It should be pointed out that the richest in America and those who benefited hugely from the bailout can't even be found on census data. You have to do A LOT of study to actually find out they exist, it's something like 1% of the top 1%. They have serious influence, and benefit from a crooked system.

Also for the broader point of inequality. The point of the battle against it is because those on the lesser side have been being hammered for following the rules. You work and work for years with the idea that you'll get ahead, and that's taken away from you. This is how the Tea Party came about, their grievances are legitimate before they were sort of taken away from them by more powerful interests.

The point is, democracy suffers hugely when you have inequality. Ancient Greece (Aristotle) had the idea to fix this is by making the society more equal, therefore you wouldn't have the poor using their power of numbers to subvert democracy against the rich. America had a similar problem in the early days, instead of working towards equality, they worked towards stifling democracy. By putting most of the power in the hands of the wealthy Senate, it made sure that democracy wouldn't get out of hand and the rich white guys can keep what they stole.

Look this isn't something that's right or left. The right and the left are together on this, we don't like tyrannical powers trying to control us. A corporation with it's top down infrastructure is the basic definition of tyrannical. Add that to the fact that corporations dictate how our democracy is run, you have a system that isn't functioning and needs to be fixed.

Our Democracy isn't functional, it needs to be taken down and replaced.

I feel this rant that I didn't read needs to be quoted.
>> ^RFlagg:

