Mooney on Right vs. Left vs. Science
What Chris Mooney said: Unequivocal: Today’s Right is Overwhelmingly More Anti-Science Than Today’s Left.
125 Responses to “Mooney on Right vs. Left vs. Science”
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September 30th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
In other news, 2 + 2 = 4
I brought a paddle, is the horse dead yet?
September 30th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Up is up.
October 1st, 2011 at 2:22 pm
A is A?
October 2nd, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Personally, I would have more faith in science as a tool in one’s arsenal of political debate if so many people didn’t use it the way some other people use religion.
For a lot of people, religion is nothing more than a view of the world, written in books they’ll never read, communicated in terms they don’t understand, deciphered for them by the clergy in terms clear enough to regurgitate in conversation via catchphrases that sound good as long as the other side of the conversation hasn’t read any of the books himself, or is sufficiently “wowed” enough by religion not to ask any questions.
Similarly, science is too often, as far as the man-on-the-blog is concerned, a view of the world, written in books he couldn’t understand if he wanted to, written by intellects that dwarf his own, deciphered for him by Science Magazine columnists and bloggers whose chief talent is their ability to whittle jargon down to a few key terms and statistics simple enough for the reader to regurgitate in conversation in a manner that sounds good as long as the other side of the conversation doesn’t understand the topic any more than the speaker does. or is sufficiently “wowed” enough by science not to ask any questions.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Backs been killing me so I’m a little drugged but i agree, what i find interesting with pieces like this is how the author mixes the science with the policy decisions and then says one side or the other doesn’t believe in science because they disagree with the author’s view of the political decision that resulted from the science.
Take the DDT issue, the right doesn’t disagree with the science (except the fringe of course) they just make the point that flat banning the substance killed more than the cancer would have.
The fringe, he implies the entire right rejects evolution because they believe in creation. The fact is the vast majority of people, whether they be right or left believe in both, only the fringe on either side believes it is an either or answer, but, the fringes are the most vocal, on any subject. This just wasn’t a good article, the link in the previous post was, I’m going to put McGowen on my reading list, that was very reasonable and enjoyable. I doubt i will agree with him on much but will respect him.
October 2nd, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Well, DDT was also causing several bird species (brown pelican) to head towards extinction at an alarming rate. So there’s a substantially large amount of death that DDT won’t be causing.
October 3rd, 2011 at 7:50 am
Unlike religion, one can prove many things with science. One can demonstrably save many lives.
The comparison is stupid.
October 3rd, 2011 at 10:24 am
Atheism is just as much a religion as Christianity, because an absolute belief that there is no God is as much a mater of faith as there is a God. The fanatics live in the fringes of both which is why I say just because someone believes in God doesn’t mean they don’t also believe in evolution. Even people that believe in creationism, that God made man in a POOF!!! Can and in many cases still believe in evolution, that people and animals evolve, if God can make a man in a poof how hard would it be for him to make man evolve from there?
The disingenuousness aspect of this article is it ignores these nuances.
Religion, like science, can both take and save lives, and both have done both.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:35 am
Actually, Knarly, the comparison’s pretty good…one of my more thought-provoking observations, provided you have any thoughts to provoke. The point isn’t really about science or religion, which both have their place in life and have both proven quite useful in their best moments. It’s more about the human impulse to accept the world as a second-hand proposition, the question of who we pay to interpret our world for us, and to what extent we let our authorities of choice lead us around by the nose when we feel too stupid to do otherwise. Certainly, anyone who has had to sit through any of your lengthy, rote regurgitations of “Loose Change” has asked most, if not all these questions, and wishes you would, too.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Sure it’s thought-provoking, but if my doctor says to me, “we need to do ‘x’ to you or you’re going to die.”
Is not the same (to me anyways) as a preacher saying, “you need to beleive in ‘x’ or you’re going to burn in Hell forever.”
I trust what my doctor says because he has proven what he does actually works.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I love the way McFruitLoop, thinks his post is brilliant! Genius! Yet can’t even get the name of the other poster right: NorthernLite is not knarly
Moran
Too bad John Huntsman is completely marginalized by the whackjobs in the Rethugglican primary: he’s the one who said “I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them.”
Too bad moderates are a dying breed on the Rethug side, only lefty/wwnj whackadoodles need apply.
Hey McFruitloop aint you jes lovin you some Rick Perry?! I’m sure you’ve been able to ‘rationalize’ (note air quotes) the name of his hunting camp property? What was that? There has been no mention of it on Stormfront or FauxNEWZ? The name of his camp is “Niggerhead”
Nope, no racism in the Rethuggle party. Nope.
Nothing to see here folks, move along move along.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:37 pm
And not just the poster’s name: I’m not sure NL has ever posted anything from Loose Change (note to wwnj, Loose is not the same as Lose)
Maybe lefty and wwnj and their strawmen could get a hotel room.
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:56 pm
of further entertainment value is this Fox interview that apparently did not get aired http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-0Xbrn4&feature=player_embedded gee I wonder why not? (Also, it’s weird the way the youtube count seems to be stuck on 318 views…)
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Nice Union cap in that video! The secessionists and tea-thugglicans must be apoplectic seeing that. Johnny reb gonna go (even more) batshit crazy!
Saint Ronnie was for the ‘Buffet Rule’
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/ronald-reagan-backs-the-buffett-rule.php?ref=fpb
Ronnie Raygun is too sociamalistic for the current whackjobs at the front of the Rethugglican party. On the other hand my wife watched an interview with Chris Christie and said he sounds pretty reasonable.
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:06 pm
When Inky enters a thread it’s like a radio with a bad dial. Like you’re trying to listen to “All Things Considered” when, all of a sudden, some Spanish Language sports station bleeds through…
Lose Change? The name of the film is “Loose Change” – L-O-O-S-E Change as in “Screw Loose,” i.e. you’ve got a screw loose. or “oh, Gilgamesh, my dollyhole feels all loose now…”
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Knarly, NL, JBC, Inky…who cares, you’re all the same guy, anyway, or at least a couple of you are…practically speaking, of course.
