The United States of America is officially completely DEAD now. We can all go home and shake our heads at an experiment only 234 years old with apparently wonderful lofty ideals that has now succumbed finally to the forces of greed & viciousness. The final nail in the coffin was delivered by none other than that slimy insidious double agent for the Filthy Rich running the United States, Barack Obama.
It seemed such a fine idea at the time. People electing their rulers. *Sigh*
If you were referring to his recent compromise on taxes, here's my take on this. I've been saying since the beginning that the reason I supported Hillary over Obama was because I thought Obama was too conservative for my taste. I don't know why the hell so many liberals think Obama was a liberal when it's been clear since he first came on the political stage that he was a moderate. There's never any doubt in my mind that he's always been a moderate.
In other words, many, if not most, liberals have been living under the illusion that they got a liberal president. And they are not alone in this. Conservatives also have been living under the illusion that Obama was a liberal president.
That said, if Obama's compromise is really what I think it is, then this is the most ingenius political move I've ever seen in my life time. Hahahaha. In fact, I'm glad Obama is not as short-sighted as most of his support base.
I'll tell you this much. In 2 years, the conservatives will find themselves in a whole lot of trouble LOL
In other words, many, if not most, liberals have been living under the illusion that they got a liberal president. And they are not alone in this. Conservatives also have been living under the illusion that Obama was a liberal president.
I said something like that 2 years ago, everyone I knew, left or right wing said I was nuts. Guess I wasn't!?
There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008
The way I see it, the illusion came from the fact that we got an ultra-conservative as president the previous 8 years. When Obama came around, everyone was comparing him to Bush. Of course he looked like a liberal. Most people would look like a liberal around that dumbass.
Here is a youtube video of the president's speech on this compromise.
Notice how he dissed republicans. Again, he doesn't seem to be short-sighted like most liberals out there. Making this compromise is the best thing he's ever done to bring down republican popularity. In fact, I have no doubt that in 2 years republican popularity will take a nosedive as a result of this compromise.
Added by edit.
And you could see it this way. Obama's willingness to compromise is exactly the change Obama's been campagning about. Can anyone name a single compromise Bush made?
I mean, the Republicans on one hand scream to balance the budget and on the other scream to save their precious lily white fat asses from the "painful" expiration of the Bush tax cut ("oh horrors, I might have to cut back on how many tropical islands I'm buying this week"). Then agree to give 13 more weeks of unemployment benefits. In 3 months the whole thing is over. Obama agrees to this. It's like "I'm starving and could use some food - oh, here we go, let me barf out the little bit of food I have - yeah, that will solve my hunger." Or, gee, my refrigerator doesnt have enough food in it - hey, here's an idea, why don't i just throw out some more food.
Since this is obviously a laughably logic, there must be some other reason Obama let the criminals get an even bigger slice of the pie. He is one of them himself! What other explanation is there? He is a Republican in Democrat clothing. He is indeed the "Magic Negro" - for the Filthy Rich running this world. Looking at the Democrats in office, IN FACT, it would appear that most of them (99%) are but more lackeys for their world masters (all 100% of the Republicans are, or else they are the rulers wearing 2 hats already).
I look at Dennis Kucinich and wonder if he isn't a plant that they allowed to get elected so that he could be an ineffectual mouthpiece for all that is correct & good & virtuous & nice, while agreeing to be publically vilified & badmouthed & laughed over politically. For his sacrifice he gets a Hot Wife to fuck. Would I make that trade? Dennis says all the right things, but he is so discredited that nothing will happen, no matter what he says. Then he goes home to his Hot Wife.
And what to make of the guy that I like the most, Bernie Sanders? Is he about to be assassinated? No - that would raise too many eyebrows. Just like Jim Garrison. No - they will get him on some faked-up charge, probably come up with something very devastating, like a pedophilia rumor - even paying off some kid to play the part.
I am a democratic socialist today, but I hasten to point out that communism has never been tried - every attempt was immediately usurped by totalitarianism before it could get off the ground. However, I don't believe in the full tenants of communism. I believe that both capitalism and communism need to be present. The USA was too much leaning over to capitalism, before it became the Fascist State it now is. Think of a circle. At the bottom, appropriately is dictatorship as exemplified by Hitler, Stalin, and so forth. Call the bottom 180 degrees wrong. What is 0 degrees? Sweden? Norway? Germany? They all have their defects. The United States is currently about at 100 degrees to the right, well below the line of 90 degrees where Fascism assumes the rule. Communism, as I see it, if it ever does get implemented somewhere, would be about 280 degrees, or north of *#what??#*, Cuba? no. China? Maybe, although are so many egregious things going on there, plus their psychotic allegiance with the fuckers of International Corporate Power.
No - in these times, sadly, Fascism is winning everywhere.
It seems a huge problem with the "chicken crap" tax deal that Obama brokered is being overlooked by most press.
It contains a "temporary" reduction in the SSI payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%. It is for one year only and does not get rid of the cap (for those who don't know, you only pay SSI on the first $106K of income. Anything beyond that is not taxed. This is why the claim that Social Security is "in crisis" is a load of hooey: Get rid of the cap and it will be solvent forever.)
While this would put about $120B into the economy and into the hands of those who need it most to stimulate the economy (the poor who would immediately spend it on the necessities of living, creating demand and thus jobs), let us not fall for the short term gain.
In one year, we will hear the same Republicans whining about this "tax increase" that they are now bitching about regarding their own tax measure that they specifically set to expire after 10 years. The Bush tax cuts were deliberately set to sunset but now they claim that doing so is a "tax increase." Now, they're planning on doing the same thing to Social Security.
