Can we parse the 'rich' at least a little bit ??

Bill and Melinda Gates are sending upwards of 50 billion of their own filthy lucre towards some good causes, and they impressed Warren Buffet sufficiently he is sending them a comparable amount to add to their kitty.

I'd like to think Bill and Melinda and Warren might be at least on the second page of the list of people to be first to go up in front of the death squads.

Maybe they can dig the trenches for the bodies?  Leniency for good behavior.

(September 20, 2015 at 3:50 am)abaris Wrote:

(September 19, 2015 at 10:03 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: They worked for a decent paper, The Washington Post.  Do not confuse The Washington Times with The Washington Post, or you will be confusing garbage with something worth reading.

Oh, I misread. I thought it said Washington Post.

That sort of thing can be quite confusing, as there is no standard name for a decent paper in different cities.  In New York, it is the Times that is the most respectable paper, but in DC, it is the Post.  (That is, The New York Times is the respectable local paper in New York, and The Washington Post is the respectable local paper in DC.)

I support Bernie.  He has championed every cause and platform that I support.  His platform does not come from any religious ideologies.

(September 19, 2015 at 10:25 pm)Chad32 Wrote:

(September 19, 2015 at 7:11 pm)tjakey Wrote: I will vote or Sanders, if he makes it to the finals, for no other reason but to listen to the Wingers in this country go completely bat shit crazy.  Other than that though, I will probably be far away on election day and not bother.  Anyone who thinks that this country can be saved by an election is, in my humble opinion, living a fantasy.  At some point a system is too badly broken to be fixed.  Progress will only come when that system is replaced by something new.  Any election that does nothing but put Democrats and Republicans in the White House, the Senate, and the House, will just be more of the same old system.

Light me up a revolution.  Put millions of Americans in the streets calling for resignations, trials, imprisonments, and wide spread removal of the elite in power.  Have them rampage through the SC building, haul the Justices who voted for Citizen United before a tribunal and have them tried for treason.  Actually Occupy Wall Street this time, haul that bronze bull out and throw it in the Bay, shut down the Market until the Big Banks are busted up, and have the CEOs doing perp-walks while Faux news goes dark because the FCC pulled their operating ticket in fear of the protesters paralyzing DC and chasing winger governors out of State Houses across the nation.  Write and approve a new Constitution.  The old one gave us the nation we see now, steeped in elitism, crony capitalism, war mongering, violence, racism, and misogyny.

Start any of that and I might think something is finally happening.  Otherwise it will just be the US fading into the dustbin of history.  The only real question is what comes next, and how it arrives.  But it will not arrive on the back of a sham election put on by a sham democracy, were the voters are a people buried in propaganda and unable to tell fact from fiction.

We may not be too far from that. The rich can't keep leeching a country dry of money forever. Eventually there will be an uprising.

I don't intend to bet on that.  While I agree there comes a time to oil up the guillotines, it should be a last resort.  Given the realities at work today I think progress by incremental degree is much, much, much better than the continued deterioration of the middle and working* class which we can count on to the degree republican power increases.  Eventually there may be an uprising but rest assured you will have more to regret than celebrate.  A civilized if slow take over is to be preferred.

* So sad that there is such a wide spread difference between working and middle class. Working full time should never necessitate government aid to supplement cheapskate businesses.

I'm not trying to say I'd prefer a revolution to happen, but if we cant fix the system through proper elections, there isn't much left. It's like when police crack down on peaceful protesters. If you don't allow people to protest through civilized means, there's going to be violence. Even if you think the poor are no better than dogs, even a dog will bite back if you hit it enough.

(September 18, 2015 at 7:01 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: How can anyone take an avowed socialist, the most discredited modern ideology, seriously?
Or Hillary, the most obviously corrupt and conniving politician since Nixon, who has accomplished exactly zero?
And now some are calling for captain gaff Biden?

Seriously, is this the best the Democratic party can offer, two old white guys and bitter mean-spirited old white woman?