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:41 pm
lol
This comment section is like listening to a bunch of stoned freshmen who think they are having an intellectual conversation.
What if like science is religion, maaaaaan?
And like Einstein is totally Jesus, duuuude.
Woooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, you like just blew my mind.
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:46 pm
(Space reserved for oh so clever comment implying that it is I who am the real stoned idiot.)
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Who tried to say you were stoned? I’ll kick his ass!
October 4th, 2011 at 9:12 am
The view of a Canadian visitor to New York concerning Occupy Wall Street.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+Occupy+Wall+Street+fade+away+message/5496961/story.html
October 4th, 2011 at 9:46 am
Seems like I’m always at work when the skinny liberal chicks take their shirts off.
October 4th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Quit bogartin’ that doobie Smith and pass that shit this way.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:01 am
me too.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:37 am
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/cartoon/editorial-cartoons-october-2011/article2180808/
October 4th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
best hand-written cardboard sign yet:
“Don’t Mace Me Bro!”
My son asked me why are they protesting on Wall Street? My answer wasn’t particularly coherent (paging leftymcfrootloop on the red phone! time for your meds), but it went something like people are unhappy that the richest 1% keep getting richer and richer while the other 99% are getting poorer.
We bailed their asses out (to prevent a Greater Depression). Now stop whining that your taxes might go up to the Clinton era levels (reminder: the longest strongest economic growth of the modern era, you know, when you made a ton of real money?). So far Obama has cut taxes, not raised them (I know, facts is so dang lib).
October 4th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Enk, consider this:
If we don’t tax the rich more, we’ll get more of the same slow decline. These is no reason why the rich will have a sudden burst of goodness and return to the people their prior larger shares of the economic pie.
Even if the pie grows, we’ve seen the rich increase their share of the pie faster than the pie grows, no reason to expect them to do anything different.
But if we do tax the (ultra) rich more (& it looks like we will) then they’ll just move their capital elsewhere at an even faster rate than they’ve been doing over the last 30 years. It’s very little skin off their backs – they don’t have to live here. With that, expect a deep and prolonged recession or depression that few people can yet imagine. These current “peaceful” OWS type of demonstrations will get nasty if people have even less to lose, and much worse yet if people start to get hungry. At that point, even you will be asking for more police or whatever it takes to restore order.
Cue leftymcfruitloop to start bemoaning how Alex Jones has been right all along. After all, who would have thought a mere 10 years ago that the President could order the extra-judicial assassination of an American citizen? And declare his reasons for doing so a state secret! That’s so contrary to the principles of America as to defy beleif. But it’s fact. As such, you now have no functioning Bill of Rights and your Constitution is being ignored. Yet you are still at the top of the slippery slope.
People are speaking about “democracy” as if it is a good thing (i.e. they seem to want tyrrany of the majority, or of the 99%ers) and appear to have forgotten or are ignorant that their country was founded on the Rule of Law, and that human rights are a RIGHT and not a privilege bestowed by government as they see fit. They seem to have forgotten that America was established as not a democracy but rather as a Republic. Forgotten that their forefathers’ bequeathed to the people that Republic with grave warnings to protect it from the kinds of people who now seem to hold all the power (media, banks, military, industry, government, judiciary) in the palm of their hands.
October 5th, 2011 at 5:00 am
Knarly, read through your last paragraph and see if it makes sense, I know what you’re saying, but you’re off the mark a bit.
You have the one of the secondary reasons why capital gains taxes are lower partially correct, even though it is cloaked in the politics of envy. The primary reason is that the money that produces those capital gains has already been taxed, probably at a very high rate. The dentist filled a lot of cavities, the surgeon removed a lot of gallbladders, the CEO didn’t get home until midnight after being stuck in Chicago for 6 hours countless times before they had the extra money to invest. The way our tax structure is set up the 6 figure income individual pays the same rate for what it takes to live a normal life as the person making minimum wage, he pays a much higher rate for that extra income that he can invest.
But what Knarly hit on is important too. Capital gains are in a more competitive market than income taxes. If you live somewhere and work, you will pay taxes (if you’re in the top 50% anyway) your only choice is to not work, or move, driven people in the upper brackets aren’t known for not working so that only leaves moving.
Capital gains are another matter, I can leave them where they are, I can move them offshore as Knarly says, I can spend the money on toys before it is invested, there are a lot of options, government needs to be mindful of those facts. Taxes have to be low enough that it makes good fiscal sense to move that money, and the movement of money is key to a dynamic economy. Although it wasn’t exactly capital gains taxes, a close relative was a contributing factor in the Enron meltdown. The liberal company line was it was greed, and greed played a part but so did poor financial policy. Dividends were taxed at such a high rate people left their money with Enron instead of spreading it around, this led to Enron having more money than they knew what to do with so they made poor investments in areas they were not knowledgeable, then and only then did the greed and cover up commence.
October 5th, 2011 at 9:46 am
blah blah blah sociamalism blah blah politics of envy etc.
Things are taxed multiple times in everyday life.
If you can look at the top graph here for just a moment:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/visual-reminder-us-social-stratification
Asking the very rich to pay a bit more isn’t going to make them pull up stakes and move to Dubai (they already have a home there, in the Antiguas and a villa in Italy). Pair that with some prudent cuts and adjustments to SS, Medicare and so on and the confidence fairy surely will return (wink!) But not while FoxNEWS and AM hate radio is calling for civil war etc. Rethuggles won’t let any deal through – the R candidates all raised their hands that they wouldn’t take a 10:1 cuts to revenue increases ‘grand bargain’. Expect nothing but failure from these clowns. Hey how are the R jobs initiatives going? (crickets)
October 5th, 2011 at 10:57 am
As usual, an awesome analysis Enk, thanks for setting things back into perspective ;-)
My comments about demonstrations turning bad when people get hungry was more appropos than I’d thought (Smith, try to keep up with the conversation, will you please?)
