Jen NEVER, EVER said the occupiers "are" 99 percent of the population.

The mob I described was not peaceful.

Looks like the Occupy movement has a public relations problem on their hands. They have the ex-Acorn members illegally raising funds for the occupy movement and these anarchists creating an image the peace-loving occupiers don't want associated with them. They might want to take a stand and denounce them, or have their movement hijacked.

Wow, you are just ripe for repeating whatever drivel Fox News creates for propaganda purposes. Prove any of the ACORN crap, Tracy. I dare you to prove that ACORN itself has anything to do with this.

I though ACORN had been killed by Republicans in their ever present zeal to keep the working class from voting.

I hate to break your fanasties of me but i never said i was living in Central park and carring a pickit sign or did or have i ever said i endorse or support the Occ Walstreet movement
I only stated that all the Middle East uprisings started just about the same way
But if things keep going as they are the warning signs are there and it could happen
And a GOP president who only wants to give the top 5 percent another windfall and put more nails in the coffen of the middleclass will be the match that lights the fire

:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

You go, girl. In the words of Jack Dempsey: "All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him."

Penny Arcade's Introduction to Collective Bargaining:

(could not help myself)

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/04

Jobs Jobs And More Jobs
 

All eight GOP hopefulls all claim if elected they'll create jobs jobs and more jobs :lol:
You ask any of the eight and each claim they'll in act the policies that will get America working agian
All we need to do is cut taxes for the rich and the corprations :eek:
OK lets get this straight we need to cut taxes on the rich and it will trickle down plus create jobs hmmnn why does this sound eamiler oh yeah W already cut taxes for the rich and those cuts are still in affect so then the unenployment rate should be around 4 percent after all cut taxes for the rich it creates jobs and the tax cuts have been in effect since 01
Oh yeah trickle down with all the cuts the rich recieved from W the poverty rate should be way down but instead it has exploded
Now they claim that the corprate tax rate is too high and is the highest in the world at 35 percent
but the leave out that almost none pay that 35 percent most pay 9 percent and the top money makers pay a neg tax rate meaning the pay nothing and get a big return to boot
So all of the GOP job creating plans are already in effect and yet unemployment is at 9 percent
And in 08 i believe the GOP claimed it's not goverments job to create jobs
So the GOP plan is do nothing and make W's tax cut perment and make em biger
After all look at how succefull they have been so far
:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

Thanks, Jen, for continuing point out the ridiculousness of the "trickle-down" theories of economics.

Earlier this year, John McCain proposed a plan for yet another "corporate tax holiday" that shows just who this trickle-down bullshit is really meant to serve.

Multinational corporations got their allies in Congress, like McCain, to push for this "tax repatriation holiday" that would allow them to bring money they've stashed overseas back to the United States at a rate far below the usual 35-percent tax. McCain's proposal is for an 8.25-percent rate, which would then be lowered to 5.25 percent if they could prove they used the money to create jobs.

This was done in 2004. What happened? Corporations used the money they "repatriated" to buy back stock on the markets and give big bonuses to executives. No jobs were created. Since then, the same corporations have continued to cut jobs and move billions of additional dollars offshore.

McCain's proposal for the special even-lower rate for "job creation" is precisely because not everyone has forgotten the 2004 fiasco. Speaking at the Washington Summit sponsored by Reuters last Tuesday, November 8, McCain was asked about 2004 and how the repatriated money might really be used. His response was one of the most cynical statements ever from a supporter of trickle-down bullshit:

"If you brought $1.5 trillion back to the United States of America, it?s bound to have some positive effect somewhere. I don?t see how it would not. Even if they buy more yachts and ? corporate jets and all that, it?s bound to have some effect."

Now, before Tracy Coxx comes on here to argue that having corporations spend money on yachts and jets would actually stimulate the economy in some sense, I will concede the point. But let's look at this through a broader lens: John McCain is on the same side of every one of the Republican candidates for president this year. He has joined in blocking every piece of legislation that has come up recently to create jobs (except for the veterans bill that passed this week). His trickle-down idea is to give corporations a massive, MASSIVE tax break in the hope that they buy luxury goods and thus boost employment.

Cynical? In the words of Sarah Palin, "You betcha!"

I predict Tracy will write a thoughtful, touching panegyric--where it is made clear the rich are poor distraught victims--to the powerful and that awesome and inspiring virtue that is Greed. Blessings be upon thine Green Lord.

We shall cry. We shall weep and o! how we will hate the fact we cannot hold Tracy to us.

Corporate America and the Police force:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5N4o...eature=related

I amazed at the content of this thread. With all that is going on in this world the majority of the content here is about the US. Are those posting here so myopic that they can't see beyond the borders of the US. Wake up people. There are events happening all over the world that are affecting the complete world economy.

Part 2 of previous video. Unfortunately the retired police officer is not present:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtfgK...eature=related

Many people on this thread are of the Bush's Fault camp or of the Occupy gangs. They can't see the big picture in our own country... you expect them to notice the world economy?

Tracy, it reads to me as if you've decided to become a troll again, with your unjustifiable generalization through the use of "gangs." Are you capable of having an honest political discussion? (I believe the history of your participation here would make the answer a resounding NO.)

I have been painted with this broad brush by your post, and yet I will put my knowledge of the world economy against yours any time, any where, in any way.

You will take any excuse, however flimsy, to rag on people who actually give a shit, don't you?