@bobknight33 I never said to tax the rich out their ass or take all corporate revenue. I think another 3% isn't going to hurt to hurt the top 1% or even the top 2% of wage earners (most of whom are not job creators anyhow, but lawyers and surgeons and the like, not a single real small business owner among them), and punishing the people who can't make a living wage isn't the solution, but it is the only one the conservatives consider. As @KnivesOut pointed out, and as I noted in the part you didn't quote, there is a huge military spending that the Republicans refuse to cut spending on. I don't know if I would cut 70%, but at the very least 50%. Last figures I saw we were spending more than the next 19 countries combined, and most of them are allies or neutral, that leaves China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and perhaps Brazil... Cutting out budget in half still leaves us spending more than the next 6 combined, and again, most are allies. Even as a percentage of GDP, we are far above and beyond what most countries spend, we'd probably have to get down to that 70% mark to get even close to the average of the top 20. Conservatives love to complain about NASA wasting money, but NASA's entire budget for a year is less than what we spend on air conditioning our troops in Afghanistan alone.
My only comparison to other countries had nothing to do with their finances, but with the fact that the US was the only industrialized country in the world that wasn't communist or Islamic to not let gays server openly.
How is Obama a liberal? What has he done that is remotely liberal? Did he give us the health care plan he promised, which was a single payer health insurance? No. We ended up with what the Republicans would allow, which was Mittcare on a national level. A program that favors Big Pharma and the Insurance Companies and while it does help some people, it does no where near as good for the vast majority of Americans that the single payer would have been. Sure the insurance companies would have gone from making hundreds of billions of dollars off people's suffering to just tens of billions or hundreds of millions at worst, and big pharma the same, but aside from that, for everyday people, they would be better off.
How did we turn our back on Israel? And even if we did, who cares? We should just leave the middle east alone. It isn't our business. That is why they hate us you know, not our so called freedoms that we gave up after the attacks, or any other such BS, it is because we interfear with their business.
As to Obamacare... I already stated, it isn't Obamacare. Obamacare would have been a nationalized health insurance, what we got is Mittcare on a national level which is a mandate to buy insurance from a for-profit insurance company. The only positives is that they can no longer deny people based on pre-existing conditions, extended coverage for children... this compares to what Obamacare would have done had it passed, which would create an insurance that is cheaper and just as good as and in many if not most cases better than the private insurance that most Americans had. It would have been cheaper, meaning far less money taken out of their paychecks and more money to spend. Millions of uninsured and under-insured workers would have finally have access to affordable health care, not just have to show up at the ER when things reach a level that could have been prevented had they been able to see a regular doctor and been able to cover any lab fees...they then end up not being able to pay said ER visits, which raises the cost of health care for everyone else, and many others file bankruptcy to get out of medical bills, which in the US is the number one reason for bankruptcy for individuals, which again adds to overall medical costs for everyone. Conservatives like to blame lawsuits, which do raise the cost of surgery, and is an issue, but the real cause of high medical costs, beyond greed, is the fact that so many people end up not being able to pay for what services they got the medical community then passes those costs on.
One of the primary reasons I am not a Christian anymore is because so many Christians spoke out against taking care of the sick and the needy. Even though Jesus' main commandment was love. Most Christians are full of hate for those who they don't like. They hate the gays and want to revoke the free-will god gave them, and not let them get married. They don't want to help the sick and the poor and want to give the money those sick and poor people earned and turn it over to the money lenders. They basically want to be the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. It is like Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Obama hasn't been allowed to put his economic policies in effect becaouse the Republicans have refused. What we have is a continuation of Bush's economic policies because the Republicans promised they would never negotiate and do everything they can to make his Presidency a failure. We have been running a Republican budget for years now... and we've been foolishly thinking it will trickle down for over 30 years now. The rich keep getting richer and richer at a faster and faster pace, while the poor get poorer and the middle class dissolves to the poor. Yet the Republicans still keep saying it will work. Yeah, it works for 2%, while everyone else suffers for it.
Know why jobs aren't being created? Because the rich don't care. They don't want to make jobs, they want private jets and mansions and will fuck over everyone to do it. The place I used to work at, in 2010 fired 350 people and then told everyone else they weren't getting raises because they said the cost of living went down. He then went out and purchased a private jet and another mansion in an exclusive gated community in town, already have the second largest there wasn't enough apparently... he could have closed his Miami Beach office, which is literally on the beach, he walks out the door he is on the beach, and there is only one employee there, but no, he destroyed the lives of 350 families and basically everyone else who worked for him to get his stuff. The next year, 250 more fired, and still no raises. This year, 350 more and still no raises, and just recently another 100 or so more fired. So over 1000 families put out, and those still working for him haven't had raises for 3 years just so he can have his stuff. He could have kept those people on and not have got that stuff, he could have closed the Miami Beach office and let one person go, he could have made other cuts (like not buying a $5 Million software that as I understand it after 4 years of work still doesn't work as promised, it wasn't working when I left and it was already 2 years of that money spent and was no where near working) but no, he chose to sacrifice the lives of people under his care. The so called job creators haven't been in the business of creating jobs simply because they choose to outsource, they choose to take for themselves rather than care for those under them. It isn't Obama's fault... hell it isn't even Bush's or Reagan's fault. It is the rich's fault. They could create jobs, but they choose not to. They choose to widen the gap between the haves and the have not's at a rate nobody has ever seen anywhere. The CEO of Wal-Mart could be given a total package of $250,000, then with that as the top line, drawing from the minimum wage workers (so the line would look like "/") and spending the same amount of money on all salary, HR expenses, compensation and all that jazz hire hundreds of thousands more, or give everyone more to live on, or actually provide health insurance... but no, they and nearly every company in America is setup to have a salary structure that looks like "˩". I firmly believe the owner should make a fair salary above and beyond everyone else, but it shouldn't be so far out of proportion to everyone else in the company that they sacrifice people under their care just so they can get ahead. The fact Republicans think that is okay is what is sickening. The fact Christians think that is okay is sickening.

@bobknight33 I never said to tax the rich out their ass or take all corporate revenue. I think another 3% isn't going to hurt to hurt the top 1% or even the top 2% of wage earners (most of whom are not job creators anyhow, but lawyers and surgeons and the like, not a single real small business owner among them), and punishing the people who can't make a living wage isn't the solution, but it is the only one the conservatives consider. As @KnivesOut pointed out, and as I noted in the part you didn't quote, there is a huge military spending that the Republicans refuse to cut spending on. I don't know if I would cut 70%, but at the very least 50%. Last figures I saw we were spending more than the next 19 countries combined, and most of them are allies or neutral, that leaves China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and perhaps Brazil... Cutting out budget in half still leaves us spending more than the next 6 combined, and again, most are allies. Even as a percentage of GDP, we are far above and beyond what most countries spend, we'd probably have to get down to that 70% mark to get even close to the average of the top 20. Conservatives love to complain about NASA wasting money, but NASA's entire budget for a year is less than what we spend on air conditioning our troops in Afghanistan alone.