October 5th, 2011 at 11:49 am
… except that 25% is actually 1.3%…
October 5th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I’m not much on end of the world predictions, but didn’t Nostrodamus (sic?) write about the rising up of the masses just before “the end”?… plus 2012? You guys ever read his stuff?
And I’m still waiting for that doobie.
October 5th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
shcb,
Let’s consider a hypothetical Liberal Arts professor at a University who earns $300,000 p.a. gross, is taxed 30% so gets to keep $210 k a year.
One year, he decides to invest $100 k of that $210 k after tax money. As a Liberal Arts Professor, he understands how the world works and makes an amazing return of ten times his investment in just the first year alone.
This Liberal Arts Professor now has a $1 million nest egg, of which $100 k is his initial investment and $900 k thta would be taxable at a low rate as capital gains when (if) he ever sells the asset. But he doesn’t sell.
Instead, he keeps that that $1 million, and manages to earn $247 k each year in dividends and capital gains due to his profound wisdom (he is a Liberal Arts professor after all.)
Honouring his principles, he decides to resign from the university ($300,000 gross salary, $210,00 take home pay) and live off his dividends and capital gains ($247 K gross, $210 take home pay after 15% capital gains) so that he can dedicate the rest of his life to travelling around the country lecturing American children on the virtues of Liberalism, atheism, alternative lifestyles, coddling spoiled children and opposing the military.
Should the Liberal professor continue to receive $210 k each year forever on his investment , or might there be some point (e.g. after 10 years of earning returns, or after a 100% RoI) at which society should say: “you know what, you got lucky, worked hard or inherited that huge nest egg ages ago and it has provided you with handsome returns for a long time. Don’t you think it is about time we started to tax the dividends and capital gains from your old nest egg at a rate more commenserate with the tax rates applied to the income of Joe the Republican Plumber?”
October 5th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
… except that 25% taxamagically flimflambingbang is actually 1.3%
what a f!cking tool
talk about living in a different America
must look really scary from under your white sheet
Here are some facts (so lib)
http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-facts/child-hunger-facts.aspx
According to the USDA, over 16 million children lived in food insecure (low food security and very low food security) households in 2010.
In 2010, 16.4 million or approximately 22 percent of children in the U.S. lived in poverty.
Seriously wrong wing nut job, is there any congruence between reality and whatever passes for mentation in your low sloping forehead? I’ll put it in baby talk for you: do you know any facts? Anything beyond beer taste good, libs is dum, water is wet and up is… oh… never mind…
October 5th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
wow 300k for a liberal (say it with a southern drawl and a sneer) arts prof?
sign me up!
a 10X investment return?! 1000%!
sign me up!
a 25% yearly RoI (ok maybe less with compound interest) sounds amazing
sign me up! ;)
So raising Mr Lib’s taxes 3% on regular income doesn’t affect him at all
raising Mr Lib’s capital gains taxes 5% might garner $10k in new taxes
so instead of $210k, he makes $200k.
Sociamalism!
October 5th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
ooops I meant to say
$250k x .15 = $37.5k
$250k x .2 = $50k (a $12.5k difference… out of $250k in income, ooops I mean capital gains totally different [end snark])
Sociamalism!
If you are going to go nuts over the richest among us paying a tiny bit more of their enormous wealth, I suggest you immediately move to a libertarian paradise like Somalia. No really, just go Galt now! Go!
Hey how are the plethora of R jobs initiatives going?
What? there haven’t been any? pshaw
October 5th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
you have to read a little deeper in the report and speak beltway talk to understand it but the the actual number of kids that actually miss a meal from time to time to those in dire straits is about 1.3% you have to go up a couple notches t the family where the kid might have to skip an afternoon snack every now and then to get to the 25% level. 85% of families are in the top of the 4 levels where people have no problem accessing not only adequate amounts but adequate quality and variety. But this comes from the folks that think 98% of scientists believe in AGW.
Knarly, problem is not even the smallest percentage of people effected by capital gains fits your model. but even if more did it would still be better if they had more incentive to reinvest than not.
Enky, it seems you’re mixing capital gains and income taxes.
October 5th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
wwnj you have severe reading comprehension problems
I suppose if it isn’t an outright right wing lie/nonsense, it just can’t get through the polarizing filter (ninety degrees hard right)
(a $12.5k difference… out of $250k in income, ooops I mean capital gains totally different [end snark])
Is there any congruence between reality and wwnj?
October 5th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Enky, you keep talking about raising the top 1% 3% and all our problems are fixed. I did a little figureing, if the lower 50% paid just $54 per month we would achieve the same amount. That would raise thier tax rate 4.4% to about half what the upper 50% pay now. Sounds fair to me.
October 6th, 2011 at 4:21 am
Actually, that’s not correct, they would be paying half the rate of all taxpayers, themselves included, they would be paying about a third of the uppeer 50% after an increase of what, 10 packs of cigarettes per month?
October 6th, 2011 at 8:40 am
Your reading comprehension problems probably require professional help. Certainly beyond the poor powers of myself or any poster on this blog.
I haven’t said “raising the top 1% 3% and all our problems are solved.”
I’ve consistently (a word which I am sure you do not understand) called for my taxes to be raised 3 or 4%. Please! Just so long as Mr Rich also has his taxes raised by at least that much. Mr Rich and his buddies have done far far better than I have and disproportionately better than folks who don’t make as much as I do. I’m in the top percent or two and happy to return to a more sensible mix of revenue and debt.
Mr President raise my taxes!
Just do the same for the millionaires and billionaires. If debt is our biggest problem (as the tea-baggers claim) then we all have a patriotic duty to work together (eye roll for the chances of the Rethugs ever working with ‘that boy’) to invest prudently in the industries of tomorrow, cut useless spending (like bungled wars, tax breaks for oil companies) and forge a more perfect union (sorry Secessionistas). Raising taxes back to the Clinton era numbers isn’t Sociamalism or Comoonism. It is sound policy to bring revenues and expenditures back into a more sane alignment.
