the problem is his view is over simplified and thus invalidating his point

, all tax money and bail out mony is solely befitting rich people
, mony has been given to taliban/ militent groups in an effort for the usa goverment to get what they want

both those things are true to an extent but giving money to militant groups dosent automatically mean you are funding the Taliban / funding people to shoot at you ( although sometimes it dose and historically usa is good at mucking it up )

government regulation of money and tax to try and sort out the mess of banks and businesses doesn't automatically mean money to rich people. although im sure a good deal of money has ended up going to the super rich , im also sure a good deal or at least some has actually helped every day people .


If this guy only more clearly made his argument and made less sweeping statements then id be inclined to bother to listen to him.

the other thing is there is no benefit for man to physically be in space not for another 150 years or so when we have working technologies that sustain human life cheaply on earth yet alone in space, we should focus space money on probes, telescopes , and varouse experiments not wasting it on keeping humans alive up there. ( makes more sence to do the most experiments in the cheapest and quickest way , then once that's done fire people at the sun)

This guy is so un-republican. He's NOT:

1) White
2) Old
3) Super Rich
4) Afraid of Socialistic Communism (how that works, I dont know)
5) Cares about those in his district
6) Has a spine

Yeah, this guy is so going to turn Democrat. Mr. Micheal Steele, 'head guy' for the GOP announced before this vote, that if anyone supported it, there would be harsh consequences. Well, Mr. Steele, is just a 'yes' man of his party. Someone that does what ever his GOP Masters tell him to do or say. I guess its rather sad when one thinks about it, with Mr. Steele. He's no more an a true American, then his Ancestor in bondage back before the Civil War on the plantations...

I find it funny that they acuse obama of doing things that the bush goverment did more of , interms of legislation the bush government is far more guilty of passing bills that don't benefit anyone other than super rich people. the bush govemrnt has allso passed bills that removed lots of freedome and have probably made usa more of a targit for terorisum.

rush must know he is lying maby he is payed to say what he says ?

The US is sold, sealed an delivered. People will die young (or continue to die) so the 'healthcare' corps can keep robbing them.
And this monster knows the truth but looks into the lens and and helps the super rich keep feeding off the morons.

If you are dumb enough to fall for this, some in America (O'Reilley included probably) would say you deserve an painful, early death without medical care.

But I don't. Even the dumbest, least educated, most opinionated buffoon is still a person who will suffer in private misery when the truth finally dawns, and then to find themselves only surrounded by blinkered greedy bigots is worse than dying, it means you're already in hell.
Are there no humanitarians anymore in America? How about human beings?

Shit like this makes me want to become super rich and famous, build the world's best treehouse and then put a sign that says 'No Leonardo DiCaprios' on the outside.

I felt pretty one sided but a few seconds in I realized I'd heard something about this before. This is about tax values, and in that part of the country simply having a certain view off your deck can put you out of your house because you won't be able to pay what the assessor says you should. Some of these people are literally staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes per year and they didn't all pay top dollar when they moved in (meaning they're not all super rich). I think they must all be in on it to save some money. It is a pretty sweet apartment/garage but because of where it is located it is going to be a huge cash drain because of the taxes.

Have the super rich abandoned Obama? Right before the election took place, opinion polls showed that most Americans with yearly incomes of $250k or more supported Obama over McCain. I'd like to know what they think now though. Do they regret voting for Obama?

Civics lesson for blankfist: Our Democratic style of government is of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE and for the PEOPLE. When we give parts of our country away to the super-rich, it does not make us any more responsible or any more free. On the contrary, it strips away freedom, transparency, oversight and control. What you suggest is feudalism, which is fine, if that is what you want to believe. Just don't mistake feudalism for freedom, you fucking serf. (the smiley means I'm not mad, mr. sensitive)

^Why do people shut off their ability to reason when discussing teachers? Could it be that right-wing think tanks have been at the throat of every social service that doesn't directly benefit the super-rich for 3 decades now? Probably, and apparently they've been successful, since it is generally acceptable to bash an entire profession without any empirical evidence or even basic logic.

So let me simplify:

More Experience > Less Experience
Professional > Non-Professional
More Competition > Less Competition

Do you disagree with this?

Logically, here is how teachers would be ranked in terms of general quality based on this (hopefully) uncontroversial logic.

