Every business/institution that found itself in trouble, for whatever reason, should have been allowed to flounder until they could recover or they finally failed. Lot's of people are of the belief that letting these companies fail would totally destroy our economy and shatter millions of lives, therefore we cannot allow that to happen, but did these companies (and us especially) learn anything other than the age old method of 'throw money at the problem'? No, in fact we learned absolutely nothing except that we should practice Einsteins theory of insanity.

Why do I think those companies should be allowed to fail, even if it destroys our own personal economies? Because it's the best damned way to learn to never do that stupid assed shit again. Failure and it's consequences are the absolute best way to learn from mistakes.

My problems with the current "tax protest" is how completely unrealistic it is.

My point is simple: it is absolutely impossible to cut taxes permanently, or even to keep them the way they are permanently, without cutting either military spending, medicare, or social security pensions.

It is a mathematical impossibility, unless people project much higher growth rates for the future than what we've had in the past 100 years.

Unfortunately, the people sponsoring these tea parties are completely in denial over this, for political expediency. They get outraged over pork spending, bailouts (never mind that the alternative also includes public funds) and so on, but ignore completely that even if we spent nothing on these things, current tax rates would still be insufficient.

Enact the HR 833 bill, suspend all federal income taxes for a year, if not indefinitely.

---------- Post added at 09:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 AM ----------

What do we do in life that isnt taxed? Is that the way its supposed to be? Do you know how much the state wasted lasted year? How much is unaccounted for?

No one seems to have a problem on the hidden tax American's pay for assuming the Fed is part of the government and being in charge of the economy.

Absolutely none of this changes the fact that without cutting military spending, social security and medicare, it is simply impossible to have a permanent tax cut.

How will that help our national debt problem again? How do we pay for anything?

So the responses I got from Dippin and Dc were in a nutshell:

What you propose is spending too much....


Yet it's ok to give BILLIONS to the banks that raise credit card rates, fees and are truly doing nothing to help people.

If one proposes ways to help the country, they are foolish and it'll cost too much.

Give Obama time, trust him, this is different, in 60 days you expect too much

We don't have time. Trust him.... umm "change" means putting people in your cabinet that have been in power and are partially responsible for the mess we are in? How is this different.... if you speak out against Obama you aren't giving him a chance, you are hateful, emotional, led like a sheep, partisan and have no idea what you are talking about.... sounds exactly like what the GOP said about those speaking out against Bush and ummmmm they in the end were proven right to have spoken out. In 60 days I expect the man who said government will be more open, there will be a new way of doing business to uphold that promise.... yet in less than 60 days he has forgotten about all that. 24/48 hours to read the stimulus package with no debate???? That's open. All the pork and the AIG bonuses that were allowed PAID FOR BY OUR MONEY while we are hoping to just make another paycheck.... fake outrage and finger pointing when the bonuses are leaked out, excuses that "it's only 1/1000 of the TAXPAYER MONEY we are giving them". While Obama tells us we have to sacrifice, we have to lower our standard of living?????? We do it's called taxes. What does he sacrifice, what does Congress sacrifice, what are the banks sacrificing, what is AIG sacrificing?????

You're being emotional

Emotion comes when all other avenues have been tried and failed. Government has failed the people, they are full of extremists who are bought and paid for by the ultra rich and lobbyists. They spend our money and raise taxes as they please and damn the people.

We don't have time anymore. What are we supposed to give Obama 3 years while we flounder, put band aids on wounds that need serious stitches and surgeries and pretend everything is ok as our taxes are used to bail out the rich?

And all the while they take freedoms away, tell us who pay their wages and put them into office to sacrifice while they get whatever they want, guaranteed healthcare for life, guaranteed pensions, guaranteed expense monies they really do not have to be accountable for, to ignore the polls that show the majority wants tightened border security, a more representative tax system and so on..... and never visit their districts and talk to their constituencies to see how the people truly feel?

We are to continue supporting all this because of why?

And if we speak out.... we are wrong for any number of reasons, but primarily we are wrong solely because you are now in power and you don't want to give any of it away back to the people.

We have a president that laughs on national television about our crisis and is asked by the interviewer in amazement if he (the president) is punchdrunk... and that's ok? You want me to give him more time, to trust that??? If that had been Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Carter, any other president there would have been outrage and people demanding his job.... but the press and extreme left make excuses and act like it's ok for him to laugh on national television at the American people and the mess we are in.

We are being taxed to death and it's not enough???????? How much more from us do they want?

Who said anything about being ok?

What I said simply refers to the math of it all. You can't solve math with emotion.

The banks that are failing are failing because they owe more than what they are worth. That is, the assets that they have are worth less than the obligations.

You want them to extend more credit at lower rates? Great, but to do so will require even more money from the tax payer. Whether they are "nice" or "greedy" doesn't matter.

Oh, so you then prefer to let them fail? Great, too, except that this will also require money from the tax payer.