Bloomber now, Bloomberg tomorrow, Bloomberg forever! A Special Comment by Keith Olbermann:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iNmM...ure=digest_tue

Not sure after watching this if i should laught or cry

But the little history lesson in the begining is why they no longer teach history in US schools and if history classes do return to US schools Newt would want the students to use that time to do there janitor duties to learn there work ethic
but looking back at history the GOP always did say that anyone not goose stepping along with them are unamerican and pinko commie fags :eek:
So grab an American flag drape it over your shoulders and start goose stepping along with the GOP
:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Third Rail?:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ackdown-occupy

Naomi Wolf's thesis is important and interesting, but I think she hurts herself by referring to this as the "third rail." Why? Because in the American political vernacular, "third rail" is widely known to refer to Social Security. Hence, she inadvertently sows confusion.

I didn't see any confusion as she explained what she meant by the third rail.

It was clear to me what she meant. And I think she?s right. She could also have said something like ?touched a nerve.? But touching the ?third rail? has more powerful and deadly connotations.

Don?t forget I lived in NYC for a short time and used to ride the subway! :cool:

It was clear to me, too. I guess I didn't do a good enough job of making my point, which is that when wants to create a political shorthand for something it is best not to choose a term that is already in widespread use as shorthand for something else.

The term "Third Rail" may has one meaning in the US, but the linked article was written for a newspaper in the UK where the term "Third Rail" has a different meaning. Therefore the journalist's use of "Third Rail" was perfectly reasonable and no doubt would not have confused her readers.

Naomi Wolf is an American and was writing about U.S. politics. Her article has been reposted all over the place; today, a leaflet reproduction of it was being handed out at Occupy Boston.

I am not trying to score points with my critique of her word choice. Why is it being interpreted in such a way?

I didn't know she was American, although I suppose I could have looked up her personal information, but I had no reason to do so.

I never intimated that you were trying to score points with her word choice. Don't read things into my posts that aren't there.

I didn't think I was. I was simply baffled by why the discussion went on as long as it did. Sorry, my friend.

You two are so cute together.

The Great American Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...chine-20100405

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. I don't go for politically correct lingo. It is what it is. I have justified my characterization of the occupists as gangs and you need to recognize that. You don't have to agree with me, but at least do as I do and recognize that everyone has their own perceptions. Like with your hope for the country eventually completely changing the constitution, I'm not going to keep at you and keep at you until I can "cure" you. It's your view and that's fine. I'm not going to whine about your view and not going to call you names, that's who you are, and you can accept me for who I am. On a forum like this I wouldn't think that's asking too much.

Here's a different perspective on OWS. You won't like it. You'll call me a troll, and I'll say no, it's called another viewpoint.

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

More of your dissembling ...

The difference is that I am addressing your use of language and that you use particular words deliberately to provoke. That is what it means to be a troll. When I raise a question of changing the U.S. Constitution, I don't call people who defend it by names. You are called a troll not for your defense of the Constitution.

This isn't about being politically correct or not.

I have written time and again that I consider you to be an intelligent person. Therefore, I know when you are being a troll, because you are intelligent enough to choose specifically to be one. But perhaps I am wrong. Maybe you really don't get it. (I doubt that.)

I have never sought to "cure" you of your opinions, only to point out that you discuss dishonestly and that you behave like a troll. This is a community, and time and again you disrespect the community with your troll behavior.

You're right: "It is what it is." And what it is is this: you post like a troll, get called on it, and then you're the one who tries to change the subject. That is it's own unique form of whining.

As for the use of the word "gang," let me ask you these questions (two of many examples I could pose):

- When the Republicans in Florida organized political operatives to go to the Broward County Board of Elections and pound on the door as they were doing their recount, and act threateningly, and get in the elevator with election workers and menace them, was that a "gang"?

- When the Tea Party in Virginia posted Congressman Tom Perriello's address on the Web and encouraged people to visit him and "express their thanks" for his yes vote on the Obama healthcare bill, but they mistakenly posted his brother's address, and the brother had the gas line to his home severed, were they behaving like a "gang"? (This is an example from dozens where the Tea Party encouraged vigilante-like action against elected representatives).

You want to reserve for yourself the right to use troll language but claim that it's all about the right to one's personal "perspective." To quote the inimitable Tracy Coxx: "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck."

Actually what it means is:
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

My posting about ows being gangs was neither extraneous or off-topic. This thread is called Today's Political Landscape. Do you deny that OWS is part of today's political landscape? It is on topic. Does it provoke readers into an emotional response? You assume what I said was to provoke. Let's be honest. Anything I post which you do not agree with will elicit an emotional response by you. Care must then be taken with that definition because it assumes that discussion can be had without an emotional response. As long as any and all opinions of mine that you don't agree with elicits an emotional response from you, your accusations of being a troll are obligatory responses that should be ignored. Unfortunately you take advantage of the fact that the more you say something, true or not, the more people believe it.

And you're intelligent enough to know that I never said or implied that I was called a troll for my defense of the Constitution.

Wrong. I honestly believe that some people within the occupy protests behave as gangs.

Knowing how you mischaracterize sometimes, I would like to see video of that since I have no knowledge of that.

Accidentally giving the wrong address aside, if what you say had happened, then obviously it is gang behavior.

Yes, and it's well known that my personal perspective offends you. Everything that proceeds from that fact becomes quite predictable and monotonous. So with that, I'll get back to the topic as people can read for themselves how these "You're a troll" "Am not" "Are too" conversations go as they are all over the political threads.

And yes, I did notice that you moved to your default position of attacking the poster (not the topic of the thread btw) rather than the well said anti-occupy video I posted.

As exasperating as arguing with you is, Tracy, the one thing that makes it easy is that you are so consistent.