My only comparison to other countries had nothing to do with their finances, but with the fact that the US was the only industrialized country in the world that wasn't communist or Islamic to not let gays server openly.

How is Obama a liberal? What has he done that is remotely liberal? Did he give us the health care plan he promised, which was a single payer health insurance? No. We ended up with what the Republicans would allow, which was Mittcare on a national level. A program that favors Big Pharma and the Insurance Companies and while it does help some people, it does no where near as good for the vast majority of Americans that the single payer would have been. Sure the insurance companies would have gone from making hundreds of billions of dollars off people's suffering to just tens of billions or hundreds of millions at worst, and big pharma the same, but aside from that, for everyday people, they would be better off.

How did we turn our back on Israel? And even if we did, who cares? We should just leave the middle east alone. It isn't our business. That is why they hate us you know, not our so called freedoms that we gave up after the attacks, or any other such BS, it is because we interfear with their business.

As to Obamacare... I already stated, it isn't Obamacare. Obamacare would have been a nationalized health insurance, what we got is Mittcare on a national level which is a mandate to buy insurance from a for-profit insurance company. The only positives is that they can no longer deny people based on pre-existing conditions, extended coverage for children... this compares to what Obamacare would have done had it passed, which would create an insurance that is cheaper and just as good as and in many if not most cases better than the private insurance that most Americans had. It would have been cheaper, meaning far less money taken out of their paychecks and more money to spend. Millions of uninsured and under-insured workers would have finally have access to affordable health care, not just have to show up at the ER when things reach a level that could have been prevented had they been able to see a regular doctor and been able to cover any lab fees...they then end up not being able to pay said ER visits, which raises the cost of health care for everyone else, and many others file bankruptcy to get out of medical bills, which in the US is the number one reason for bankruptcy for individuals, which again adds to overall medical costs for everyone. Conservatives like to blame lawsuits, which do raise the cost of surgery, and is an issue, but the real cause of high medical costs, beyond greed, is the fact that so many people end up not being able to pay for what services they got the medical community then passes those costs on.

One of the primary reasons I am not a Christian anymore is because so many Christians spoke out against taking care of the sick and the needy. Even though Jesus' main commandment was love. Most Christians are full of hate for those who they don't like. They hate the gays and want to revoke the free-will god gave them, and not let them get married. They don't want to help the sick and the poor and want to give the money those sick and poor people earned and turn it over to the money lenders. They basically want to be the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. It is like Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Obama hasn't been allowed to put his economic policies in effect becaouse the Republicans have refused. What we have is a continuation of Bush's economic policies because the Republicans promised they would never negotiate and do everything they can to make his Presidency a failure. We have been running a Republican budget for years now... and we've been foolishly thinking it will trickle down for over 30 years now. The rich keep getting richer and richer at a faster and faster pace, while the poor get poorer and the middle class dissolves to the poor. Yet the Republicans still keep saying it will work. Yeah, it works for 2%, while everyone else suffers for it.