Listening to wwnjs defend the income acceleration (not to mention the obscene financial bailouts) of the wealthiest among us is what is wrong with our country: the stupid are in thrall to the wealthy. If you only input bullshit information sources, you are basically full of bullshit.
I’m sure Obama could sell the bottom 3 quintiles on a 4.4% tax increase, just so long as Mr Rich pays at least 4.4% more too (good luck with that!)
But your plan is to just ask the poor to pony up a few packs of cigs to pay for Mr Rich’s riches. Talk about stupid.
October 6th, 2011 at 9:01 am
Good post Enk, it dealt with the wwnj crap like toilet paper on fat @ss.
October 6th, 2011 at 9:09 am
I’m on board with that, if we can raise the taxes on ALL the lower 50%, well, most of them, I would be ok with raising the tax on the top 1%. Getting the lower 50% in the game would be well worth the slight increase in the wealthy, or all taxpayers for that matter. One caveat, the increase would have to be by at least no increase in spending, cuts would be better. There is no need to increase taxes if they are just going to be dumped back into the poor (or rich)
Actually I find your economic solutions much more palatable than NL and Knarly. You all seem more interested in sticking it to the rich than finding solutions that help the economy but at least some of your scenarios are built on real numbers.
October 6th, 2011 at 10:02 am
You obviously buy into the right wing canon that the bottom 50% don’t pay no gol dang taxes! The *federal* income tax has credits that can sometimes erase federal income tax to nothing, or even money back. How much money are we talking about? A rounding error compared to the trillions we pour out to the very richest.
But the poor do pay a large percentage of their income in various other taxes, fees etc. Any reputable graph comparing income growth between the top quintile (slice it any way you like from there) have had enormous income growth over the last few decades. While everyone else is basically flat or negative. You say ‘great! I’d like to be rich too! I’d like to be rich to and am working very hard to be filthy rich at the earliest possible opportunity. But I say the extreme wealth growth in the top % while the vast majority sweat out their lives for less isn’t a sustainable path. Huh, a rising tide doesn’t seem to lift all boats (if the metaphor is in relation to economics).
Might be we’ll have an American Spring…
October 6th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Nope, sorry shcb – conditions on allowing fixes are soooo 2008. Your country needs real solutions now, not more crazy input from wwnj idealogues.
and shcb, duh, my numbers were not intended to be real, they were illustrative for ease of use. I like enk’s approach (generalities and ridicule) better in this venue as it seems to be better comprehended by the people with lower levels of comprehension.
October 6th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Yes the lower 50% pay other taxes, but they pay the same as everyone else getting those same services, that is why SS contribution is capped, so are benefits. We are only talking about the fairness of the federal tax here.
Let’s put this in perspective, either raising the top 1% 3% or the lower 50% 4.4 % produces about the same amount of money, about 50 billion (round numbers) that $54 for the lower 50% is $3000 for the upper 1%. What is right , what is wrong, as always depends on your vision and objectives, you guys seem to have the objective of taking money from the rich, mine is to strengthen the economy.
So someone making $380,354 is going to pay $3000 a month, no beach house, the guy making $33,048 has to cut back on his smoking a little, neither is going to starve. But which is best for the economy, getting half the people involved with the dialog of raising taxes is better for the economy because in a lot of cases the $54 is just as important as that $3000 to that individual but now the guy at the bottom has a stake in the game. Now of course that is just considering those two brackets, we have left out the middle 49%
I wasn’t really talking about your example above Knarly, more your comments in general, your analogy above was actually quite entreating.
October 6th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
It was not and I entreat you to reconsider.
October 6th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
or just shut up. pick one.
October 6th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
one would think all those NYPD police would be smarter than this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Moe1-8rguk&feature=related
October 6th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
” I like enk’s approach (generalities and ridicule) better in this venue as it seems to be better comprehended by the people with lower levels of comprehension.”
Don’t fall for that shit! Say what you have so say and say it well enough and someone will come across it that understands, whether any of us here do or not. Don’t post for us – post for those anonymous ones who pass through these threads undetected and take something of worth away with them. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time.
October 6th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Ha.
October 6th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
i keep thinking OWS will fizzle out, especially when the cold weather arrives, but…
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html
October 7th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Have you read the 13 demands of OWS? Now they say on the web site that these demands are of just one person, that OWS has no official demands, but it is still on their site. Whatever, it is an insight to the mentality of these folks. Long about 9 or10 is get rid of all debt, just get rid of it, nobody owes anybody anything. Deep thinkers are they.
October 7th, 2011 at 7:52 am
I think you’re missing the point, shcb…
“The entire world is broke and in debt… to who?”
Think about that for a few minutes.
October 7th, 2011 at 7:55 am
And you’ll have to forgive them for being somewhat disorganized. They don’t have the benefit of billion-dollar corporate backers buying them buses and running commercials for them, media and PR consutlants. Or CNN inviting them to co-host debates.
Plus zombie costumes are waaaay cooler than civil war attire.
October 7th, 2011 at 8:14 am
tea-baggers favor Revolutionary War costumes (hey, Halloween is coming up, but for the tea-baggers, it’s 365.25)
typical Rethuggles favor Civil War costumes (ahm a lookin at yalls Johnny Reb)
looks like the prolls favor Union kepis?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-0Xbrn4&feature=player_embedded
great link knarly, that you had this on lies.com long before it aired on Stewart or Colbert (or any major news network) is a feather in your tuque.
OWS is an inchoate mass of pissed off disenfranchised people, the 99%ers. The Koch brothers and Dick Armey aren’t funding or organizing them, as often as not they look homeless, half-witted (it’s the hemp) or hungry (it’s the hemp). But let us tune back in to wwnj waxing all taxamagical about how great Enron was or how the poor should pay another 4.4% in taxes.