Putting aside that this same thing could be said of you -- "you take advantage of the fact that the more you say something, true or not, the more people believe it" -- what is most notable in your response is that you provide a definition that includes three elements: "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages". You then go on to defend your post because it is neither "extraneous" nor "off-topic." Of course, what I have said consistently is that your troll-like behavior is of the deliberately INFLAMMATORY variety. I leave the fact that you dealt with the other two, but not that one, for others to interpret (and we have a lot of really smart people reading these posts ;)).

Nor did I ever suggest that you had done so. But by writing what I quote above, you trick the less-careful reader, or the reader who hasn't followed every bit of the exchange, into thinking that I did. We study that kind of thing in my rhetoric classes. It derives from the Greek Sophists, who were masters of what most accurately should be called rhetorical bullshit.

As is typical, once you are called out for your troll-like inflammatory language, you begin to retreat. In Post 114, you wrote: "Many people on this thread are of the Bush's Fault camp or of the Occupy gangs."

No one reading that can fail to notice that now you say "some people ... behave as gangs," whereas I responded (quite specifically) to your generalization when using the term. So, shall we take this to be your way of admitting that the generalization was wrong?

I will look for video. Meanwhile, you can search news archives from the time, and add Miami-Dade to the mix. You will find newspaper reports of the Bush campaign hiring a "mob" and of the Justice Department launching an investigation. Of course, once Bush became president, the investigation was quietly dropped. Lest you claim that I am mischaracterizing that last point, historians from all across the political spectrum agree that the Bush Justice Department -- independent of the content of the politics -- was the most politicized Justice Department of the modern era.

By the way, I find it hard to believe you "have no knowledge" of these events. You registered on this site with a birthday that makes you old enough to have been cognizant of what was holding the United States at the edge of its collective seat during that period, and unless your interest in politics is a recent phenomenon, you would have had to shut your eyes and ears to miss the reporting.

Nice of you to say so. Meanwhile, as for the method of discourse, I refer readers to my response above regarding the clever implication that I may have made up what was widely reported in the media, that was addressed by the Virgina Tea Party leaders, and what became the subject of investigation by law enforcement agencies.

Your double standard is quite appalling. I hadn't gotten a chance to watch the video (which is nearly 10 minutes long) but have every intention of responding. You disappear for days at a time after posting things and getting responses.

But, by writing what I quote just above, you get to create the illusion that I am either afraid to respond to a post, or that I can't because I don't know what to say, or that I deliberately ignore something, or whatever. It's all of a type, and it's why you get called out on your method time and again.

I will comment extensively on this, but first I want to ask Tracy Coxx a direct question:

Do you, Tracy Coxx, agree with the perspective of Adam Carolla as expressed in this video, including his analysis of what drives the Occupy Wall Street protesters?

I'm not totally blind to corruption on Wall Street & some bankers. I posted this 3 years ago: http://forum.transladyboy.com/showpo...postcount=1406
But you don't throw out what drives America's economy over a few bad eggs. You throw the bad eggs out. A lot of what Occupy wants simply baffles me. I cannot see any rational thought behind it. If you follow their goals to their logical ends, you'll further destroy our economy. I do agree with Adam Carolla that a large part of the motivation is envy. Not because I know this to be true, but it's the only thing that explains what looks like irrational behavior. My relatives who empathize with occupists post weird crap on facebook like Black Friday: Buy Nothing Day - an international day of protest against consumerism. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know we're in a recession right? You know what happens if people stop buying stuff right? I seriously do not understand what motivates these people.

So what this shows is that you can identify gang behavior, but deny it exists when it applies to some members of the occupy movement.

The conclusion you draw from this particular exchange is so illogical as to be laughable. Your clever use of rhetorical devices from the Sophists has failed you this time, on an epic level.

Further, it's notable that you only respond to one of the many aspects of the post. But it's okay, I get it.

You do that, and every idiot with a gripe will put themselves on the tax-payers payroll. Instead of 12 or so idiots with at least some experience doing something running for president you'll have hundreds of idiots getting paid by tax payers to rant about the government under the guise of a campaign.

That's all laughable! oh wait, sorry that's not a response is it? (but I do admit it saves time and effort)

1. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United
Careful what you wish for smc. You wanted corporations to be taxed like people. All of a sudden corporations are people now. That means they have rights doesn't it? They have the right to freedom of speech don't they?

2. The elimination of special private benefits and perqs to public servants, such as the ?revolving door? with lobbying firms
Eliminate perks to public servants, yes. The revolving door is good in a way because it gets experienced people into government rather than career politicians and lawyers who don't really know the industry they are regulating. It has some good points. Minimize the bad points with rules such as mandating that politicians recuse themselves from committees overseeing industries they just came from within 3 or so years.

3. Enactment of comprehensive job-creation legislation.
Obama has tried this many times. It hadn't worked. His last jobs bill failed to pass. Interestingly unemployment went down afterwards without the stimulus package.

4. Student loan forgiveness.
The country can't afford to take on all these student loans. And it sets a bad example to students as they enter adulthood. Lesson: You don't ask for a loan you don't know you can pay off.

5. Immediate reenactment of the Glass-Steagall Act.
I'm not up on the Glass-Steagall act or its reasons for repeal. I spent some time looking at it, but not sure which way we should go with it.

I'm sure there are some in the occupy movement that have legitimate gripes about the government and certain fat cat people in wall street who ought to be in jail. Fine. I'd like to see some of them in jail myself. But I also see many pro-occupy people who are anti-corporation... regardless of the corporation, and think that rich people ought to get the shit taxed out of them to support their entitlements. That is who Adam Carolla is directing his ranting towards.

Just so you know, I have never heard of Adam Carolla before this rant of his. I posted the video because of its criticism of the latest self-empowered, everybody's a winner, no-loser generation.

Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule.

The Appeal to Ridicule is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an "argument."

Example of Appeal to Ridicule
"Sure my worthy opponent claims that we should lower tuition, but that is just laughable."

Since you use this method so often, I assume you teach it to your beloved rhetorics class.

Did you actually spend any time thinking about what you would write in response before your knee jerked? Obviously, as the experience of nearly every industrialized country in the world (and where public financing is the norm), what you fear doesn't happen. Safeguards, reasonably constructed under a system that aims to work and level the playing field, not favor the corporation-humans you consistently defend, ensure that the waste is minimized. I would trade some of my tax money for a less-expensive campaign system that is publicly financed for the Super PACS and other interest groups that can spend unlimited amounts of money, with no transparency, any day of the week.

I never said I wanted "corporations to be taxed like people." But by putting those words in my mouth, you get to make your insipid point about freedom of speech. Seriously, this is your response? I bet you'd be embarrassed to say such a thing on a stage, in a public debate, in front of people, when you can't hide behind the Internet.

To equate the "freedom of speech" of people to corporations is an affront to the Bill of Rights, and you know it.

Our cemeteries are full of those who paid the ultimate price of having politicians become lobbyists for industry and then being handed the reins of writing regulations for the industries they serve. Ask any worker in the bituminous coal industry of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and so on.

I said nothing about Obama's proposed legislation.

I'd like to see your evidence that the implied direct link between failure of his bill to pass and a decrease in the unemployment rate are positively correlated.

In any case, while some Occupiers may support the specific Obama legislation, I would support something more along the lines of what was done during the Great Depression to put people to work doing what needs to be done. You know as well as the next person, Tracy Coxx, that it is government that builds roads, repairs bridges, and generally deals with infrastructure. We need those things done in the United States. You have no answer for why it shouldn't be done, except to defend the phony "job creators" among the wealthy who economists have proven do not create jobs.

Imagine if higher education were free in the United States, like it has largely been in most of the rest of the industrialized world. Imagine the innovative spirit of the United States coupled with a highly educated workforce. Imagine paying for this by not building a few aircraft carriers or suspending a few other wasteful defense contracts.

Oh, my god ... that might be SOCIALISM!!!!

This isn't rocket science. The Glass-Steagall Act separated bank types into commercial and investment, and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), during the Great Depression. Study after study after study has shown that a huge portion of the things banks have done that caused the economic meltdown that began in 2008 are linked directly to the fact that these two banking functions were consolidated into single "too-big-to-fail" banks. The research is easy to find, and "which way we should go with it" should be quite obvious.

As far as I can tell, the only people who are strongly advocating to keep the overturning of Glass-Steagall from 1999 are mega-bankers and the politicians they own.

Why you would choose to be an apologist for Adam Carolla, who says absolutely nothing in his rant to distinguish one Occupier from another, and who paints the entire Millenial generation with his broad brush, is beyond my comprehension ... unless you really do agree with him.

But more interesting would be to learn who you think ought to be in jail, and for what crimes.

Yeah, well, I would recommend listening again before you again support anything that he says. Do you think his kind of "criticism" is actually productive? What if I just ranted and said the following about every person who works on Wall Street (paraphrasing Carolla):

?We are now dealing with another wave of 'I'm-rich-and-you're-not, my-fecal-matter-smells-better-than-yours, powerful-thanks-to-bought-and-paid-for-politicians-and-regulators, anyone-unemployed-is-a-lazy-fucking-asshole, who-cares-about-losers-who-lose-in-a-rigged-game-on-an-uneven-playing-field, motherfucking-douchebags,' from the lowly accountant at Goldman Sachs all the way up to the CEOS, because if you work for any of these cretins you are no different than the worst of them!"

Would you think that was legitimate criticism, serious and worthy of discussion?

Right, because a ceo, the board of directors and a smattering of majority shareholders controlling the activities of the majority of workers and sitting atop the gains of such social work as occurs in a corporation, that is by no means a tremendous entitlement. Nope, it's not an entitlement at all for the few at the top to get rich off the work, the impoverishment, of the rest.

The ease with which you defend economic inequality, and the parasitic behavior of the rich that causes such inequality, is galling and infuriating.

As I've said in another post. The top 1% of wage earners pay about 38% of the Federal (doesn't include state, county, and city) tax burden. While the bottom 43% of wage earners pay no Federal taxes. With about a third get money back from the government (They pay nothing in, but get money out; I guess that makes them tax takers instead of tax payers.:lol:). So, I ask you how those "evil" rich parasites?

Ohh, BTW while everyone has been going back and forth about the occupiers, this past week the Senate passed a bill allowing the [US] military to arrest and detain (without trial, possibly indefinitely) American citizens in American. Just some food for thought.

You DO realize that without the SECOND amendment, all the remaining bill of rights amendments (& the rest, but these are the most important) would rapidly be vaporized, don't you?

First of all, who's gonna pay for these new rights (healthcare, housing, and education)? If we have the government providing everyone with a job [your right to work], it should be something physically demanding with little ay (like digging ditches for $2 an hour), to provide incentive for getting a better job.
:respect::respect:I agree 100%

You have to adopt a different way of thinking about this country in order to understand the answer. We grow up in the United States being told that it is "the richest country in the world." That's true. The problem is how those riches are spent. In general, spending protects the interests of the ruling rich, with some social spending at a level deemed minimal to maintain social peace. But imagine a different set of priorities. Do you really think that this country cannot afford a first-class education for free for everyone? Free healthcare? Government-paid jobs doing things that only governments do, such as infrastructure improvements (or, in the U.S. case, maintenance of infrastructure just before the coming collapse of bridges, etc.)?