I'm seriously with you on Hillary. I'd rather see Trump as POTUS first. The only people who've EVER compared with Hillary are Reagan and fucking NIXON of all people. She is pure oily snake.

She is what ambition looks like. And it scares me. So yeah, if it comes down to a Hillary vs Trump sort of battle? I'll vote Trump.

But, I'd prefer that old white democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders It actually takes someone like him for someone like me to be remotely interested in voting. Above all: I despise corruption, and the enabling and allowance of further corruption, with no accountability.

Sanders is many things to many people... but I agree with him on some things, and am willing to compromise with him on others... and I, for one, would like to be proud of my country, and while we're so utterly backwards on so many things: that's not a feeling I'm likely to ever associate with the 'Good Ol' USA. 

Besides. If a critical mass support for these issues can be reached, and the american public can be remotely arsed... there's the potential to enact change, even if corporations and rich fucks want to keep the same old same old going forever until the very value of the dollar is sucked out and shipped overseas, and the government crumbles from all of the loopholes. Voting for Bernie Sanders isn't so much voting for the man... it's for what the man represents. So, if someone were to assassinate Bernie Sanders, it'd have a rather martyristic effect.

(September 19, 2015 at 1:13 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: You cannot can lay the decline of the Middle Class all at the feet of the Republican party. The Congressional Republicans only make show votes. Obama has pretty much gotten every thing he's wanted. Even then, I'm entirely convinced that the very existence of a 'middle class' isn't just a historical anomaly. Perhaps, the rich-poor divide is the default position and trying to cling to the model of how we think things should be versus how they actually work may blind us to other possible, perhaps even more effective, social orders.


I mean, in the West we have already largely solved the problem of absolute poverty. Our poor have cable television, cell phones, and indoor plumbing. What we have now is relative poverty in which the poor do have enough to live but just not as much as others that unsurprisingly live better. Any remaining absolute poverty is largely the result of poor decisions, mental illness, or evil. Those problems require a different kind of intervention that 'basic income'.

I wouldn't lay the absurd decline of the Middle Class at the feet of anyone except for the very rich and the depressedly downtrodden. Plenty of Republicans have accomplished plenty of good, though their continuing shove further and further into far-right extremism is certainly concerning; it's the voting population's continued support of these people that's really of concern to me (the political disenfranchisement and apathy of the general voting-age population is of ENORMOUS significance to the decline of the middle class).

Unfortunately... we in the West have actually NOT solved the problem of absolute poverty, though we have absolutely addressed it significantly in many often-nongovernmental socialistic attempts to provide the poorest amongst us with the barest of necessities to better their lives, whether that be financially or towards their health directly... people who do not have enough money to support themselves and their future are your primary support for the people who are 'even worse off' than they are. This results in a wide variety of people missing many utterly core needs, but typically with some small selection of alleviation SOMEWHERE in their lives, because anything less than anything can be too hard for some barely-less-poor person with any amount of empathy to look at.

But it's true... you can't always 'just throw money' at the problems... but you can create social safety nets and invest in financial counseling, therapy for both mind and body, and everything in our power to rehabilitate and restore those who have suffered great evils... and those whose introduction of great evils to others leaves them suffering still. There is no justice to be suffered while most people are suffering.

(September 19, 2015 at 2:04 am)Kitan Wrote: The Republican party, of which real Republicans of the past would be ashamed, truly needs to either die or revert back to what it once was.

No. Freedom of speech and of expression is tantamount to what this country's culture is grounded firmly upon. To 'want X party to drop off the face of the earth' isn't an organic change that represents the malleable will of the people. The Republican party deserves to evolve, as any other political movement deserves to evolve.

I'd like to get 'parties' out of my congress altogether, but that's not something I'd want to force, so much as something I'd want to see change in the world. And the only way I'd have it is if I were a part of enacting that change upon the world, instead of letting the world vote as it will without casting my own ballot... from the local governments all the way up to the President of the United States: votes matter... actions matter.

(September 20, 2015 at 2:00 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: While I agree there comes a time to oil up the guillotines, it should be a last resort.