October 7th, 2011 at 9:58 am
My friends and I will be at “Occupy Bay Street” next Saturday. I’ll be holding a sign that says “I’m a Liberal”, one of my friends will be holding a sign that says “I’m a Conservative” (she really is and I love her) and the third one will be a holding a sign that says “And We’ve ALL Had ENOUGH!”
We’re making the signs tonight over a 28-pack of Budweiser. Should be fun…
Happy Thanksgiving Knarly.
October 7th, 2011 at 10:02 am
I get their point NL, it is just that their point proves how naïve they are, and how they haven’t thought this through past point A. So let’s move just to point B, the absolute simplest point past point A in this very complicated equation. I have a mortgage on my house, I owe about half what it’s worth, so all debt is gone tomorrow, gone, kapoot, by decree of the King of the world there is no debt. So who owns my house? I have paid for half of it and the credit union has paid for half of it. Do we close off the basement? All my neighbors are in the same boat, so the credit union now owns half of the houses in my neighborhood, they don’t own half the number of houses, they own half of each house. So that transaction is done, now, I want to use my basement and the credit union really doesn’t have a use for my basement so they decide to sell it to me, but I don’t have the money, so they say “here’s a novel idea, we’ll let you live there and use our basement if you give us a little money for a while, say 30 years and then it will be yours” great idea. So the idiot that wrote those 13 demands had the satisfaction of his dreams being filled for 1 day. I think the word idiot is perfectly justified here.
October 7th, 2011 at 10:12 am
3 sign painters and a 28-pack? of Bud? really? Bud?
I’ll look for three signs that start out legibly, then get progressively more sloppy and confused. “an we’ve, uh, hehe hee ‘ad ENUF” uz runnin outta rum, I mean room, but rums a good idea 2
psssst, OWS folks, publicly – and loudly – invite the tea-baggers to come down and protest with you! We’ll see their true stripes (old racist douchebags mostly).
October 7th, 2011 at 10:16 am
wwnj – so you think some random guy’s web site speaks for all the OWC crowd?
Talk about an authoritarian mindset from the get go.
You don’t understand bottom up people centered movements, do you.
note, not a question
His ‘demands’ will probably morph over the course of the American Spring.
‘an I want pizza for all! er, no I meant peace for all! but pizzas a good idea 2’
October 7th, 2011 at 10:34 am
“I believe that it’s only fair to ask those of us in high-income groups – who have received the primary benefits of the last decade’s economic growth and the majority of its tax cuts as well – to contribute to solving our long term debt problem.”
Bill Clinton
(PS enk, as hammered as we’ll probably be tonight I promise our signs will be spelled correctly :)
Never too angry – or smashed – to spell check! And 28-packs of Bud are on sale… I’ll drink anything if its on sale lol.
October 7th, 2011 at 11:03 am
Don’t go quotin slick willy to ol wwnj, they don cotton to no sensible solutions. A 15% tax rate on money making more money is good for you! Unicorns and sprinkles for everyone! Trickle down! Laffer up! A rising tide, er, nm…
The billionaires paid for this tax structure and you should expect them to fight for it tooth and nail. There will be blood (mostly hippy punching/truncheons).
My wife buys me awful beer in cans when I drink too much beer (in her opinion). Though today at my kid’s recycling drive I just saw a can of Fat Tire amber. In a can! I usually lay up a few emergency tinnys in the back of my kayak (shhh, don’t tell the missus!) Gotta find where they sell that Fat Tire…
October 7th, 2011 at 11:41 am
they make it right up the road from me I’ll see if I can find out where to get it in cans.
the list of demands was on the OWS site
You can ask the wealthy to pony up more, but they are already taking most of the load. You get the most out of people when you make it worth their while. I just spent the last two weeks arguing what the standard tolerance of extrusion is, in the end they never admitted I was right but I got what I needed and we came up with a way for me to get what I need, which is to comply with the standard without ever having the argument again.
At some point you have to ask what are your objectives and what are your priorities. If your objectives are to simply soak the rich then carry on, tax the hell out of them, break out the guillotines if taxes aren’t enough. But if your objectives are to get this economy going you may have to swallow some pride and lessen your expectations.
October 7th, 2011 at 11:56 am
I know why they’re there.
I think one of the big reasons OWS started was because of corporately-controlled democracy, a never-ending cycle of campaigning. Nothing getting done. Bailing out those that caused the mess, benefitted from it and then being told that “you and your social security is the problem.”
Kids are told that if you work hard, play by the rules, go to college and get a good education everything will work out…
But they leave out the part of today’s American Dream where you graduate with a pile of debt into a low paying job with little or no benefits – both of which are constantly targeted to increase the bottom line for investors (Wall St.). They leave out the part about your company lobbying for free trade agreements and once signed, packing up shop and moving their operations to a cheap foreign labour market with no worker or environmental protection laws. The when you need assistance to try to deal with this shit you get labelled a parasite, a leach and all the world’s problems are blamed on you.
Sounds more like a nightmare than a dream to me.
October 7th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
So what is their proposed solution?
This isn’t anything new (might be worse) when I had my shop I had a production job making the flip signs on semi trailers, the signs that say explosive, corrosive etc. This was nasty, hard work but I paid piece work so the guys could make pretty good money. Since this wasn’t a steady job I didn’t want my machinists doing it so I would hire riff raff to do it. Most of the guys and gals that I hired had masters degrees in geology. The oil shale market had crashed and there were no jobs for geologists in the Denver area, but these guys all liked climbing and rafting so they eked out a living as raft guides in the summer and making signs in the winter, it was a life choice.
Just getting a degree doesn’t mean you are going to get a job or make a good living, you have to also work hard. Now when the jobless rate gets this high there are people that are well qualified and hard workers that can’t find a good job. But the solution isn’t to eliminate all debt worldwide, unfortunately for the people making a mess in New York, it is more capitalism, more money flowing through Wall Street, and yes, more pollution. If other countries are happy with more pollution than we are and we lose jobs, well, that is a life choice we are making just like those over educated production workers that used to work for me.