1. High level Prep Schools
2. Public Schools/Charter Schools
3. Private Schools/Catholic Schools
4. Home-school

That's not to say that there aren't good home-school teachers and terrible prep school teachers, but generally, the more you pay a position, the more competitive that position becomes. Major League baseball players > minor league baseball players. No controversy there, right?

I have no doubt that swampgirl is a great teacher. She has all of the qualities that make a teacher great: smart, thoughtful, inquisitive, confident, principled, good with words, quirky and funny. I would guess that she has probably grown to respect teachers more, rather than less over the course of her own teaching. Teaching just a handful of kids poses plenty of challenges, let alone dealing with hundreds. I'm thankful to have read her writings on home-schooling, as I'd only been familiar with the 'religious shut in' variety before.

Anyway, I didn't really want to jump into this conversation until I saw the teacher bashing. It's a noble profession that is under assault from the same people that brought you the Iraq War, Wiretapping, torture and the biggest national debt in history. Whether they teach home-school or school-school, teachers are the good guys.

And its all going to be Obamas fault, amirite ???
Republicans were running this show for the past 8 years, a stead decline of income from middle/low class and the largest concentration of wealth in the history of the US.

Tax breaks on top of tax breaks for the super rich, coupled with mega de-regulation, and wanting yet more deregulation....but its all Obama's fault, right ?

And he hasn't even been elected yet...worst president thats not even in power yet.

Those top 1% presumably don't work in the government...



does the administration really matter that much?
Isn't it more likely that a ruling class of civil servants and functionaries makes it all happen, otherwise democracy would mean - having an official revolution every four years.


Oh, the "super-rich" were for Obama (an they don't care about taxes, according to the poll)
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/10/13/the-rich-support-mccain-the-super-rich-support-obama/?mod=MostPopular



perhaps feudalism is the answer. I like feudalism.

Basically those who appose reducing tax on most while raising it a bit on the super wealthy fit into one of two camps:

* They already earn over $250K and so are selfish pricks who want to keep every last cent of their money even though they would hardly notice the difference.
OR
* They don't earn that much, and so would actually be better off under the scheme BUT are under the delusion that they too will one day be super rich, and when they are, well dangit, they want to keep every last cent for themselves.

They are the only two camps, both are selfish and wrong.

>> ^jwray:
^ Downvoted for inability to put a coherent sentence together.
Income has diminishing returns. The difference between making 2 million a year and making 1 million a year is a very small amount of happiness compared to the difference between making $15K a year and making $30K a year. The poor have a lot to gain from socialism, and 60% income taxes in the top bracket would hardly affect the lifestyles of the super-rich. Market fundamentalists need to take a real economics course that deals with externalities. Not being able to afford healthy food, education, or doctors causes loss of productivity.


Not being able to afford those things is the result of inflation debasing wages, and price fixing of interest rates by the Federal Reserve. Not to mention utter irresponsibility of citizens to stop parroting for their party for a second to go do some real research to learn about this nonsense. Both of these are socialist policies embraced by most politicians of either camp calling themselves whatever and far from free market ideals. This borrow and spend economy full of business/government collusion simply would not have been possible in an environment with gold-backed money and no Federal Reserve. Some crooked old CEO somewhere driving his company into bankruptcy only benefits the companies who didn't going forward, and it pales in comparison to trillions of dollars being created at no labor or material cost, and repeatedly spiking the punchbowl with artificial interest rates as our communist central bank has done for decades now. This time, there's no Volcker or creditor base to get them out of their mistake. As the market has become less and less free, we've gone from the world's largest creditor nation with savings and the highest rate of individual charity to a nation with the most debt, unfunded liabilities, a negative savings rate, and a 70 billion a month trade deficit. If foreigners finally bail out of our bonds, they will sell products to themselves and reduce us to squalor. Socialist enablements like price fixing and monopolization of money and industry have turned this country's money in confetti and driven companies overseas to avoid the taxrates and anti-competitive redistribution of those taxes through subsidies and tax credits. This economy IS your government "directed, regulated" economy. And like the USSR before it, it has come tumbling down. The whole risk/reward system has been perverted. We reward bad behavior and punish savers, incentivize risk by backstopping it with the unlimited promises of inflation via the FDIC, the whole damn thing just distorts normal self-regulatory thinking. There's no fear of bankruptcy anymore, you may as well just load up with toxic debt for short term profits.