Know why jobs aren't being created? Because the rich don't care. They don't want to make jobs, they want private jets and mansions and will fuck over everyone to do it. The place I used to work at, in 2010 fired 350 people and then told everyone else they weren't getting raises because they said the cost of living went down. He then went out and purchased a private jet and another mansion in an exclusive gated community in town, already have the second largest there wasn't enough apparently... he could have closed his Miami Beach office, which is literally on the beach, he walks out the door he is on the beach, and there is only one employee there, but no, he destroyed the lives of 350 families and basically everyone else who worked for him to get his stuff. The next year, 250 more fired, and still no raises. This year, 350 more and still no raises, and just recently another 100 or so more fired. So over 1000 families put out, and those still working for him haven't had raises for 3 years just so he can have his stuff. He could have kept those people on and not have got that stuff, he could have closed the Miami Beach office and let one person go, he could have made other cuts (like not buying a $5 Million software that as I understand it after 4 years of work still doesn't work as promised, it wasn't working when I left and it was already 2 years of that money spent and was no where near working) but no, he chose to sacrifice the lives of people under his care. The so called job creators haven't been in the business of creating jobs simply because they choose to outsource, they choose to take for themselves rather than care for those under them. It isn't Obama's fault... hell it isn't even Bush's or Reagan's fault. It is the rich's fault. They could create jobs, but they choose not to. They choose to widen the gap between the haves and the have not's at a rate nobody has ever seen anywhere. The CEO of Wal-Mart could be given a total package of $250,000, then with that as the top line, drawing from the minimum wage workers (so the line would look like "/") and spending the same amount of money on all salary, HR expenses, compensation and all that jazz hire hundreds of thousands more, or give everyone more to live on, or actually provide health insurance... but no, they and nearly every company in America is setup to have a salary structure that looks like "˩". I firmly believe the owner should make a fair salary above and beyond everyone else, but it shouldn't be so far out of proportion to everyone else in the company that they sacrifice people under their care just so they can get ahead. The fact Republicans think that is okay is what is sickening. The fact Christians think that is okay is sickening.

Er, sorry, he is just pulling to get ahead. Any dog owner has experienced this before the dog was taught to heel.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Why does female empowerment bother people? Do they feel women should be subservient? Do they feel women are inferior and should not be glorified in cinema? Are they threatened by challenges to traditional gender roles? I don't get the conservative lizard brain.


It comes down to privilege. A dude who has experienced pop culture produced by men, catered to men, and starring men for as long as he can remember will see female leads, female-produced movies, etc. as a threat. It means they might be losing their privileged position (even though it's really still just a drop in the bucket).

And losing privilege is SUPER scary because it means that at some point these dudes might have to actually compete on their merits. I don't mean compete for anything specifically, just that all the power, privilege, opportunity, etc., in our society have been given to dudes (especially white dudes), for so long just because they're (white) dudes. If things changed and these guys actually had to get ahead by working hard and being decent human beings, a lot of them would be screwed.

At least that's how I see it. The movie looks rad.

You'll never get ahead with that haircut.

yeah the solution lies with us. but most people haven't even acknowledged there is a problem.
that's a problem.

We have a society that breeds us to compete, in a world of dwindling resources and relative wealth. It is thus easy to see how those with no conscience can get ahead, and how the masses will not only accept their cut-throat rise to power, but glorify it.

>> ^NetRunner:

What video are you people watching?
Obama says "traditionally what held this country together was this notion that if you work hard, if you're playing by the rules, if you're responsible ... you've got a chance to succeed. But right now people feel like the deck is stacked against them..."
So...he's saying that why people are upset right now is because people feel like that social contract "traditional notion" has broken down.
He's not saying "If you're poor, and don't have a job, blame yourself." That was Herman Cain.
Seriously, are people in such a rage against Obama that even when he says stuff you agree with, you have to pretend he said the opposite?


I absolutely see your point, I can see where my comment is misstating what I really intended to communicate. If I look at the Presidents comments differently, i.e. assuming the barest expectations of people and Americans, I understand his perspective and his comments better.

I suppose a better way to communicate my gripe is that he doesn't actually address the real issues. He's being "sympathetic" to the OWS protesters, but his statements do not give any weight to the actual issues. He doesn't acknowledge their grievances. (Maybe he can't, because OWS is such a mess anyway, regarding their fundamental message and goals. Still, "getting a job and getting ahead" is, and should not be, peoples highest goals in the United States.)

Every individual in the US is in a position to change the world for the better. Yes, I am an idealist.