The problem is not that we think what is being done is "ok,"

The problem is that the solution to this is not to propose mathematical impossibilities and then try to cover up that fact with outrage.

I hear what you're saying, but the real hurdle that sits in front of us is not how much to cut taxes, but where to cut them at. Both sides have particulars in where they want to see tax cuts/budget cuts, but can't come to compromise on them.

what i really can't figure out is how exactly folk can simultaneously expect an expansion of state activity to stabilize the economic system as a system (and not so much as an accumulation of individual firms)---which it seems that folk want, one way or another, if they like the way of life that they have----and expect more tax cuts at the same time.

it really doesn't make sense.

personally, i think the biggest single area of wasted expenditure from the federal government is military procurement and by extension the entire national-security state...but that is a republican fave in terms of patronage so curiously seems not to be subject to significant rethinking.

Well, what is your solution, to blindly follow Obama and Congress and believe they have your or the majority of people's best interests at hand. That's just naive.

.

No, but you can take the ideas and work with the people and find ways to make it work instead of just throwing money to the rich and hoping it trickles down.

By the way, there was no new spending in the medical solution I gave just streamlining and forcing the pharms to be accountable and letting them control their patent longer.... why is that not feasible?

The banks are failing? Really? I guess that's why PNC was able to take their bailout money and buy a viable bank that was in pretty good shape. I guess back a few years ago government should have done something about leveraged buyouts instead of giving them green lights and turning blind eyes.

Bullshit. My Chase card went from 9.9% to 24.9%, never missed a payment always paid more than the minimum and 1 time I was late by 1 day, even called them a week before... too bad so sad. The bailout money should have been enough. Obviously it isn't obviously the banks who are getting TAX MONEY to bail themselves out would still rather kick people while they are down then work with them. So why are we bailing them out? Chase by the way took bail out money and bought WaMu and is not hurting.

Really, the banks are failing.... name one today that is hurting. How many executives are making over a million dollars in salary for running their bank into the ground? How much of this "bailout" money is going back to the tax payer?

They don't care if the mom and pop shop down the street go under. They won't help them out, unless mom and pop show that they can make a return to the bank. So where's the banks return to the taxpayer???????

No the problem is that you are ok with it because you refuse to try to find solutions and come up with tired old excuses not to even try.

You can't make the math work to fix healthcare or education but you don't care about the math to bail out the banks. You demand the auto industry do X, Y and Z and jump through hoops to get money while you just gave money to banks and AIG without questioning where it was going. You're getting ready to raise the deficit and spend like drunken sailors but if the taxpayers stand up and say, "wait, we don't want that, and question you. You tell them that their ideas and what they want will cost more??????? More than bailing out banks that are using that money to better the tax payer bailing them out, how? More than bailing out AIG who is using that money to better the tax payer bailing them out, how? More than a bridge in Alaska to nowhere, how? More than throwing money at schools as they raise tuition, how?

POWER TO THE PEOPLE enough of the hypocrisy and bullshit.

what the hell does POWER TO THE PEOPLE even mean? empty catch phrases don't solve anything

Give true representation back to the people. Make government responsible to the people not corporate, lobbyist, media and so on interests.

It's only empty if you are closed minded to change and wanting a government truly representative and working for the people.

It's not just taxes, it's freedoms they are taking away from us. It's them telling us to make sacrifices but they won't they increase their spending, they give the nation to special interests, extremists and corporations to run and the average citizen is beaten down into submission because if he speaks out people belittle him, call him a kook, don't listen even if it makes sense because the government has it's own agenda and it doesn't include him except to pay for that agenda.

Power to the people is for those that have no voice to stand up and demand accountability in government. To force government to listen to their voices again and not the extremists or the lobbyists or those who have agendas not in the best interest of the whole, not just the select.

I've already said what I would do, in this thread and in others. And at NO point did I ever say that the solution was to blindly follow Obama. But the alternative is certainly not to blindly follow someone else either.


And yes, maybe the government should have prevented all this over-leveraging and all, but until you invent a time machine, that is not going to do.

If you think that the banks are not failing, here is a free tip for you: buy their stock now, because everyone thinks they are failing, so if they are not their stock is extremely undervalued. Put your money where your mouth is.

And stop trying to say that I support this or support that. I've been clear in what I support, and in this thread I've just been trying to point out the extreme inconsistencies of the position that demands more from everything and everyone for less money.


But you know what? Go ahead. I am tired of this bullshit sloganeering and senseless name calling.

yeah, see pan there are problems when you let yourself get too upset as you write--you start collapsing things into each other, setting up straw men, indulging empty slogans...not that a lyric from john lennon is other than empty when it comes to politics ("working class hero" anyone?)....you can't seem to separate when this fiasco started from where it currently is, you forget who did what, which administration did what. you've come to the SHOCKING conclusion that, without people knowing it, there's been a class war unfolding in the united states--but who the hell didn't notice it? it was the main feature of conservative economic policies...the largest concentration of wealth yet recorded anywhere ever...if that's not class war, then what the hell is?

so it seems to me that much of what you seem upset about is that you've suddenly discovered this class warfare which has been characteristic of the policies pursued by conservative neoliberals for many years, and all the more that this class war has had consequences which screw over people like you and me.

but where i get confused is in your reactions to this discovery or realization---and how you manage to collapse the whole of this onto the obama administration. which i am not an unequivocal fan of, btw. not at all--but it nonetheless makes sense to keep the factual dimension of things straight so that discussion doesn't endlessly get derailed on problems created at that level.