Note the insidiousness: First, they reduce the money going into SSI and then they plan to demand that this reduction in revenue be made permanent. They've been trying to dismantle SSI ever since it was created. This really would kill it.
Fortunately, Democratic opposition to the chicken crap tax bill is in the triple digits in the House and some Senators are also signing on, including Sanders who claims he will fillibuster if required.
Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
quote:I hasten to point out that communism has never been tried
Bullshit. It's been tried many times from the small scale (Amana, Oneida) to the large scale (Soviet Union, Cuba, China). It does not work. The whine of, "But that's not really communism," is nothing more than the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
What you say is, of course, bullshit on top of an already big pile of bullshit.
Try to imagine this. Suppose we have a primitive society that has absolutely no engineers around. So, one day a philosopher decides that in order for the society to be able to effectively build up its infrastructure and such, it needs people who specializes in designing and overseeing construction projects. This society needs engineers. Sounds easy enough, right? But there's a catch. These engineers must be learned individuals. These individuals must first meet certain criteria to become engineers. They need to at least know, you guessed it, structural engineering.
So, a group of farmers one day decides to declare themselves engineers. They got together and design this humongous structure to be built by workers. Nevermind the fact that these former farmers didn't know the first thing about engineering, but hey they've declared themselves engineers so they must be engineers. The structure collapses half way through, and so everyone decides that engineering just doesn't work.
By now, you should be able to see the connection I'm trying to make. According to the theory of communism, a society must first meet certain criteria before it could progress to communism. ALL epxeriments with communism in the past have failed because these societies did not meet the criteria before they tried to be communist. You can't go straight from a feudalistic society into a communist society. And that's exactly what China and Russia were before they tried communism.
So, yes, technically communism have been tried many times in the past and have failed. But none of those societies met the critieria. It's like taking a bunch of farmers and labeling them engineers. Just because we unanymously agree that these former farmers are now engineers doesn't mean they know jack shit about engineering.
And Oneida understood exactly what they were doing.
Neither one is with us anymore. Oneida was founded the same year that Marx published his Manifesto. Now, I am hardly implying that Oneida was based upon Marxism. However, their methodology regarding their economic policies follows closely and it isn't surprising that the same idea comes up in multiple places given the state of society at the time.
Amana in the US was about the same time (1850s). They're not with us anymore, either.
But all this posturing aside, there is no such thing as "true" economic anything. Life is much too complex for that. That's why the US has a lot of "socialist" aspects to it like the interstate highway system, the fire and police departments, the FCC, etc. The reason that rail transportation was able to do as well as it did is because government stepped in and regulated the physical method of track. Private rail companies would deliberately have different widths for the track which meant that cars could only run on certain tracks and thus using the companies for those tracks meant you couldn't use certain rail lines. By enforcing a standard, rail transportation expanded.
If you're going to claim that the countries and societies commonly understood as "communist" aren't "really" so, then you're going to have to say that the US isn't "really" capitalist, either.
Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
The whine of, "But that's not really communism," is nothing more than the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Concede. Still though, democratic socialism has worked very well it seems, from my vantage point (safely on the fairway, as the computer golfing game would put it).
Bullshit. It's been tried many times from the small scale (Amana, Oneida) to the large scale (Soviet Union, Cuba, China). It does not work. The whine of, "But that's not really communism," is nothing more than the No True Scotsman fallacy.
You forgot Yugoslavia where id did work sure there where some faults tough the standard of the people was something Americans can dream about, ok there was a "for life president/dictator" tough he got voted to be one and without him it would have fallen apart before it got started as it did after he died, our problem was that Yugoslavia was composed of 6 nations who hate each other, 3 religions who do not like each other.
The same idea of unification failed a few times before Tito. We had SHS (Slovenians Croatians Serbs) then a new SHS (kingdom of Serbs Croatians, Slovenians) kingdom of Yugoslavia and only after that Yugoslavia after the death of Tito no new idea of unification came because after his death shit started to hit the fan we Slovenians went independent we prepared so the Serbs tried with ware for 10 days they lost 1 man all the others got captured, the Croatians where not that lucky lack of preparation and scheming to split Bosnia between the 2 of them, let the Serbs get a foothold so the ware lasted 4-5 years, during the ware the Muslims payed the heaviest toll genocide. Now there is too much bad blood to try anything we hate the Croatians for letting the Serbs trough (the idiots), and for the border that was never truly established there was only a temporary border. The Croats hate the Serbs for the ware and the Serbs cant afford to hate anyone cause their economy is in such deep shit.
And there is one slightly big flaw in communism it has to be fully self sufficient, because of a lack of export all import ways heavily on the country. Or that the better welfare support awakens the greed and stupidity of some they found it was easier or better to do nothing and live of the welfare then to go to work. Not to mention the stupidity of some communist leaders, that have no idea what they are doing, for example the communist country under Cuba split a very large pieces of land to a whole bunch of farmers the idea sounded good at the time the only problem is that that land is only good to raise cattle, the inexperienced farmers raise all sorts of stuff on land pieces to small to support their own family so the whole country lacks food.
A true system that would be for the good of the people would have to be some sort of a mix between capitalism, communism, and socialism. The money to run it would come from the capitalist side, the essential goods like food would come from the communist side (state run large farms), the health care, education,.. would come from the socialism side.
If you're going to claim that the countries and societies commonly understood as "communist" aren't "really" so, then you're going to have to say that the US isn't "really" capitalist, either.
Actually, as of December 6th, 2010, the United States became a Fascist State.
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