@chilaxe @artician
Not to get too involved in you diatribe, there are a few points I'd like to throw in.
1). Sleeping in your car is fine, in a pinch, Congrats to you for pushing through the strife. Fact is, you shouldn't to live like a third world refuge to get an education. Quite a few people out there have families, so this solution is not a solution. Living in one's car is by definition, "Homeless." No respectable employer will hire you without a permanent address. Besides that, for a person with a wife and one or two kids, this is NEVER an option.

2). Although student loans are extremely helpful, they aren't as easy to get as one might think. Without an address, next to impossible. Once you have the loan, paying it back is hard. It took me 13 years to pay back my loan (with interest). It''s one more expense on top of all the other living expenses. Getting an education does not automatically get you a good job right away. For me, it took years of stepping up job to job, working min-wage jobs and changing cities 3-4 times to get where I am. I'm finally in what would be considered a semi-decent job and I still can't afford decent food for my family and clothing. I myself have a couple pairs of shorts and no pant's at all - winter's coming and it's getting cold. (I'm not complaining, just stating facts.)

3). life's tough out there, and there is no denying that the economy is slouching, governments are mismanaged and corporations are running things. It's fact that the banks and leaders in charge are corrupt and stuffing their own pockets while the majority are all struggling to get half way up the pile that everyone is living on.

4). Race..., why race? race is irrelevant to this crisis. Yes it sucks that some white people have an advantage while it is also true that there are non-white people that have it better than some whites. Who cares. It's not race that determines this crisis, it's scruples. Those that have no problem stealing and screwing over others prosper first, while those who "would never do that," end up lower in the pile. It's the classic story of "Nice guy finishes last<./i>" If you don't screw someone over before they screw you over, they get ahead of you. If you are smart enough, are without scruples and have the fierce determination to crush others on the way up - you prosper. The rest of us wallow in our own goodness because we didn't see the car that hit us. Now we are angry and want recompense.

That's where we are now. the scales are out of balance and they need to be straightened. So who's going to do it, when is it going to happen, and at what cost?

@marbles

Radar requires line of sight (with slight deviation due to atmospheric refraction) so, yes, you would be able to determine the coverage of each station with rather high accuracy just by knowing its location and the surrounding topography.

I also think it was a waste of time for the hijackers to change the transponder codes. I can only guess it was paranoia that drove them to do this. I think you're getting ahead of yourself when you say "somehow the hijackers knew where the gaps were". If they had, then why did only 2 of 4 planes change transponder codes while they were in dead zones? It's quite possible that this was pure coincidence. It's not like these planes even changed course to fly into dead zones. Their regularly scheduled courses brought all of them into dead zones.

I'd like to point out that, were the planes under remote control as is being alleged, it still wouldn't make any more sense for the transponders to be reprogrammed mid-flight.

I said he was either dishonest or ignorant and the one issue we've discussed is not the only reason I came to that conclusion. The entire video; indeed the entire truther movement, from what I've seen; is based on the flawed premise that all explanations that can be imagined are to be treated equally. I fully expect there are truthers out there who believe that aliens teleported onto the four planes and locked them on their course before teleporting back to the safety of the mothership. No doubt this was done to bankrupt the US, halting our space program before we could threaten their civilization. And we'd all be expected to treat this theory with the same credibility as "terrorists hijacked the planes and flew them into buildings because they were pissed off about us occupying their homelands."

Ultimately there were two reasons I did not want to participate in a discussion on this topic and I will say I seem to have been entirely wrong about one of them. That was my expectation that you could not keep this civil. Kudos to you on that.

The other reason is that there's just nothing of any interest or note coming from the truthers. It's all wild speculation backed up by claims that said speculation hasn't been investigated and/or disproven. You get to have your ideas heard by participating in these discussions, but what do I get out of it?

get educated = learn system is fucking you

@Yogi you nailed it on that one. kudos>> ^Yogi:

>> ^rychan:
College debt is just not something I can be sympathetic about. Think how the majority of Americans that didn't go to college feel about that whining? It is entirely self-inflicted, as well.