Government can't listen to (and cater to) every single individual voice in society. The country is too big. Shit, EVERY country is too big for that. I understand your basic point, but you're never going to see a government construct where your senator is going door-to-door asking what each person would do in every situation. The entire point of Congress is that we vote for them to represent us.....the power is never in the hands of the people.

Now we can argue all day about whether most Congressmen are actually representing the will of their constituencies (many aren't, too often), but my point is that POWER TO THE PEOPLE is indeed an empty slogan in a country with 100's of millions of citizens

pan:

I honestly dont understand the "too late, too late" argument that appears to be, in large part, the basis of your dissatisfaction.

Is it really too late for the Making Home Affordable program that will potentially help millions of honest and diligent homeowners who pay the mortgage on time but now face hardship and possible foreclosure because of losing their job or their house being devalued? Or is it too little?

Is it really to late too late to start regulating the market for hedge funds, credit default swaps and over-the-counter derivatives as proposed by Geithner today? Or is it too little?

Is the $150 billion for infrastructure in the stimulus bill, the largest investment ever, too little or too late?

Is the increased funding in the stimulus bill to cover the shortfall in Pell Grants and providing a new higher education tax cut to millions of families too little or too late?

And finally,
Is 65 days too little time to honestly and objectively judge the performance of a new president facing the worst economic conditions in decades.

Giving him a reasonable period of time to put these programs and initiatives in place does not equal "loving" him.

Do you honestly believe POWER TO THE PEOPLE will address these issues more comprehensively or in a more timely manner?

I'm just responding to your points. The you I am talking to is the you in the quoted portion... it's not personal in any way.

The only demands I want are those that government listen to the people. There is no inconstancy and I would gladly explain if you are confused in any way. Just tell me where.

Where have I called you names?

---------- Post added at 12:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 AM ----------

No, look back 5 years ago when I first joined I talked about an economic meltdown, so I didn't just jump on some band wagon.

No, there are posts here that I even stated "not necessarily Obama's fault", but as a senator he did vote pretty much with Dems to increase spending. Bush helped, Clinton helped, Reaganomics is to blame here also.

Obama inherited a mess but is continuing the mess and from what I see is not trying to truly stop it, just band aid it with more failed trickle down policies.

---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:55 AM ----------

I said the "people" not the individual. I stated going with the majority not the individual.

Representatives should have mandatory townhall meetings bimonthly in their district open to the public, if that means that they have to fill a school football field then so be it. The Representative should then voice why he has voted certain ways, what exactly each bill represents and how it will affect the people of his district. Hell, with technology he/she could do it on a public access television station, on the radio or on the net. Congress right now is not answerable to the people and doesn't even try to be except in an election year then half of what is said is bold faced propaganda and who knows how true.

Senators should have mandatory state addresses similar to the Reps. only every 6 months.

Now, to say that is unreasonable is bullshit. The only true reason that would be "unreasonable" would be that Congress truly doesn't want to be that open.

The president and governors have to give yearly state of the union addresses.... why is Congress not upheld to similar demands?

That is POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

I think we need term limits on the Congress. You get one, six-year term as Senator, then you're out. Then we might actually get some of the "best and brightest" to devote a portion of their life to public service and solving problems. Career politicians can't help but become what they become.

An interesting commentary that seems relevant to the discussion:
Seeing even liberal individuals taking a stand against President Obama's fiscal policy makes me wonder. I know little about economics or the current disaster. I know little of politics.

I enjoy reading the opinions of those who will share.

i think part of this is not a "failure of communication"--it's more that folk who take a casual interest in economic matters seem to have assimilated aspects of neoliberalism as if they were descriptions of the economy and not ideological statements that generate a particular image of it. so the edito can be seen as a guy who's assumptions are basically monetarist making a straight monetarist critique of a sort of keynesian approach---things that matter in the former, like deficit spending, don't in the latter in anything like the say way because the logic that situates the idea of state deficits is basically different in each of the two frameworks.

and i think it's symptomatic that the dude who wrote that piece above doesn't situate his viewpoint---he doesn't identify his own assumptions as assumptions--rather he acts as though his assumptions are somehow not assumptions at all, and proceeds from there to apply these assumptions in a mechanical way with predictable results.

thing is that i don't think this guy is isolated--i think that alot of the problems people are having with what obama is doing stem from the same thing. it's hard not to get pavlovian about the explanation for it---folk with no particular interest in or understanding of economics or political economy have been subjected to a regime of sustained repetition for many years and like the good spectators that we are. replicate what they've been effectively conditioned by---without even recognizing that this process has taken place.