October 7th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
“So what is their proposed solution?”
Surprise, *someone* has not been paying attention. I posted this just last night maybe if you look at it and try to comprehend then the silliness of your question will become more apparent. Here it is again: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html
In short, maybe the solution for people who are fed up and oppressed is: Anything but the problem.
October 7th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
And the problem is that the Apple is full of worms and rot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3jnFtSElH4&feature=player_embedded
October 7th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I read it last night and again just now, no solutions, not even a proposed solution it even says “Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet.” they’re idiots.
October 7th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
shcb, you’re locked in a stale paradigm while the world is shifting, so who’s the idiot?
NL, Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’ll be having a couple fatties… http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18858/62911/?view=beer&sort=latest&start=20
October 7th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
“The taste is very strong hops, with an amazing bitterness, and a delicious citrus-cannabis-bergamot aftertaste. No heavy malty flavours or anything to distract from this delicious hoppiness, and the hops taste fresh and, despite being very powerful, delicate. Nice carbonation; not too strong but not weak and syrupy either.
Three thumbs up.”
October 7th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
There’s nothing new here, there have always been people that like to bitch but have nothing to offer, having twitter instead of a bullhorn doesn’t change that.
October 8th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Enky, I looked for Fat Tire in cans at my store without luck. The New Belgium site says they have been putting it in cans since 2008. If you give them an email I’m sure they could tell you where to get it in your area.
October 8th, 2011 at 11:27 am
“There’s nothing new here,…” Marie Antoinette might have had the same opinion.
October 8th, 2011 at 11:45 am
and FYI, in most public locations bullhorns are illegal.
October 8th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
thx wwnj, I’ll look for it in the local big box booze outlets
‘twitter instead of a bullhorn’
this AM I listened to a improvised ‘human megaphone’ (since bullhorns aren’t allowed at the NYC OWC protest). One person says something and a chorus of other people shout it again, the person says the next line, the chorus repeats it loud. At first it seemed goofy, then it started to take on an oddly grand and poetic feeling. They can try to shut you down by not allowing you a (amplified) voice, but together we can overcome. It sounded vaguely like I expect the ancient Greek democracy to sound: loud, chaotic, fervent, hopeful, striving.
We may not have bullhorns like at Tahrir Square in Egypt, but we will be heard. We don’t need no billionaire backers like the tea-baggers.
October 8th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Ha ha, that isn’t exactly what I was talking about guys. I was talking about eras using technology as a timeline. I’m sure the chorus was cool to hear and these folks are passionate, the problem is they are passionate about what they don’t want but they don’t know what they want, much less how to get it if they did know what they wanted.
An unorganized mob without a leader isn’t going to get much done, they managed to get everyone in one spot without a leader, that’s about as much success as they can expect.
There is something to be said about decentralization. Much has been made of the difference between the US system of decentralization and the German centralization in WWII but there is a difference. In WWII the objective was laid out through the various levels of command, the total battle plan objectives were understood by the Generals at the top and the objective to take out a single pill box was understood at the squad level. Where the decentralization came in was in the event communication broke down the lower levels of command were to do what they could to finish their objectives without direction.
This is just a disorganized crowd that doesn’t even know what they are doing there, but they feel like they are important and they are getting their 15 minutes. No one is taking this seriously. Remember, in college all the Republican kids go to the football game to drink beer and try and get laid. All the Democrat kids go to demonstrations to smoke pot and try and get laid. It’s just what liberals do.
October 10th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Another example of these people being idiots.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/10/occupy-atlanta-protesters-use-assembly-rules-to-prevent-rep-lewis-from-speaking/
October 11th, 2011 at 6:20 am
Speaking of idiots…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTMDVwxNDis&feature=related
October 11th, 2011 at 6:23 am
No shortage shcb…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II21iLtbLY4&feature=related
October 11th, 2011 at 6:26 am
I can go all day….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyO6stTKLlg&feature=related
October 11th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Another great one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUsBvkfQKUw&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Make sure you hang on til the end where he tells you he pays no taxes and is on government assisstance.
October 11th, 2011 at 8:59 am
NL – Please stop, those idiots are killing me.
shcb – the Occupy Wall Street people are embarking on education & discussion groups that by most accounts are smart and insightful. As for Atlanta, maybe they have some catching up to do, or maybe they- like other Occupy groups – are determined NOT to let “establsihment” politicians Co-OPT the movement. I wouldn’t dismissed these people as stupid: AT LEAST THEY CAN SPELL.
October 11th, 2011 at 8:59 am
typo for irony
October 11th, 2011 at 10:00 am
funny stuff – I am sure there are some ripe typos in the OWS crowd
I have yet to see a single racist sign from the OWS protests.
Many tea-bagger signs promise violence, has anyone seen anything threatening violence from the OWS? Get ready for lots more hippy punching folks (and not just the rhetorical sort of hippy punching)
Have you guys heard about the Air & Space Museum ‘riot’? Sounds like there was a wwnj agent provocateur who was involved
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/10/09/american-spectator-editor-admits-to-being-agent-provocateur-at-d-c-national-air-and-space-museum/
Anyone have the whereabouts of that James O’Keefe guy?
Oh wait, he’s in violation of his probation, nm, nothing to see, move along.
I think wwnj again betrays his right wing authoritarian worldview: OWS isn’t going to do anything because it doesn’t have a Great Leader (you know, like Ronnie Raygun!) It may surprise you wwnj, but there didn’t seem to be a single Great Leader in the Egyptian Revolution, or the Tunisian, or the Libyan or the Syrian uprising. You give people the means to communicate, to ‘organize’ and inform without the government (or the rich and powerful in the case of the OWS protests) in the middle and things can get out of authoritarian control pretty quickly.
Look for China to undergo this process in a few years.