Wow...so you think college should cost you your entire life? You think that trying to get ahead and working to get an education in a country that espouses that if you do so you'll do well and it's just not fucking true anymore. You really think you have a leg to stand on with your argument of "self-inflicted" really mother fucker? Really?
You're an idiot.

>> ^rychan:

College debt is just not something I can be sympathetic about. Think how the majority of Americans that didn't go to college feel about that whining? It is entirely self-inflicted, as well.


Wow...so you think college should cost you your entire life? You think that trying to get ahead and working to get an education in a country that espouses that if you do so you'll do well and it's just not fucking true anymore. You really think you have a leg to stand on with your argument of "self-inflicted" really mother fucker? Really?

You're an idiot.

>> ^snoozedoctor:

In the multitude of recent posts/blogs/discussions about eating the rich, one name is consistently absent of criticism, even prior to his death, Steve Jobs. Net worth over 6 billion dollars, doing no philanthropic work to speak of (as compared to the often vilified Bill Gates), and not one of the many billionaires pledging half of their estate to charities (check out "the giving pledge". Why not Jobs? "Cause dude, like, you know man, he made cool stuff."
Anyone that cannot see the benefit to society, the multitude of companies and people employed that simply augment and support apple products, from iphone covers, to sound docks, on, and on and on, well......if you can't see that, no wonder you don't understand and appreciate capitalism at it's best. True, I don't think money motivated Steve Jobs, I'm quite sure it didn't, but he wasn't keen on giving it away.
If you don't like your lot in life, do what I did, borrow money, do 8 years of post-grad training working 80 hour weeks, get a job, pay back your loans and have a lifestyle above the mean, get yourself on the Board of a charity and give 10% of your income to charities that you trust will distribute money to people that really need it. I didn't do all that work to give money to someone that wants to sit on their ass. I guess I'm what's wrong with this country, an ordinary dude that wants to get ahead.


Steve jobs: The richest income tax evader the world has ever seen. A 1$/year salary? So endearing.

In the multitude of recent posts/blogs/discussions about eating the rich, one name is consistently absent of criticism, even prior to his death, Steve Jobs. Net worth over 6 billion dollars, doing no philanthropic work to speak of (as compared to the often vilified Bill Gates), and not one of the many billionaires pledging half of their estate to charities (check out "the giving pledge". Why not Jobs? "Cause dude, like, you know man, he made cool stuff."
Anyone that cannot see the benefit to society, the multitude of companies and people employed that simply augment and support apple products, from iphone covers, to sound docks, on, and on and on, well......if you can't see that, no wonder you don't understand and appreciate capitalism at it's best. True, I don't think money motivated Steve Jobs, I'm quite sure it didn't, but he wasn't keen on giving it away.
If you don't like your lot in life, do what I did, borrow money, do 8 years of post-grad training working 80 hour weeks, get a job, pay back your loans and have a lifestyle above the mean, get yourself on the Board of a charity and give 10% of your income to charities that you trust will distribute money to people that really need it. I didn't do all that work to give money to someone that wants to sit on their ass. I guess I'm what's wrong with this country, an ordinary dude that wants to get ahead.

>> ^direpickle:

Yes. That three year old that can play piano by ear is absolutely the result of 10,000 hours of practice.
Are people really trying to argue that natural aptitudes don't exist? Rage.


More like them alone don't solely define your success. And most of those child stars have done their skill for thousands of hours, people with a natural aptitude tend to indulge that aptitude. But a person who is a natural born genius, but doesn't get alone well with others, or isn't in the right time or place doesn't always get ahead. Georges Lemaître, father of the big bang theory, isn't really remembered by any lay person...even though his theory shapes the entire field of astrophysics, much like Einstein, but everyone remembers him. Kurt Gödel, who's that, oh, a genius who ramifications in thought still haven't been fully explored 80 years later...but no one knows his name. Or even the famous composers and artists that we all love today, many died poor and unrecognized. Timing/luck seems AS fundamental for success as being a genius. The book isn't talking about actually producing the "best" but being recognized and reaping the rewards of being the best. It is a good read, I recommend it.