As for the guarantee to a job, it is a matter of the polity adopting a perspective that puts human needs first, and then enforcing that perspective. I'm no big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but a quote from a speech he gave in 1932, accepting the renomination as a presidential candidate, speaks volumes: "We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings."

Think "outside the box," instead of accepting the narrow box Americans have been put into by what we're taught, beginning in the earliest grades at school, about individualism. It's a ruse. It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, without any illusions that the good fortune of social safety is somehow the destruction of their free will and opportunities.

Oh, and those are all capitalist countries.

You wouldn't tolerate this from me, so I won't tolerate it from you.

Sorry, I got what you said confused with Randolph who said:
You wouldn't tolerate this from me, so I won't tolerate it from you.

Did I say you did? I said it's already been tried by Obama.

Accuse others of what you do. Do not stick words in my mouth. Or perhaps you'd like to quote where I said there's a direct link between failure of Obama's bill to pass and a decrease in the unemployment rate.

I never said those jobs shouldn't be done. And I'm fine with them being done by the government. Billion dollar mass transit projects like in my town that only go 7 miles is a waste though.

I don't care if education is free as long as it's quality education. That would be great. But face facts. We can't afford it. And get real, we're not going to do it by dropping our defenses.

I'm not an apologist for Adam Carolla. If I were I'd defend him against all the other crap you say he says.

Or what if you wrote like you always write on here. :turnoff:

By the way, to others reading this exchange, I would like to remind everyone, and I know I speak for smc as well on this, remember forum rule 4: Do not post people's personal information, or attack people personally, stick to the issues. Do not threaten or put down other users. We strive to make this a friendly place.

They aren't getting rich off of me. Why are they getting rich off of you?

Do you know who you're talking to?

parr
 

It will alway's be Bush's fault, don't you know that Tracy. :rolleyes:

parr
 

And while they are at it, swing on by Jeffery Immelt's.

You're wrong about that. Say it to me, any time, and I will defend what I state and would challenge you to meet me in public, on a stage, and even come to where you are to wipe the floor with you in an honest debate

Now, you cleverly implied it. As you well know, there is both denotation AND connotation in language.

See my answer just above. You do this all the time, Tracy, and it's transparent to everyone who reads your posts. It's okay to do it -- that is, to make implications -- but when you have no argument to back them up why can't you just drop it instead of playing the "I-didn't-say-those-exact-words-and-I-dare-you-to-quote-me" game? Wouldn't a real discussion be better served by either backing up your statements or admitting that you can't?

Throw the baby out with the bath water. Yes, there's waste. We should focus on doing these things correctly, not on NOT doing them because our government doesn't do the right things. But I realize that if you don't want to do the hard work in a discussion of figuring out how to find common ground and consensus and actually do something constructive, it's a lot easier to write your last sentence just above.

We could drop the "offense" part and do just find. But in any case, we have the money to provide free education otherwise, too. It's all about priorities and whether profits for corporations and an uneven playing field for the rich come first.

Nice dodge. An apologist is someone makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, and so on. You legitimize Carolla's rant as reasonable discourse in the way you presented it here to the Forum, thus functioning as an apologist for it. My statement had nothing to do with anything else he has said. As is so often the case, though, you already knew that.

And now, dear readers who may be following this exchange, we come to the part where Tracy Coxx whines that he has been attacked personally. The last defense of Tracy Coxx is to reproduce Forum Rule 4 at the end of a discussion when Tracy Coxx cannot debate on the substance of issues. Spend a few minutes finding all the other times Tracy Coxx has done this, and you will get a real education in what the opposite of constructive discourse is all about.

I onderstand what you have to say, and see value in it. However, you must remember that I am a strong believer in State's Rights (thanks to my dad), I would like to see the Federal government scaled back to its constitutional limits.

I don't know how you are in real life, but I have enough experience on here to know what happens on the forum.

No. You are imagining things. I said what I said and that is what I meant, which is only that it has already been tried by Obama. Again you're debating what you think I'm saying rather than what I'm saying.

And there you go again.

And yet again, you're debating what you THINK I'm saying. I explicitly said "I never said those jobs shouldn't be done. And I'm fine with them being done by the government." Followed by "Billion dollar mass transit projects like in my town that only go 7 miles is a waste though." From this you conclude that I don't want these projects to be done by the government when I said the opposite. Yes there's waste, but I never said I wanted the government to stop working on infrastructure. It's so exasperating debating not only the actual issues that come up on this forum, but defending myself against what you imagine I'm saying as well.

Uh, no we don't. We're over $14 trillion in debt.

But that's not what you said. You said I am an Adam Carolla apologist after informing everyone about what else Adam supports, not an apologist for the one rant I posted.

What's to debate here? There's either your diatribes that are devoid of any real content or your debating your illusions of what I'm saying.

Thankyou W, as 1/3 of that is from his wonderful taxcuts for the the super rich
Then W put in two unfunded wars
Remember when W and his Vice said the Iraq war will be paid for out of oil profits
Iraq hasn't paid one damn dime

We can't afford to rebulid US roads or fix our schools but we can afford to rebulid Iraq WTF?????
Funny how the GOP never gives a damn about debt when they are in the White house they only start screaming about it when a Dem is in the white house they never said diddly about the debt Reagan ran up with his trickle down they only cared when Clinton was in office
When W stole the Whitehouse he was given a balanced budget and a surplus and with in his first three months both were long gone and the GOP said nothing as he started a massive debit the GOP didn't say diddly until Obama got the Whitehouse and for his whole term that's all they scream about and yet they refuse to end the Bush tax cuts which would do away with a big chunk of it
If they were serious about the debt the tax cuts would have been the first to go
:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

I stand by what I wrote about implications, denotations, and connotations. Otherwise, I would have to accept that on the one hand you are the only person I've ever come across who never, ever implies or connotes in communication, while on the other hand you partake in using the same approaches to language that other humans use. And that doesn't fit with anything I know about communication or anything I have ever encountered in all my years of dealing professionally with communication.

