@lantern53
ill agree with the sentiment of your comment if not the wrongful use of certain words.

bush was a big business president.
perma tax breaks anyone?
to use the term "progressive" in describing bush is being inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

the bush admin pushed through some of the most extreme expansions of executive powers (thanks addington and woo).they are guilty of war crimes.they are guilty of spying on american citizens.they are guilty of perpetrating an illegal war based on total fabrication.
and all of it.every last bit...retroactive immunity.

now here comes obama.
and while his rhetoric is beautiful and poetic,having a strong populist flavor,the facts remain that not only did the obama admin CONTINUE the bush executive powers,his admin EXPANDED them!

/waves to the NSA

so i do not know where you get this "fundamentally changing" this country when it has been business as usual.
unless you are speaking of oabamacare and i would point out that obamacare is a health care provider bail out.

bush bails out the banks.
obama bails out big pharma and health insurance industry.

and we get to pick up the tab.

the rhetoric may have a progressive tilt but the reality is business as usual.socialism for the rich,capitalism for the poor.

and it bothers me that some people i know who were ultra critical of the bush admin are relatively silent in regards to obama.

@VoodooV
when i use the term "extreme nasty" i am not referring to a civil war but rather the american public finally reaching its boiling point.

it started bubbling with the tea party,and if people recall it was NOT the rabid christian rightwing fascist group it is today.
they had real grievances and rightly so.

but they got co-opted by private monies.

then occupy blew up and they too had real grievances and since the power elites could not co-opt them like the tea party they were systematically shut down by targeted governmental edict.

thanks Obama.

for years the poor and working poor were disenfranchised,made irrelevant in a political system that only used them as talking points to garner sympathy during an election cycle.

but now the middle class are finding themselves falling into the ranks of poor and working poor and ALL have been made irrelevant and inconsequential.

the american public has been kept in a constant state of fear for over 25 years.
fear of brown people.
fear of losing their job.
losing their house.
hell they even fear their own neighbors!

while the beautiful and poetic nationalism of american exceptionalism and ingenuity sound great,most americans are aware its all bullshit.
the political system is corrupt and sick on its own hubris and greed.

the american public know that this government no longer serves their interest.just look at the data.time and time again the public has a strong opinion on a subject and yet our elected officials vote to serve their masters.
war in iraq? americans shouted NO!
bank bail out? resounding NO!
the examples over the past (especially the past 15 yrs) are staggering.

so while i admire your optimism in still using the political system to enact positive change.i just dont see it ever becoming a reality.
mainly because the system is rigged and not in our favor.

so that leaves only ONE option:take to the streets.
refuse to go to work.
keep your purchases to a minimum and trade with each other.
refuse to feed the beast.
clog it with bodies.
clog the streets..halt business from operating properly.

but avoid violence.

thats what the state uses and to give it reason to engage in violence will only serve to beget more violence.

make those in power afraid.
remind them who they really work for and that if they dont the whole fucking thing is gonna come crashing down.

its the only real option i see and if it comes to pass you will see those who wield power do so..and it will be very nasty.

see:the labor movement
see:civil rights
see:anti-war
see:woman sufferages

Head-on not applicable here, eh? The direction the engines' facing doesn't factor when one's in reverse and one's powered forward or at rest-One train braked in the nick and almost slammed another train with an engine facing the camera almost at a dead-stop. Looks like the fated train was moving forward in an attempt to power-up and avoid the impact should that other not have stopped. I would have bailed-out too, smart engineer or conductor.

What happened was that large parts of the tail broke away from the aeroplane, leaving him with greatly reduced control... but he somehow managed to land it with what he had left, despite advising that he was going to bail out at least 5 times.

The tail damage is shown (very) briefly near the end.

In Canada, we regulate our banks so much they can't fart without permission. That being said, no of our banks failed during the crash. Some people criticize us for over regulation, but all I can say is, Canada was either one of the few or the only country who didn't have their banks go belly up and need bail outs.

@lantern53
navy here.

and i agree.actions have consequences.
manning knew that as did daniel ellisberg and a litany of other people who revealed classified information but they did it anyways because they felt the truth should be known.
that the truth was more important than their own safety and security.

this is why i use the term "courage".
to act on ones own sense of morality and conscience KNOWING the full weight of an entire government will be pressing down on you when it all comes out.

the days of woodward and bernstein are gone i think.i could be wrong but i read the governments reaction as a strong signal to those who would seek to undermine its absolute authority.
see:the godfather principle

reporters being wiretapped and emails and phone records confiscated.
whistleblower status has been denied more than any other time in americas history.
its an old tactic.
create a climate of fear to intimidate anyone who challenges the narrative.

we shall see where this goes because i feel it will be a strong indicator of things to come.
interesting times my friend.

as for social programs.
i guess i would rather see my taxes go to infrastructure and the old lady down the street rather than bail out corrupt bankers and bomb brown people in a distant country.

but empire is expensive and we need those bombs.
or so they say.
i tend to disagree.

anyways.thanks for replying my friend.