October 11th, 2011 at 10:05 am
well, good luck with that, I don’t think your movement stands much of a chance when it can’t seem to figure a way to let someone, a congressman no less, who is on your side talk. We’re all created equal and we’re all worth the same, good luck with that. Did you hear about the guy that decided how much everyone should be paid? Just kind of pulled some numbers from the air, doctors were something like $25,000 a year and teachers $35,000, the president $40,000… wonder how much that guy makes? All fringe groups have their goofy characters, but this whole bunch seems a bit goofy. Have they said anything sensible? Maybe I missed it, maybe there is a thoughtful core, I sure haven’t seen it.
October 11th, 2011 at 10:18 am
wwnj shcb cannot fathom anything besides a authoritarian leader paradigm, mentions some random dude’s reckonings without any context… Yep, another quality post – no wonder Smith is long gone.
October 11th, 2011 at 11:11 am
shcb, you didn’t watch those videos I posted did you? Tsk! tsk!
They say sensible things all the time, perhaps it just doesn’t get aired on Fox News…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-0Xbrn4&feature=player_embedded
October 11th, 2011 at 11:15 am
And aren’t you upset that your tax dollars bailed out banks that royally screwed up, crashed the worlds economy and then the CEOs and executives give themselves huge bonuses from it? Then to pay for it they’re going to cut you and your wifes SS benefits? That doesn’t bother you?
I thought that was what the Tea Party was angry about too? (I mean aside from the fact that they lost a democratic election to a black guy.)
Or was bailouts really secondary to race as the source of anger?
Help me out here.
October 11th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
yes shcb, NL has a fair question. Help him out…
The irony is especially rich at the 1:20 mark where the reporter says “We’re here Jessie to give you an opportunity to get your message out… blah blah blah” “this is the exception to the case…, unbiased reporting… ” and then when he gets Jessie’s message – clear concise and intelligent – what happens? Fox DOES NOT air the segment.
NL – see the comments, seems like a lot of folks are thinking this might be a repeat of the G20 and are made at the protestors and or rioter for the G20 spectacle. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/lets-not-repeat-g20-at-occupy-protest-says-open-letter-to-police/article2197544/
October 11th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
I’m not referring to the issues as much as I’m referring to the seeming lack of realization of how thing work, how things have to work. I’m no fan of the Tea Party primarily for the same reason, just not to the same extent.
Again I ask why is the Tea Party for the election of Herman Cain? As far as I can see he is “more black” than Obama. Sorry, the race card just doesn’t play well here.
The guy Fox is interviewing is articulate, very enjoyable to listen to, but he just seems to be talking in platitudes. The ninety nine percent bla bla bla, one percent owns bla bla bla. Tell us what your solution is, are you going to take 50% of what the 1% owns? Sling it to the bottom 1%? Are you going to tax the top 1%, the top 40%, what is your solution to your perceived problem?
At least Enky has been specific, he has said he wants to tax the top 1% (as I recall) 3%. Good, we can now have a discussion.
I did think it was telling that this gentleman doesn’t want to talk about Solyndra. Golly, in this day and age of multitasking can’t we talk about a scandal and the economy at the same time?
October 11th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Here’s an analogy; we have an apartment building of condominiums, 50% of the units are owned by the residents who live in them. 30% are owned by one man and rented back to the residents, the remaining 20% are owned by other landlords, some one unit others own two or three.
Now, someone decides that one man shouldn’t own so many, no particular reason, the fellow that owns the 30% isn’t any better or worse landlord than any of the 20%, it is just decided he shouldn’t own so many. This is the point these park people are in, they just don’t want the guy to own so many.
I’m going to tell you how this “problem” should be rectified, the people that are living in not only the homes of the 30% but also the other 20% need to work harder, they need some good luck, they need the economy to be strong and they need to buy those units from the current owners.
Now our park people’s solution to the “problem” is, well, ah, let’s see, ah, I ah, don’t know, one man shouldn’t own 30% of these units! It’s not fair! The government is broken, the press is owned by the government. Did I say it’s not fair?
What are you going to do? Are you just going to take half of his units and give them to the owners? Which units are you going to take? Rock paper scissors? What about the other smaller owners? Are you going to just take some of their units?
That’s why these people are certifiable idiots.
October 11th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Or perhaps you are?
Where did you hear that their “solution” is to confiscate the wealth of the rich, was it in a dream sequence where you spoke to their “leader”?
A better analogy than your Straw Man is that 2 brothers own 98 apartment units in the only apartment in a town where the only housing is that apartment building, and the remaining 700 residents of that town have a share in the 2 remaining apartment units but are continuing to lose a fraction of their share in those two apartments to those 2 guys year after year.
Further, the 2 old guys increasingly were able to concentrate their wealth by buying off the mayor and city councillors through a convoluted system that seems entrenched to the point that there is virtually no hope that any of the 700 other residents of that town will ever see their lot in life improve from that to which they were born.
So anyway, enough with your silly analogies. From what I’ve heard, there is no “solution” proposed yet by the OWS protesters, I think you are imagining things. Closest I’ve heard to a “solution” is an implied consensus to : 1. generate attention towards the real problems and 2. study the problems while educating themselves and others about the economy and power, 3. provide an open forum where ideas about possible “solutions” or how to develop possible “solutions” can be raised and thoughtfully considered.
October 11th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
and for the short term, 4. vehemently oppose any changes that further tilts the playing field towards the richest 2%.
October 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Oh well hell, just kill anyone that makes a buck more than you do. Problem solved. course, the guy that makes a buck less than you do has you in his sights, we’re back to the French revolution.
there is no solution because the problem is manufactured.
October 11th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
That’s certifiable crazy. Somehow you’ve “manufactured” violence and murder where none exists. Seriously dude, get your Dr. to check you meds ASAP.
October 12th, 2011 at 4:45 am
This is what is so frustrating talking to people like you, you see a problem, the rich have too much , but you don’t have a solution, just a problem. You don’t want to kill them and you don’t want to confiscate their wealth, what else is there? They are already giving all they want to give voluntarily through charity. Are you proposing a wealth tax? That is just the government confiscating the wealth.