I'll let others to draw their own conclusions.

Debt is restructured all the time. It would be easy enough for the United States to nationalize the banks to whom debt is owed and deal with it that way ... for just one example of how it could be handled. Extending your logic, we should spend no money until everything is balanced. Good luck with that.

Nice try, Tracy. I presume you count on others not following the exchange as closely so that you can dissemble in this manner.

I wrote the following:

"Why you would choose to be an apologist for Adam Carolla, who says absolutely nothing in his rant to distinguish one Occupier from another, and who paints the entire Millenial generation with his broad brush, is beyond my comprehension ... unless you really do agree with him."

My charge was specifically about the rant, as you well know. The information about other things Carolla has done/said was introduced quite specifically as follows:

"By the way, for those readers who do not know, Adam Carolla is a TV and radio host who has notoriously attacked ethnic groups and women, and now the entire Millenial generation, with useless name-calling that is inappropriate at best and is highly offensive and that has no place in civil discourse at worst. Here are a few examples: ..."

That is, it was there to put him in context for everyone else. I did not make an assumption that you knew anything else about him, nor did I make an assumption that you were his best friend, nor did I assume anything in between about your connection to Adam Carolla.

I have nothing more to say about this rule that you keep bringing up. If you think I violate it and insult you directly rather than attacking your political positions and the method in which you dissemble to present them, contact the site owner as you have done in the past. We'll take it from there.

And good luck to you with your assumption that I would like the US to spend nothing until the debt is payed off. As usual you mischaracterize your opponents arguments to something ridiculous and try and claim victory over this artificial position. Rock on with that strawman argument smc.


Over the time you and I have been debating (what is it, a decade? seems like it...) they have drawn their own conclusions and I'm hearing support from them. Of course most of them won't say anything here. They're at least smart enough to know better.

And as I have previously replied in another post...That is utter and complete bullshit. The VAST majority of people DO pay federal taxes in the form of regressive payroll taxes. Not everyone has income tax liability...That is true. But the right likes to talk about the tax burden the wealthy pay...They like to leave out the fact that the top percentage of earners own the VAST majority of the wealth in the US. Given that the top 20% of earners own 80% of the nation's wealth, I have absolutely no problem with them paying a higher share of the tax burden. They wealthy already own the country...It's high time they start paying for it.

Could you do me the honor of reposting that post of yours here GRH? I knew you had responded to tslust in the past but I could not find it since I remembered no specific wording and I have not seen you active in a long time.

I meant to respond to tslust's assertion with something akin to your comment about "top wage earners owning 80% of the nation's wealth," alas Tracy got up to his old tricks again and I wanted to observe how that went down first. I guess I may as well post that soon.

In light of this, those that don't pay taxes shouldn't expect much of a say in how the country is run. That's one reason I'd like to see a flat tax so everyone has skin in the game.

Enoch Root???

:respect:You took the words right out of my mouth.

I too favor the idea of a flat tax. Be it either a swinging percentage based on tax brackets, or a fixed percentage. According to my uncle's idea, the government would take in at least 185 billion dollars each mnoth.

Taxing the rich is not an answer, cutting spending is! The rate the government is spending money (over 300 billion a month) is unsustainable. It doesn't matter how much taxes would be hypothetical raised, it won't ever be enough.

Fortunately, the Constitution doesn't "weight" the value of a vote based on the income of the person casting the vote. Otherwise, we might as roll over and hand the wealthy the small portion of the country they don't already own. They've already rigged the game to funnel as much wealth away from the middle class and towards them...Why not remove the few safeguards that are left in our democracy? We'll just correlate the value of a vote to the income of the person casting it.

You do realize that the wealthy pay lower "effective" tax rates (on their total taxable income) than most middle class earners? Middle class earners pay a full 6.2% for Social Security/FICA tax...This is on earnings up to $106,000 (which the vast majority of earners make below this). Meanwhile, the uber-wealthy pay the same 6.2% on their first $106,000 in earnings. Any income beyond this cap isn't taxed. So FICA taxes are regressive in nature. To a family making the median income of $50,000/year, they are paying in excess of 6% FICA tax. Meanwhile, if you have a millionaire bringing in $1,060,000 in income, this millionaire is only paying a 0.6% FICA tax.

On marginal tax rates, the wealthy do have a higher tax burden. However, to suggest that they pay "higher taxes" doesn't really elaborate on the way that marginal taxes work. EVERYONE pays the same tax rate on their first dollars of earnings. If I make $10,000 and a millionaire makes $1 billion/year-- guess what, we BOTH pay the exact same rate of taxes on those first $10,000 of earnings. If we each make an additional $50,000 of earnings...Guess what? The millionaire and I BOTH pay the exact same income tax liability on those dollars of earnings. It is only when the millionaire is making money in the next tax bracket (a bracket that I don't fall into because I'm poor) that they begin paying taxes at a higher rate. But technically, everyone pays the same tax liability on earnings. We already have a "flat tax" in this respect. The right likes us to believe that the poor "job creators" are taxed at 30+% on their TOTAL earnings-- this is simply not the case. The one caveat is that there are various deductions, loopholes, etc. which skew income tax liability for lower-income earners.