Bill Maher is a moron. And "republican secret rules" also fits for "democrat secret rules"

both parties are the exact same, they are just 2 sides of the same coin.

and media makes damn sure that other parties never get mentioned, as to keep watchers brain washed into thinking there is a difference between the 2 parties.

for example I'm a tea partier but I'm also one of the most vocal in my groups 'occupy wall street' movement. The media would have you think tea party = republican and occupy = democrat

it's not neither are, they are both for getting back to constitution, reaffirming 10th amendment, and stop bailing out banks who refuse to lend money to civilians making bailouts worthless, setting our economy up to fail like Greece.

@aaronfr and what if I said, "the State and the Church should be separate", would that imply I want priests getting away with murder?

My problem is not my original comment, it's you interpreting "get government out of the economy" in the worst possible light to make a quip about libertarianism and get cheap upvotes.

Government is in bed with the economy, with the monetary system, crooked financial institutions, bailing out banks that are too big to fail... is it OK for me, Mr. @aaronfr, to want the State to separate itself from all that shit, much like society agreed centuries ago that the State + Church = trouble? Or is that too much libertarian nonsense?

It makes me sad that you think socialism has anything to do with cooperation, because there's no room for cooperation when there's no private ownership or capital. Socialism's relationship with the economy is that of central planning, logically, and historically.

I am also not for blatant redistribution of wealth; however, I strong disagree with:

1) Corporate tax loopholes: Apple 9.8%, Google 11.9%, Yahoo 11.6%, Amazon 3.5% paid for Fiscal Year 2011 instead of advertised 35.5%
2) Off-shore tax havens
3) Privatizing profits and socializing bail outs
4) Subsidies to corporations and industries already drawing massive profits
5) And last but not least, the simple fact that not a single person went to jail after the 2008 crash due to cooked books in the financial sector

It is the responsibility of every citizen to give back to their community to promote a Quid Pro Quo society. Hopefully, many of these problems will be solved in our lifetime.

As Cornel West so eloquently stated earlier last year, and I paraphrase, the true test of every democracy is what to do with its weakest demographic. The fact that people are born in these social strata (i.e. success not always earned) is reason enough to put the pressure on the most fortunate, a group in which I happen to belong, to support those who never even get a chance.

Since most of what I say lands on Neo-Conservative deaf ears, I'll play their game and ask "What would Jesus do?"

Finally, QM, we always argue respectfully, and I want you to know that I do not favor any party. Both Democrats and Republicans put party ahead of nation and that's a disgrace.

@kymbos @Fletch @pavel_one

Jackson Strong is an extreme Motocross rider, and a dam good one but he is not a rider of sleds.
Within a week after winning gold in LA, he decided he would try his luck at XGames Aspen. He went out and bought himself a snowmobile just for the event, flew to Minnesota and trained for four hours before arriving to compete. His plan was to pull the same trick he did on his motocross, (called the Jack), only this time on the sled to see if he could pull another gold metal win without even putting in the time to properly train.

Watch this report which happened live at the event: http://videosift.com/video/Jackson-Strong-Crashes-on-his-first-run

"Jackson Strong is great at doing tricks in motocross, but his snowmobile skills need work. Strong only had four hours of experience on a sled, but decided to enter the best trick competition at the Winter X Games anyways. What happened next really needs to be seen to be believed.
I really think that Strong should have thought more about doing this. He is lucky someone did not get seriously hurt because of this stunt. Luckily everyone was paying attention and they were able to bail out of the way before the sled could have done a lot of damage."

Read more at http://www.rantsports.com/clubhouse/2013/01/27/jackson-strong-loses-control-of-snowmobile-at-winter-x-games-flies-into-crowd/?mj3tq62shIAM42mJ.99

No sir, empathy and tolerance go hand-in-hand, I'm not a fucking out-of-touch dinosaur- I ALSO recognize that racism is an issue that garners that gut-reaction simply from seeing the word typed or written on a page with certain types of peeps too distracted by ancillary clap-trap (pretentious, insincere, or empty verbiage) to have any effect whatsoever on the world of the "real", whatever one perceives that to be.

I see Colin Powell's talk of racism in the republican party as a complete non-issue as in, "Why should I give a fuck about this Uncle Tom, proverbial, "house-nigger" who acted anything like a general or statesman when he addressed the U.N. in a rambling justification for bankrupting the country into the Gulf War(s)-He should regret his actions under Bush and go fuck himself into obscurity and stay the fuck out of politics forever, kinna like Nixon when he bellied-up and bailed-out before impeachment, and was subsequently pardoned by that OTHER ineffectual tool, Gerald Ford.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/13/colin-powell-regrets-u-n-speech-justifying-the-iraq-invasion/

The fantasy world I speak of you refuse to consider though under your nose where it rests and obfuscates world view.

The New World Order is happening, it's the mechanism of disinformation, obfuscation, world economic manipulation, etc, that has you right where you don't want to be, a willing slave, complicit in the breakdown of human societies worldwide. Welcome to the Matrix Wendy, enjoy your preoccupation with guns, racism, and voting booths


Oh, and for the record once again, I am apolitical and believe the parties democrat and republican interchangeable, and the equally meaningless terminology of political discourse in light of the fistfuck being perpetrated on all nations of the world, a complete and pathetic distraction.
The goddamn whore of Babylon wants your mind, money, and muscle and you're standing in line to be first on the train, in my , "fantastic" world of illusion.