and if you think about it, there isn't and hasn't been and likely will not be a coherent debate anywhere in the american press about the overall direction that was cowboy capitalism, what it caused, where we are, where we should be heading and what approaches might be the best way to get there. you'd think if the united states was even a shadow of a democracy that this debate would be happening---but it isn't. why is that?

another way: this disconnect is a direct result of the fact that we in the united states live inside an authoritarian media climate which we pretend is other than it is because there's some goofball separation of public and private ownership and another that authoritarian regimes have to originate with a state.

and very little is being done to alter the effects of this regime.
and the regime itself is still in place.

i don't mean to sound paranoid about this---i talk about regime in the singular because of the astonishing consensus that has run across television and print media that neoliberalism is a coherent view of the world, to the exclusion of alternatives. so there's a sense in which the singular is appropriate. one result is that i think americans are in the main terrified of uncertainty, in part because they're afraid of the political.

if that's right, then this is a **problem**--one that's way deeper than whether obama is or is not selling his approach to an audience conditioned largely along lines that cannot process that approach.

I know I buck the general popular opinion, but term limits are not the answer for congress. I believe it just gives the parties more strength, in that people would start voting solely by partisanship. It also punishes "we the people" by taking truly good men out. Plus, it will never happen. The GOP promised term limits would become law in 1994's Contract With America and once in power they failed to follow through.

People tend to vote for the incumbent, it is shown again and again in poll after poll that districts love their individual rep, but dislike Congress as a whole. No one wants to truly believe the man they voted to put into office, have bumper stickers for, had yard signs for, had given money to is not doing his best to help them. People did this with Bush for a long time. People did this with Kennedy, they do it with Bernie Sanders, Lieberman who changed affiliation, and so on.

The only true solution, IMHO, is townhall meetings to make them accountable to their district and state. This makes them accountable for what they do to the district, it allows them to see if the people are flourishing or suffering because of his/her stances. Townhall meetings would make them have to explain why they voted tax money away to build a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, why they won't truly do anything to fix healthcare, why they won't do anything about the border with Mexico until the drug warlords there have flooded our streets with drugs and have started killing innocent people. And so on.

The very last thing we need is for good congressmen/women to be booted out because of term limits..... and there are some good ones in there. They just get buried by the schmucks and partisanship bullshit.

Term limits sound good but it takes a minute or 2 to get a grasp on this great big country's picture and decide how they need to fix it. The vast majority don't take the time to do that and thus they just vote along party lines. Those are the ones that would get crushed in townhall meetings. That "like" and desire to protect their congressman would in essence disappear if in a townhall they couldn't answer questions as to why they voted for that bridge to nowhere, why they were silent about the AIG bonuses until it leaked, why they do what they do. Townhall meetings would force them to be more intelligent and aware of what is going on and they would be able to let us know.

The press has failed. Local news papers have either been bought by national conglomerates with their own agenda or are unable to financially stay afloat and have cut back on local reporters. Local television news is a joke because the conglomerate that owns them dictates what they report and again the finances to dig in to serious stories are next to nil. That's why sweep week it's always an in depth study of strip clubs. Sex sells even on the news. It's all about making money not in depth reporting of stories that truly affect the people.

So in order for the people to truly get an idea of what is happening in Washington, to hold Congress truly accountable, to get Congress to see outside the bubble that the party tries to blind them to.... we need townhall meetings. We need an accountable Congress not a Congress that every 2,4,6,8 years will be completely different.

Corrupt individuals will be corrupt in one term or 10 terms. Power that is not accountable for corrupts. Making one accountable for the power entrusted to them makes the chance for corruption a little less... if a congressman sees that a bill he helped pass because of party pressure hurt his district and that the people at home are asking him why he voted for it and he can only say because the party told him to.... he's going to have 2 options make it better or face defeat his next election. The party would suffer to. If the congressman states that was how the party told him to vote and he knew it was wrong but they threatened to silence him and take away other things he fought for for his district.... the party then looks bad.

It's a checks and balances deal. It gives the people more say into OUR government.

---------- Post added at 01:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:23 PM ----------

I find the article very right on. And it is very interesting that CNN is starting to even question Obama.

He brought up great points:

Why does Wall Street go down when Geithner brings about what is supposed to bring good news.

Then the Obama people say it's Wall Street and they are part of the problem until Wall Street does something they like... but then who truly does profit if the market goes up when the sell of toxic investments is what bounces it up?

The writer is right in his implication that we cannot have it both ways. His best point is this:

But he needs to also ask why Obama won't tell us. We know about the AIG bonuses what else is in there that makes Wall Street smile so much? And if they are part of the problem and they are smiling then it's not a good thing for the people.

Who told Dodd to put in the language.. we do know Obama's people knew about it and said nothing until it leaked and the people got mad about it.

I find this more of a criticism of Geithner than Obama. But it is a swipe at Obama and I think it is just the beginning.