Do yourself a favor and listen to these clips of Ron Paul's brilliant economics advisor from years ago. Stop listening to the people who didn't see it coming in any way, shape, or form. Because as John Loeffler says, "if they didn't see it coming, they won't know what to do when it gets here."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhJaVEWAG24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucDkoqwflF4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3Qefbt0n4

^ Downvoted for inability to put a coherent sentence together.

Income has diminishing returns. The difference between making 2 million a year and making 1 million a year is a very small amount of happiness compared to the difference between making $15K a year and making $30K a year. The poor have a lot to gain from socialism, and 60% income taxes in the top bracket would hardly affect the lifestyles of the super-rich. Market fundamentalists need to take a real economics course that deals with externalities. Not being able to afford healthy food, education, or doctors causes loss of productivity.

We can disagree about Al Jazeera. They've improved in the last year or two, but they lost my trust a while ago and will have to do a lot to regain it.

I certainly agree that big Corporations (international and domestic) need to be hacked up a bit. They have far to much power and influence. I do NOT however buy that they control whether the US goes to war or not. I do NOT believe Iraq was about oil. We haven't seen a drop of it and it has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, a tremendous amount of lives, and more popularity and international influence. Anti-war activists and leftists love to say oil oil oil as much as they can to make those that supported the war look like evil corporate sell-outs. It's a very common political partisan warfare technique VERY often utilized by the left. (The right has its own devious techniques, but the left has mastered this particular one.) Anyway, arguing Iraq is a dead stalemate every time, so it's pointless to go on about it. Bottom line, corps have too much power, but not all the power, AND not all corporations are run by demons bent on greed at all costs. You need a certain breed of board members for that sort of heartlessness.

"Ordinary People" don't want war. That is true. But they do want certain things to be and others not to be and they don't want to be the ones responsible for what it takes to make those things be or not be. For example. The west (primarily America at this point) sees the sudden rise and dominance of staunch Islamic culture in western Europe and does not like what it sees. America is all for religious freedom--heck, we were founded on the concept--but America also values secular governing as well as some level of assimilation of immigrants. In other words, come to America, but if you don't want to be an American, if you want to be a somewhere-else-ian living in America trying to impose somewhere-else-ia's laws, please stay in somewhere-else-ia. Makes sense. America has a set of values, laws, and traditions it holds dear. Seeing sections of western European nations suddenly under a pseudo-official Sharia Law makes most Americans cringe and worry about their rights and their culture. Americans say, "we don't want that in our nation" but they don't want to be responsible for preventing it (or other things). People love to protest things while reaping their benefits. Sad state of affairs. (I'm not saying that example was a war-related one, but it fits otherwise.) One of the major functions of governments and leaders is to make unpopular decisions that are necessary. They lose popularity and even become demonized by some, but the job is done and the public can benefit and still feel innocent about it.

As for the US and S Ossentia? 1%. That is the amount of western oil that comes through that pipeline. We don't need it. We wouldn't START a fight over it, but we would defend it against an aggressor as it is in fact of western interest. We didn't need to fight over it as it was in no danger and we were in no way in danger of losing it. America has no vested interest in S Ossentia. A 1% loss in supply is barely a hick-up, especially as oil demand is now decreasing here at a record pace.

As for America moving ships closer to Iran? GOOD!! Iran has repeated threatened to shut down a HUGE tanker route. Since Israel is scared to death (and rightly so) that they might get nuked in the next couple years, which fits with Ahmadinejad's 12th Imam religious views, they might wind up attacking Iran's uranium enrichment plants. It will CERTAINLY happen if Iran tests a nuclear weapon as N.Korea recently did. If that happens, we still need that route open. If Iran shuts it down, that's a major problem for us here, even if we don't drop a single bomb in that country. This is an almost inevitable confrontation. The USA MUST not fire any first shots though. Not this time. Not ever again. However, did we start this devastating war in Georgia to move our ships? No. That idea REQUIRES that you believe that all those with power in the US are truly evil mass-murders, plain and simple, purely literally. It is fine to think that we may have taken advantage of the situation to make a tactical move, but starting it for that end is a little off the charts. Having forces in an allied nation is not surprising. That does NOT by any means mean we started it or encouraged it in any way shape or form. That leap is loaded with fallacies.