People, people, people. Walmart is not the REASON the entire civilised world is finding itself in this situation - walmart is a symptom of the problem.

Walmart is an organisation motivated by profit just like any other.

I heard energy companies posting record profits year in and year out before the recession. There's people at the upper ends of those kinds of companies taking wages, bonuses, pensions and god-knows-what that some people couldn't make in 10 years. They don't deserve it, they don't work 10 times harder then the next person down, but there is a culture of taking what you can.

People don't need that kind of wealth, they just want it. Now, in times of hardship, energy companies are demanding more money for their services because they are no longer making the profit they used to. Instead of relying on the wealth that they have amassed during times of good, they rely on us to give them more.

So they cut a load of jobs to maximise their profits, but now the people they fired can't afford their energy bills. And this is going on all over the place - it isn't just the energy companies, it's also walmart with whatever schemes they've got. It's the oil companies and the politicians with whatever schemes they've got.

And all these schemes intermix, people losing jobs, people unable to afford this here and there because we've stagnated our money, there was no trickle down wealth, it's stagnated so much that there's not enough available anymore to share between the people that need it.

So now the government starts giving out handouts to the elderly or unemployed - £300 for your winter heating bill. But that's a huge amount of money so we need to raise taxes - which is a solution to nothing but puts the problem further ahead and maybe you can work harder later to make up for it.

Meanwhile, half the jobs that are getting taxed are now moved abroad because production is cheaper there. So entire markets of jobs no longer exist, we lost all of our car manufacturers, coal mines (it's cheaper from china), etc. which amounts to millions of jobs, and there's not a lot left to tax. What's the solution now? Which country do we bail out with borrowed money that is earning interest? If the untold billions in profit was returned to the customers back when times were good, we wouldn't be in this situation. But instead it went towards making let's say 30 individual people a lot richer.

Do you see where i'm going with this? It's a culture of greed, and each point down the line there is just enough intentional maneuverability for people to take more than you deserve and/or need; you either are in the clique, in the power scheme, taking cash - or you're not and you're holding up the facade. This isn't what a society is meant to be - it's meant to be a group of people working for their own common benefit because when we don't we all suffer and no one is happy.

This model has a short life-cycle; the eventual result is a few people having a lot of little bits of green paper that don't mean anything because they've forced everyone into abject poverty.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in."
It doesn't get any simpler than that. Until these old men start planting some trees and giving a LOT back, we will stagnate and you don't want to learn this implied lesson the hard way.

This may be the case but it isn't what is going on here.

This initiative is buying distressed debt only, that is, the organisation who gave the loan has decided the cost of attempting to reclaim that loan or the chances of reclaiming a significant amount is futile. So they do sell the actual loan for cheap, to debt collectors, who employ more drastic measures than larger organisations want connected to them. (speculation, I'm not familiar with why these are more attractive to debt collectors).

Rolling Jubilee acts as the debt collector but doesn't collect, it buys the loan and cancels it. Then it hopes these people with cancelled debts, come back and donate a little, now that they have less burden.

That is the general idea, granted when people hear "loan", they think mortgage but this isn't the case here. Rolling Jubilee is unlikely (or never will) enter that area. They will be buying personal loans, medical loans etc. Smaller loans. It is already outlined how better performing loans, such as student loans, are off the table.

However from my understanding, it relies on the IRS remaining co-operative and for the regulations to stay within these bounds that keep it legal and charitable. So the cancelled loans are not counted as profit against Rolling Jubilee, at which point it all crumbles.

It has some merit but it also has a lot of downfalls and it also does jack shit to Wall St or banks, that is misdirected attention to garner support I gather.

(My understanding, could be incorrect)

P.S. Also it should be noted this is hardly for the 99%, it is for a much smaller percentage of the 99% who fail to pay their loans, good loans are not sold off. So really, this is the less troubled 99& bailing out the 99%'s further down on the scale. It basically boils down to a charity, it just abusing some loose regulations.

>> ^Edgeman2112:

Granted, I know little about this and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure they're getting mortgages and mortgage-backed securities mixed up.
The mortgage is a loan. You owe 200,000 on the loan at 4% interest. This is debt.
The mortgage-backed security is a derivative; Theoretically it's a piece of paper whose value is derived based on that mortgage and the credit score associated with it. It's like stock in a company.
When they talk about doing away with debt, that's paying off the mortgage.
When they talk about buying 1,000,000$s worth of mortgages for 50,000$, they think they're also referring to the mortgage, but I'm pretty sure it's actually the leveraged mortgage-backed security. Buying those securities doesn't give you ownership of the loan. There is still 200,000$ that was lent by a bank out there. It doesn't just convert to 50,000$.

Hey bob, in case you forgot, Obama won. Just a friendly reminder. You guys lost.

Loser.>> ^bobknight33:

What stupid logic. Obama voters for sure.

Thanks brother!
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