BTW.... while politics and economics bring about heated debate and passion, they are necessary evils to pay attention to because they do affect everyone's life. I'm not suggesting you have to read books or make it your life.... I would prefer you didn't it'll drive you batty but learn what you can so that you know how much they affect you.

I thank you for starting one of the best political posts that have been here in a very long time. I think you are more aware than you let on.

My experience extends beyond the halls of academia.

For most of 2008 I was self-employed. I definitely worked my ass off last year. Today I wrote a check for $11,200 to the United States Treasury for taxes still owed. I already paid $3000.

I would do some good in my own community with that $11K. As it happens, it is going to a corrupt, greedy, self-serving state bent on national suicide.

I am fed up. I am fed up with this government. I am fed up with playing the good citizen and getting bitch-slapped for my efforts. Had I worked less, not paid my mortgage, not saved, and not invested, this government would be bailing me out. Had I been in a corporate office preaching the virtues of capitalism, this government would be bailing me out. Had I taken a company and wrecked it, I would be getting billions. I am disgusted.

These tea-parties seem to be for people in my situation, although I don't see what difference they could make. Perhaps they will evolve into something bigger. Something no one can imagine now. Now that I think about it, I think I'll go.

As I said before, I completely understand people wanting to pay less taxes.

But the point remains: to avoid any tax increases, never mind getting actual tax cuts, one or all three of these budget items will have to be significantly slashed: medicare, SS pensions, military.

Anyone who talks about tax cuts without talking about that is misleading the people.

---------- Post added at 04:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------

The problem is not that. The problem is that the majority of both sides know what they DON'T want to cut: military, healthcare, pensions.

Sometimes they genuinely don't want to cut it, other times it is simply a matter of political expediency.

But the fact is, no matter how much protest and outrage is out there, some tough decisions need to be made.

As BILLIONS are being given away to banks who raise fees, to companies that lay off, renegotiate contracts to their workers but make sure those in upper management get millions in bonuses, it's really hard to say the government can't make cuts.

While bridges to nowhere are being built, money is handed to foreign countries that hate us and we have a generation trained not to work and they can live very nicely...... it is hard to say they can't make cuts.

When Obama in his campaign states he wants a community organization as strong as the US military that will cost billions taxpayer money, it is hard to say they can't cut taxes.

When we have illegals bankrupting south western hospitals the government has to help.... it is hard to say they can't cut taxes.

There is so much corruption, special interest and bullshit spending..... THEY CAN CUT TAXES. To argue otherwise is foolish.

but pan, it seems to me that you assume for some reason that the overall situation we're in is more or less normal.
it really isn't.

i'm a bit surprised that folk who object to expenditure levels on principle focus on social programs and not on the most costly and useless areas of state spending: procurement of cold-war style military technologies---and by extension the whole of the national security state.

on the other hand, it has been the case empirically since the reagan period that conservatives have used massive military spending to do their version of the same kind of thing obama is doing---prop up an economic sector through state spending because it not only buys political power, but also because it was functional insofar as neoconservative political goals were concerned.

so the fact that this area of waste--and it is waste---never seems to come up as a Problem is an indication that this is not really a problem about taxes, but rather a problem about conservative politics that is using taxation as a cheap and easy way to advance a version of the same agenda that landed us in this mess in the first place.


on the other hand, it's hard not to see in the tarp program a singularly ill-concieved attempt to prop up the financial system---but it is a conservative program. it is incoherent in significant measure because it was developed exceedingly quickly by people who are ideologically opposed to the idea of such programs and so seemingly had no idea how to do them. that it's developed into another wave of looting is not a surprise--conservative economic policy has enabled looting of most social sectors by politically favored sectors for a long time.

so there are problems with this tea party business that do not go away no matter how many times "power to the people" gets tacked onto them.

and we've had 30 odd years of conservative "power to the people"---it hasn't worked out so well has it? what make you think that this go-round is any different?

Have you actually looked at the budget?

You don't seem to understand that even before any of these programs you decry are taken into account, the US is running deficits.

Can you understand that?
Whatever your outrage may be, it is a simple fact that even if you cut every single dime in foreign aid, kill off every illegal alien, let every single bank fail, cut every single pork project, and cut every single welfare program, the US will STILL run a deficit if it doesnt cut either military spending, healthcare, or social security pensions. And I am talking about cutting them without cutting the taxes related to them.

Do you get that? You can quote whatever John Lennon song you want, but it is a simple fact.

If you don't want to go look at the figures, here you go:

Projected federal tax revenue for 2009: 2186 US$ billion
Projected federal spending on healthcare for 2009: 724US$ Billion (425 of which go to medicare)
Projected federal spending on pensions: 712 US$ Billion (708 of which are old age pensions)
Projected federal spending on defense, excluding foreign military aid: 811 US$ Billion

Spending on healthcare+pensions+defense= 2247 $ US$ Billion




In other words, even if the US government doesnt spend a dime on education, infrastructure, runs every branch of government for free, cut everything you said, and basically defaults on interest payments for its existing debt, the US will still run a deficit. And this is for this year. While social security spending won't increase much more, medicare costs are expected to rise very fast, even without adding any new programs or coverage. And this is all with the projected defense budget, which in all likelihood severely underestimates actual spending.