Now, the millionaire and billionaires do pay higher marginal tax rates. However, given that these individuals often receive substantial portions of their income through capital gains, dividends, carried interest, and/or stock options, they end up paying substantially less tax liability on these favored types of income. This is the reason that Warren Buffet has a lower effective tax liability than his secretary. I'm sorry, but for the second wealthiest American to have a lower effective tax burden than the secretary of his company suggests a deeply flawed tax system. And any attempt to make a "fair" or "flat" tax is merely a disguised way of shifting more of the tax burden to the poor (and by default, move tax liability away from the wealthy). And I think George Bush Sr. said it best regarding the old trickle-down theories of Reaganomics-- it's nothing but voodoo economics.

As usual, you accuse me of what you do. I didn't mischaracterize YOUR position. I extended your logic on my own.

I get between 100 and 200 PMs a day supporting my positions in our exchanges. :yes:

Oh, see how easy it is on the Internet to claim anything.

But I do give you credit for the last sentence, and its implication. Of course, as we know from an earlier post, your words never have implication or connotation.

Why don't you tell us precisely what you would cut to balance the budget, and how much.

I spoke of the wealth created by workers as they produce some good or service: a car, a house, plumbing, tech assistance, computers and their requisite components, etc. I spoke of these people and yet you retreated to that area the right wing so dearly loves: to throw out some percent, which usually seems to be 50 or above, of income tax paid by the ?ruling rich,? as smc terms them, as if this were proof they somehow do not take from the wealth created by workers. But if they do not take, that is, if they do not act as a parasite upon the working class, upon the majority of the population of any one country?by now the world?then how do you think they get the wealth they have? But you ignore this and focus instead on taxes and you commit the mistake of equating the wealth these people have, these people who make anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars an hour, with the wealth?or rather, lack of wealth?of the working class.

GRH once said something?and has now reiterated?along the lines of: they have 70 percent of the wealth so it is only proper they be taxed that high. You ignore this and focus instead on taxes because, after all, if the government takes it?s bad, even if the money goes to social programs that benefit the population, but if a corporation does it it?s as American as apple pie?hell! It?s good and proper and gosh darn it it?s sanctioned by thine Founding Fathers. Yeehaw.

Of course, your post ignores how much these people who ?pay no taxes? actually make and it ignores whatever other taxes may exist which the population is subject to and it ignores whatever tax evasion the ruling class gets up to and it ignores whatever rules are in place which said class employs most heartily so they end up paying little or no taxes at all, like that whole General Electric thing from a while back.

FYI, i didn't just pull that number out of my ass! In the original post I refered to, (back in July) I stated that different sources put it at different numbers. I simply averaged it out.

I was speaking of the Federal tax burden. I wasn't speaking of State, county, city, and sales tax. Furthermore, IDGAF how much money, wealth, property, pay someone does or does not have. How is any person, or (I guess I should say) a group of people "entitled" to partake of another's wealth?

Isn't the very concept of taxation to fund public goods, regardless of the level of taxation, based on taking wealth from individuals to distribute it (in the form of how it is spent) to the group?

Not in those terms. Taxation is "a burden laid upon individuals or property owners to support the government". The government may choose to spend some of this money on social benefits.

I was referring to taxation for social goods, as my post stated. The issue is with how it's spent, not that it's collected per se.

And I never used the term "social benefits." I don't think there is a social benefit to much of how the government spends our tax money, but the government does not simply collect the money to fill the coffers of individuals, as was the case with the English monarchy when the United States was a colony. (And before the shitstorm begins, I am not unaware that individuals can enrich themselves at the government teat. I mean that my tax dollars don't go directly into the account of some oligarch.)

The GOP are saying the DEMS are redistrubing wealth by taxing the rich and giveing it to the poor who are poor because they are lazy
While the GOPS beloved trickle down is a reverse Robin Hood by taking from the poor to give the rich
And does what they claim the DEMS are doing but in the other direction
And before you start yelling for a fair flat tax which is not fair as the super rich get another windfall by a even lower rate and those on the bottom recieve a higher rate
Perry's 20% flat rate lowers the rate for the rich and raises the amount for those on the bottom since those on the bottom pay no wheres near 20 % currently
So explain how a flat tax is fair, it shifts the burden to those on the bottom and a windfall to those on the top
Why do you think that systems is wanted by Steve Forbs and the Donald
Flat tax is another :coupling: from the GOP to the 89% not on top

:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

The Prison Industrial Complex and Racism:

http://prisondivestment.wordpress.co...of-immigrants/

Yes, it appears that the 10th amendment is being ignored, especially by the current administration.

What countries should we look to here? Europe? They're about to sink under their own weight of even worse fiscal mismanagement than we are going through. Europe's track record in the industrial revolution was 1: quickly eclipsed by the US and 2: was built largely on the backs of the working poor. Then, after nearly wiping itself out in The Great War, Russia went to communisim / stalinism & Germany, AFTER disarming its citizens (done by the Prussian elitists during the Weimar years) fell into nazism. France & Britain buried their heads in the sand and the resulting 20 year rematch was even worse. Are you also suggesting the eurozone's unemployment rate is lower than that of the US??? I haven't checked on this, but I would be surprised. I checked, It's 10.3% worse, as i expected.

I don't think we need to look to Europe.

Well, what about Japan? Sure. Japan, who's emperor was until 2 Sep 1945 was a Divine Being, has been in recession for well over 20 years straight.

There isn't much left, you're not suggesting China, are you???

No, we need to fix our own house and a good start is a change in the administration next year.