I am far too long winded.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
Al Jazeera is an excellent source of news, many BBC journalists work with them and two British journos I know speak very highly to their integrity.

I do indeed distrust the US government as much as I distrust the British government, and I have lived through a 30 year conflict with the British that has opened my eyes to the propaganda regarding international affairs in British news, including the BBC.

It's not a case of me buying into any particular news story. The US has a military presence there to protect oil interests - that's a plain fact. That's what rings the alarm bells for me when suddenly there's a conflict.

It's not about assigning blame, I'm not interested in trying to show where blame lies. That's a childish game and a distraction. Bush is not the emperor at all, I do not believe for a second that Bush is in control of anything whatsoever, the idea that the man is a statesman running a country is plainly ridiculous. He is as much a puppet of corporate America as the Shah in Iran was before the people rose up and put him out of power.

It's all about perception - *why* do you think it is that the same people who think that America blew up the towers to start a war are the people who believe America is behind this conflict? What is at the heart of that perception? It's because the official version of events doesn't ring true to people who have lived through propaganda in their own country.

What is happening in Russia is part of the wider global conflict involving the superpowers, and it's all over resources and investments on a scale that ordinary people can barely comprehend. Russia, China and America/UK are slowly hardening their military and strategic positions around the world.

I don't know the reason why, it could be the beginning of the merging of the 4 big monetary unions into a global economy and central bank/government, it could be that each of them wants greater regional control of the planet, it could be that they are all working together toward a single goal, it could be that they are preparing to go up against each other.

Ordinary people do not want war, the only people who benefit are the super rich and the powerful. Russia rolled mini battlefield nukes into S Ossetia last night, and while the masses of the planet including you and me debate about what is really going on and who is at fault, people are getting slaughtered.

Maybe it's time we put our time and efforts into really trying to get people to talk about peace. Enough really is enough.

Thanks for your message




In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
Taking the last part first, I disagree. That aside, I get news from quite a few sources. I am painfully aware of the bias on both sides of these sources. However, based on study, I trust some more than others. For example, Al Jazeera... black listed, "opinion journalists"... suspect, Al Franken and Sean Hanity... grudge match? That's entertainment. My statement that a need for loathing was required to buy this new story 3 days after the war suddenly and almost inexplicably begain was not meant to offend but merely to exaggerate the point that people who tend to distrust the US tend to blame everything in the world on them, even when the coals aren't even ready for burgers. These are the same people who think we detonated our own buildings to start a war over oil, when neither of those clauses is true.

News on this current struggle is so mired in propaganda and selective publication right now, it is hard to make heads or tails of who is at fault, but blaming the US and namely the Bush Admin. is so predictable a cop-out it's cliche anymore. Bush is not the Emperor Palpatine and America is not the Galactic Empire. heh.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
It seems they are outing America anyway, Osettians are claiming that the 'west' is behind the Georgian attacks - being reported now on BBC and international news. Of course there is no way for you or I to know one way or the other.

Why do I have to assume a hatred and loathing of America? I'm not claiming anything, and I'm not narrow minded or naive enough to only post news clips which I happen to believe or which happen to fit my own personal ideaology. No need to be defensive. It's not people like us who are making these things happen, we are mere bystanders.

I'm trying to get all the news I can as it rolls in, watching it unfold on the news in different countries gives you a much wider picture rather than sticking to one single news source. The *way* it's being reported in different countries is *as* interesting, if not *more* interesting than the content of the reports.

You aren't convinced by this because you have a preconceived notion that it is 'ludicrous'. That's your culture talking, not you.

In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
I'm not convinced. It still appears to me to be conspiracy theory hogwash. In my eyes, it would require a SERIOUS loathing of America to assume such a thing is true on a whim. America did not "orchestrate" any Georgian action. That's just ludicrous. They would out us since they're being obliterated at the moment, since we're not helping. You have to assume that America is EVIL in order to assume these things. If a naval move is made at the same time, than it is because America is taking the opportunity that has been laid before them. Prime time for easy action.

In reply to this comment by Irishman:
It sounds like it, but it isn't...

http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&q=warships%20gulf&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn



In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
>> ^Memorare:
read an article today suggesting the aggressive move by Georgia was orchestrated by the US as a strategic diversion to keep Russia busy during a naval blockade of Iran. shrug


Sounds like a bunch of conspiracy theory crap to me. Propaganda.