Do you get that? Sing the entire John Lennon discography for all I care, but the fact is that either social security, medicare, or defense will be have to be cut if anyone is serious about cutting taxes.

So the original Boston Tea Party was about an unfair tax (or rather, standing up against the idea that taxation without representation is wrong). These tea parties seem to be a clever political stunt against Obama. They aren't specifically demonstrating against any particular part of Obama's plan, they're demonstrating against Obama himself. No one is complaining about a tax Obama is levying against them - these aren't millionaires out demonstrating, after all. What are they protesting against? Universal healthcare? Lower taxes? A balanced budget (eventually - probably not in his first term, but O'Bama is working towards one in a realistic fashion)?

I guess my point is, there's nothing really wrong with this, but it isn't particularly meaningful either.

The US runs a deficit because there is NO FUCKING TAX BASE. You cannot tax the middle class more and they are losing wealth anyway. You cannot tax the rich much more, they have the means to leave the country.

You have no manufacturing, you have no textile industry, you have outsourced just about every job you can.... THERE IS NO ONE LEFT WHO CAN PAY TAXES. You have destroyed the tax base.

You tariff imports for 5-10 years, rebuild your industries, make sure they put money into R&D so that they'll be able to compete when those tariffs run out, and you start rebuilding the tax bases, you bring back jobs, jobs people work and pay taxes and within that time you will have increased tax revenue without increasing taxes and a made a solid tax base again, while the workers have some disposable income to work with.

If you continue to do what we are..... we'll just keep increasing cigarette taxes, then alcohol/sugar/ whatever the government deems is unhealthy to try to make up revenue. But when you do that you'll actually lose revenue because people will just create black markets for those goods and we'll continue to run deficits until every single penny of every single tax dollar goes to pay the interest.

The moral, time is short.... rebuild a tax base or we're a third world country and the game is over. Or we hold a revolution and we rebuild government and start a new.

The French revolution started not because Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake but because the government over taxed the citizenry and still went bankrupt. The people who got guillotined were not the bourgeois but the aristocrats who got greedy and stolle the money from the people.

The American Revolution started on a 10% tax of tea. King George had to pay for the French and Indian War that was also a part of the British and French 7 Years War in Europe.

The Russian Revolution started when the middle class were taxed beyond their means. Hitler rose to power when Germany's middle class could no longer afford to pay taxes for the repair of their country after WW1.... What rich there was in Germany had fled the country.

The point is throughout history, when government taxes the "middle class" too much and gives the money to the wealthy for whatever reason.... violence and overthrow happens. And for the exception of our country and our founding fathers wanting freedom not just autonomy.... EVERY revolution at first ends in Totalitarianistic regimes that kill off what wealthy are left in the country and find leaders who grasp extreme power and start wars with neighboring countries.

Scoff all you want but if we continue the way we are and the way Obama is taking us.... revolution is going to be the outcome. That or a fascist extreme government that is every bit as bad or worse than Hitler's and Stalin's regimes.

You are all over the place here, so I won't get into the details. But the fact remains, any tax cuts without cuts on military, healthcare or SS is unsustainable in the long run and will be followed by tax hikes.


The fact that certain organizations like to pretend that that is not true is just a testament to their own hypocrisy and the political games they are playing, which publicly they like to decry.

Read me very carefully...... WITHOUT A TAX BASE YOU WILL NEVER HAVE A BALANCED BUDGET NOR WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SUSTAIN THAT WHICH YOU DO HAVE.

IF YOU DO NOT GET MANUFACTURING AND JOBS OUTSOURCED OVERSEAS BACK, THE BASE WILL CONTINUE TO SHRINK, YOU WILL HAVE TO INCREASE TAXES JUST TO PAY FOR THE INTEREST AND IN THE PAST (AS I SHOWED ABOVE), WHEN THAT HAPPENS, THE PEOPLE WILL REVOLT.

Is that more clear?

pan---fact is that outsourcing of manufacturing jobs has been happening since the 1970s. where were you?
the "model"that the united states has been pursuing in response? service industry + debt + denial.

the french revolution was *not* caused by taxation. if anything it was caused by the absence of taxation. the proximate cause was that the french state floated bonds to pay for its role in the american tax revolt which were bought by the aristo-types. the crown defaulted on the bonds, and so there was effectively an aristocratic revolt which resulted in a call for an estates general. but there's alot more to it than this. suffice it to say that your version is a fantasy. proof is that centralizing taxes at the state level was a RESULT of the revolution, not it's cause. if you're curious about this, read tocqueville's l'ancien regime: it's a classic history of the french revolution and its main argument is about taxation, so he details the before situations (there were lots of them).

people may at some point wake up, pan, but i think it'll only be the militia set that imagines revolution possible over taxes.

and it continues to be surreal to me that you can manage to compress 30 years of neoliberal devolution on obama. so much for perspective.