Don't put words in my mouth. I was quite clear about the social safety net. I said nothing about the European unemployment rate. Europe's problems are the result of global capital competition, not overspending on what makes Europeans have a better social safety net than the United States by orders of magnitude, the result of a social solidarity that Americans have been quite deliberately taught (falsely, to serve the interests of the ruling rich) is some kind of affront to their "liberty."

You presume that recessions, etc., are caused by social spending, and point to your examples. But something precedes those recessions, which is putting profits of corporations ahead of human needs and organizing government around ensuring that priority.

Finally, things like the Emperor of Japan being a Diving Being, etc., are clearly red herrings in a serious debate. Such an approach is transparently an attempt not to discuss the core of my post.

Europe's social safety net will disintegrate if they continue to spend themselves into disaster.

You state you didn't say anything about the European unemployment rate, yet this phrase is an allusion to that: "and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages".

Europe (especially western Europe, but eastern Europe as well) ) owes its existence and relative problem free past 65 years to the United States. And I'm sure the 30-40 million who died at the hands of tyranny in WW2 would agree.

You seem to ignore whatever points in a post will not conveniently fit into your preconceived notions of the world. The first sentence of your post reveals that to be true, because you have ignored the essence of all of my posts in this particular exchange, which have to do with changing the paradigm. And if that happens, the spending disaster to which you refer would not even be a concern.

But I understand how these things work. Heaven forbid we should think differently than the ways in which we have been taught in American schools, that is, the asinine notion that we are all better off when are in it for ourselves.

Aren't you part of the American school system?

This refers to Europe, does it not:
"It's designed to keep Americans from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good that explains why people elsewhere are happier, healthier, and more gainfully engaged in work in larger percentages, "

Well, it's not a recipe for success. Western Europe has been under the American Nuclear Umbrella for the past 65 years, and have not had to spend anywhere near as much on their own defense as the US, yet they are still on the brink of fiscal disaster due to excessive unsustainable spending. Your utopia is going broke faster then the US.

They have had a greater proportion of their national wealth to make things better, yet they are still on the edge or a disaster. And you want the US to do gown that same road???

I teach at a university, and I don't teach that crap.

I want the United States to go down a road that puts people before profits, period. You continue to ignore what I clearly wrote to make your points. Your comparisons to Europe are not the comparisons I made, and they are irrelevant to my thinking-outside-the-box point earlier on. I did not say we should be Europe, only that more social spending is better. And I stand by that. Sure, under capitalism, where the entire trajectory is to greater and greater exploitation, it is a recipe for disaster if one country tries to buck the trend in a global economy. But that's not what I'm talking about, and I believe you are smart enough to know that. But it's okay: if trying to ghost ideas and making it seem as if they're mine is all you've got, have at it.

When you say put people before profits, do you mean back rubs? Those can be free. Are you talking about services to people that cost little or nothing? Because without profits you can't offer much. Paladin was talking about how Europe can afford to devote more of their resources towards social programs because we take on a lot of their defense burden. Yet even so, they are going under. Whether you're talking about Europe or not, this is an example of what happens.

If not Europe, which country or countries should we emulate?

Tracy, please explain to me how you believe wealth in Wall Street to be generated.

I believe this would be called, The Corporatization of Education:

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/the-regency/

Of course.

Yes, obviously quite powerful. Yet, as there is no country to emulate, apparently no country has been able to pull it off. Maybe the need for profits are harder to ignore than you think.

Certainly not from my pocket book lol. Ok, they're getting rich off the work of several people, as well as off their own work. But I can't think of any CEOs getting rich off of my work. At least not any that aren't putting in a hell of a lot of work themselves. What I should have said was how are they impoverishing you, because they aren't impoverishing me.

So how do you reconcile the above with this from earlier on:

"...from adopting the kind of social solidarity that created, in most of the world's other industrialized nations, a communal sense of social good..."

When you are referring to "most of the world's other industrialized nations" you are referring to europe, and look where all that good social spending has landed them.

The operative words in what you quoted are "the kind of social solidarity that created ... a communal sense of social good."

That Europe has gotten closest is a good example. I will make it clear for the last time: whether I did not write specifically that I do not seek to emulate European social democracies exactly in my earlier writing, I state it now. I am talking about something that transcends even Europe.

Happy now?

Maybe the need for the profiteers to resort to anything in their arsenal to ensure that their outlived class doesn't get pushed into the dustbin of history is greater than you think, and it takes longer.

This is a start but it does not address my request.

When a Wall Street investment bank is bailed out, lent money by the Fed at 0% interest ostensibly to reinvest in the economy, and then does nothing productive -- and yet gives its CEO and others million-dollar-plus bonuses at the end of the year -- do you think that CEO might be getting rich off YOU ... even just a little bit?

what we need is another Huey
 

What we need today is another Huey, this was a man before his time he was fighting the 1 percenters back in the 30s
If we had someonr like him today Rush and Ann would have blown a gasket by now and i know out very own Tracy will also blow a gasket after seeing this
http://youtu.be/hphgHi6FD8k

:cool: Santas naughty elf Jen

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=SR8Y7tO8yrI

If you are referring to Huey Long, that man was almost as corrupt & criminal ad Daly in Chicago.

Those assholes need prison time instead of bonuses...

Yes, true. Although I have never supported bank bailouts, and have spoken out against them in other threads.

Between the recently passed (I'm not sure if it's been signed into law yet.) National Deffence Authorization Act and the upcoming Stop Online Piracy Act, there's not much of the Constitution left.

And like the House and Senate we have today isn't?
Both parties are corrupt so in the end you have to pick do we want Robin Hood or Jesse James?
I'd perfer Robin Hood
:eek: Santas naughty elf Jen

Yeah, well America had a pretty good run didn't she?