From Wiki..... French Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There's a whole wiki page that describes the French revolution: Causes of the French Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I won't post the whole page.

From French Revolution Time Line

Sound familiar?

IT IS NOT ALL OBAMA'S FAULT. I have never said that it was his fault. But the sand in the hourglass is almost out and Obama is not doing anything to slow it down or stop that flow.

The government is not being held responsible, the rich are getting away with whatever they want, we have an unsustainable debt causing a grossly inequitable tax system, we are paying for wars that were not necessary and drained our resources Korea, Nam, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, Iraq, and so on. We have raided our taxes to aid other countries at the cost of the people at home, and so on.

When inflation comes and it will because of the Obama plan that will put us further into debt.... food will become unaffordable.

The only outcome if we continue the road we have been on and Obama continues to lead us down is revolution.

We have no tax base that can handle the debt we are accruing. We manufacture NOTHING anymore. The tariffs we have are not paying for anything and allow imports to be cheaper than domestic product. The whole reason for tariffs is to protect your own industry... EVERY INDUSTRIAL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD KNOWS THIS AND TARIFFS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES EXCEPT US.

The only way out is to rebuild a manufacturing sector and the jobs it allows, thus rebuilding the tax base and making sure that tax base is not overburdened ever again.

pan--

the debt created by the american revolution took the form of bonds. that's how the french state paid for all it's military adventures. essentially, the state would borrow money from the aristocracy BECAUSE THE ARISTOCRACY CONTROLLED THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF TAXES not the state. so it's a fundamental mistake to see in the factoids arrayed in the wiki pages that you quoted as meaning that you can project the current notion of taxation and how it works back to before 1787---because, like it or not, the modern system of taxation--along with the modern state---were CREATIONS of the french revolution.

generally, folk point to the cahiers de doléances that were issued in preparation for the convening of the estates general with crystalizing a whole host of problems---and the shape of the revolution emerged across this process of collecting the cahiers. the process involved a nation-wide network of town meetings essentially in the course of which people actually talked to each other and collectively drew up lists of problems or greivances---THAT was a fundamental process and the revolution came out of aristocratic attempts to shove the genie back in the bottle if you like by jimmying around the composition and rules of the estates general.

basically, the aristocratic "revolt" of 1787 set into motion a process that escaped them almost immediately.
this process turned on them, ate them alive.

so there is no way to consider the french revolution as a "tax revolt" in anything like a modern context. it's simply wrong, pan. and it's not central to your main arguments, so i don't know why you'd bother trying to defend it as if it was.

i'm not particularly interested in an argument about how to interpret the french revolution with you.
if you want a better idea of what i'm referencing, start with reading tocqueville. a wiki page is not a substitute.

Out of all I have said it's coming down to how we see the French Revolution?

Come on now RB.... this is distraction we don't need. French Revolution aside, we are on the road to one of our own. You can only burden the taxpayers so long, take away so many rights and keep allowing the mass exodus of jobs before the people revolt.

The Tea Parties are just the start.... government and the extremists are trying to laugh it off but the people aren't. It is the start of people truly waking up and saying enough.

Of course if you are a conspiracist like myself... then you would believe maybe there is a reason the government is allowing a flood of heroin/oxycontin/meth/etc to flood our streets. It is easier to control the population and stop their revolt and their disobedience if you keep them dopes up... but that's for a different thread in a different forum heading (paranoia I believe).

well, the reason i dwelt on it isn't quite what you think---it wasn't only that you're take on it was wrong---it was also that the revolution did not start because of some hydraulic relation between events and people---it happened because people started to organize amongst themselves---and the circumstances ended up transpiring that people who were somewhat organized, who had something of an idea of what they were doing found themselves in the middle of a power vacuum, because the monarchy fell in around them.

but the french revolution was also a problem, and many many generations of revolutionary theorists have know this: it had no particular political goals, it kind of backed into being a revolution at all. it ate itself two or three times over. and it resulted in the convention, which resulted in a coup d'etat, which resulted in a restoration...(from a remove, this is how it worked...it's really alot more complicated, but so's everything)

revolutions almost never happen--they're made. so the idea that the present economic system will issue into a revolt seems to me naive. particularly if you're looking to conservative-sponsored agit-prop events like these tea parties. it's all a rhetorical effect--the right would no doubt be among the first to call out any revolt as communist. or whatever. it ain't gonna happen. not that way.

Im done discussing this with you, Pan. But as a last statement, even if you went back to a 1945 tax base, or a 67-70 tax base, you'd still be in a deficit with the current spending on military, healthcare and pensions.

Personally, I'd cut the military budget deeply, change to a more efficient single payer healthcare system, keep pensions as they are and increase taxes as necessary.

People who want to keep it all up with tax cuts need to live in a world of fantasy where outrage makes up for numbers. You can't spend 16-18% of GDP on military, healthcare, pensions and expect to pay that or less in taxes. It seems like you will never get that, so Ill let that be.


Ps: The tax burden and tax in general have been in a decade long decline. I fail to see how that will spark a revolution.

The taxes can't be cut because there is no true tax base. I think you are trying to read into something I am not saying.

I am saying that what government needs to do is increase tariffs to protect our industry for a limited time so that we can rebuild a manufacturing sector that will provide better jobs and rebuild the tax base. This is the only way you will increase the tax base to a sustainable level.

You cut the pork spending streamline government to a point where, yes the programs are out there but they aren't bogged down with paperwork, 15 people who have to approve the paperwork, and if it isn't approved it has to start all over. Because the way the system is small businesses cannot afford to apply for small business loans. People who need help with the programs in place to help them with healthcare are bogged down with so much paperwork they have no idea how to get it.

Cutting military spending in the middle of a war is pretty stupid and going to get a lot of people killed.

You want to tax people then streamline taxes. Base taxes on income, get rid of loopholes, hidden taxes and say you make 50,000 you pay this amount, not taxes hidden anywhere else. Once people see how much money truly goes to taxes, then show us where every cent is spent.

Mandate Congress have the townhalls I discussed that force them to explain what is going on, why they are voting how they vote and and how it helps their constituency. If a Congressman doesn't do this he is impeached. Plain and simple.See how fast pork spending and bullshit gets taken out of bills.

We elect Congress and the President, governors, mayors, council etc. We pay them to find ways to manage the spending in their constituencies.... if they cannot do it or we find fault with how they do it, we have the right to elect differing parties and people.

Today, however, since both parties are extremely corrupt and have agendas that are not in the best interest of the people and they control the media, we may have to revolt. The Tea Parties give us the voice to at least show our displeasure peacefully and demand we be heard and they change. If not and they continue to bankrupt this country and refuse to give up power.... then we must revolt one way or another.

that's all fine and good, but the government doesn't care. that's the problem. in some countries, protests really work (see: France) because the government is afraid of pissing off the citizens. in the US, the people are afraid of the government (and they're happy to perpetuate that fear, as it keeps us quiet). So if several thousand people have peaceful protests about how their tax dollars are spent, great, but don't expect the government to pay any attention.

Are we afraid of the government? Interesting concept. Thank you for giving me something to think over.

I think a lot of people are, yes. We live in a huge country with a huge government. They have control over a lot of aspects of our lives.

Rich people aren't afraid of the government, as they have the means (and power) to do what they want.

Poor people have been kept down by the government for so long that they don't even know what to do. If every poor person in the country rallied and voted for politicians that actually had their best interests in mind, there would be a great deal of change in our government.

does this mean that you advocate possible violence against the government then?

No, not violent action. But sitting in tea rooms bitching about things won't work either. I think if you want to force the government into real change, you need to protest on the scale of the civil rights movement.

isn't there a saying that goes 'all politics are local'? wouldn't, or shouldn't, these protests be taken as showing whichever representative belongs to the district where these protests are that 'hey, my job is at stake'?

theoretically, yes, but if you live in Oregon and your reps in Congress never leave Washington DC, that's a bit tough

derwood's right---i've been arguing versions of the same point for a long time, here and in 3-d: american political culture is entirely top-down--these days, it's also entirely passive. we're a dominated, docile bunch who are simultaneously terrified of the state and expect it to save us. we do not organize, we do not protest--hell we don't even think too hard in ways that are not dictated for us by our sustained training in happy-face passivity in schools and its continual reinforcement via the dominant media--which stage the world as something we watch, that is separate from us, and we watch it alone, locked up in living rooms. it seems our collective vanity is assuaged by the fact that we repeat as we're told to repeat it that we're all very very free, but that's really just an expression of our docility, almost a joke being played on us, one that we're too far inside to see.

there's no revolution coming in the united states. people are afraid of organizing because in part they're afraid of being found out. they're educated in repetition so they repeat without knowing the difference. what's more likely is a long, pathetic decline in the context of which varying degrees of denial will be proffered and most folk will duly repeat whatever they're told, in the way they're told. chances are that this decline won't even register until its fallout gets so bad that that there's no way around it.

other places with more viable political cultures--places that are not so centered around the fear of dissent as is the united states--would be in better shape were the same process of decline to happen because at least there's enough of a diversity of viewpoints that something of reality can slip through. not so in the monolithic mediascape of the united states.

i hope i'm wrong.
but i don't think i am.

we are also handcuffed by ourselves when we not only disapprove of those who DO protest, but also ridiculing those who attempt to get us to think 'outside the box'. When 3rd party candidates and supporters are labeled radicals and extremists because they want change......change that the rest of the nation is just not ready to accept or attempt.

Americans are also too selfish to rally around a common interest. Their only interests are their own.

only when their own interests are targeted, do they wonder why nobody will help them rally.