The park people don’t understand that at least some of that wealth that is held by the top 1% is in privately owned businesses, the one I work for, for instance, we employ 17,000 people worldwide, if you or the government confiscate their money they will close plants and put people out of work, yes, the wealth is “held” by one family, but it is being used to support the lives of thousands of other families.
In your world view greed is bad, in mine envy is worse.
October 12th, 2011 at 8:32 am
Charity? Don’t even go there.
P.s. I don’t envy the rich, I myself am rather comfortable and certainly I’m happy. That’s what counts the most. Most of the rich do not warrant any envy, I pity most of them as they do not even realize how sick they are.
October 12th, 2011 at 8:34 am
And by the way, your reply had nothing to do with my previous post:
October 12th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. A person has so much money, whatever that amount is. You think the rich have too much, and yes it is envy, why do you think of them as sick??? The family that owns my company are rich beyond my comprehension, I think Ralph is in the top 500 richest men in the world, yet the boys at least (I’ve never met Ralph) seem decent, hard working gents. I offered to carry David’s bag up the stairs once and he said “I have two good arms! I can carry my own bags!” so how are they sick? Yes it is envy.
Back to my point, a person has so much money, you think they should have less, how far are you willing to go to take it from them, it seems you are not willing to kill them for it, we have at least set that benchmark. How far are the park people willing to go, probably not as far as killing them. Have you read Howley’s account of what happened at the Air and Space Museum? According to his account he was the only “protestor” to make it inside, most of the rest stopped at the steppes as soon as they saw the guards, only a handful made it far enough to get pepper sprayed, Howley included.
Are they willing to tax the rich to the point the park people have no jobs? Are they willing to have the government toss them in jail simply because they have too much? Remember in The Untouchables when Sean Connery was laying in his own blood and he asks Costner “how far are you willing to go” how far are you and the park people willing to go to end this sickness of the rich?
This bunch has no staying power.
October 12th, 2011 at 9:41 am
LOL they’ve been there for four weeks. I’d like to see a tea bagger protest that long without a big fancy, Koch Bros. sponsored bus.
I’d really like to know what meds you’re on sometimes, they seem to be really good.
October 12th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Let’s look at your reasoning powers. One guy said: “I have two good arms…” ~ therefore “sick” does not apply to the lifestyle or values of the individuals in the group.
Wow – that’s brilliant – you’d make a fine psychiatrist / psychologist.
October 12th, 2011 at 9:47 am
btw, sarcasm.
October 12th, 2011 at 10:18 am
I think shcb is hilarious. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests are doomed to failure because they don’t have a Great Leader (hey, what is Hosni Mubarack up to these days?) Their ‘solution’ is to kill anybody who makes a buck more than they do? Hilarious. Dreadlocked have-nots playing the bongos are the new storm troopers eh? The government is going to confiscate your wealth. Exactly the opposite has actually happened: the rich have paid for a system where their taxes are lower than the average Joe’s tax rates.
Hey, I have an analogy! There is a crowd of people, 100 in fact. There is a plate of cookies, 100 exactly. One guy grabs most of the cookies (whew! that was hard work grabbing most of the cookies. Oh wait, grand dad earned all the money and we’ve just built cookie factories leveraging that wealth) So the crowd of people see one guy with the vast majority of the cookies, and acquiring more each year… and when the crowd says ‘hey where are all the cookies?’ The guy with all the cookies says ‘the unions are trying to steal your cookie (*$&%@ing teachers and cops and firefighters!) And the three people who each managed to grab a cookie before Mr Rich grabbed 87% of them are left with a very empty plate with just 10 cookies for 97 people.
I am surprised the Tea Party hasn’t jumped in OWS to demand lower spending and higher taxes for the wealthy: the opposite is what has gotten us into this mess (along with deregulated dark markets for derivatives and bullshit). If spending and debt are their concerns, where are they? gee maybe they aren’t really concerned with those issues, maybe it is something else?
wwnj’s plan is to tax the poor an extra 4.4%. I suppose the rich, errr I mean ‘job creators’ get another tax break? I think the country could get behind shared sacrifice. I’d be happy to pay another 3%. However, 4.4% would be socaimalism! comoonism! wwnj wants to punish the poor some more, and give more breaks to Mr 1% (using the ows term) Brilliant!
Just so long as we start raising the taxes back to a sane level. As the jobs come back, tax revenues will too. Debt costs are low right now, but we have to restore our national balance sheet to a more sustainable level. It’s not envy, it’s math.
October 12th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Great analogy enk! But you left out a key part…
The Board of Directors of Cookie Co. decides that they can make even more boatloads of money!! They do this by abandoning the country that provided them the opportunity to be successful and moving their operations to communist China, where they can pay slave wages and there are less of those pesky environmental laws that protect the air, water and soil.
The best part of it (for them and their shareholders) is that they’re also going to screw the US workers out of their pensions… so the execs get even bigger bonuses this year!! Woohoo!
October 12th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Matt Taibbi re OWS
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/my-advice-to-the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-20111012
Victoria (nucking futs) Jackson (skip to 2:00 or even better 4:40)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA1py9erpVk&feature=youtu.be
This lady is a complete nut job, she makes wwnj here look ‘smart’
Her gibberish about “Right now, 50% of people pay taxes and 50% do not. So if everyone gets free stuff who is going to pay for it?” Typical wwnj bullsh!t. The other 50% pay lots of taxes. She tries to put all kinds of nonsense words in this guys mouth and he isn’t going for any of it.
I think a 2012 American Spring is coming.
How do we end the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich.
Not a bad battle cry.
October 12th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I don’t see much difference between her and our wwnj. Just look at how she throws out the equality strawman against capitalism at 8:30. Classic wwnj throwing words in your mouth.
October 12th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/intellectual-styles-of-the-rich-and-clueless/
October 13th, 2011 at 9:14 am
“how are you going to make everyone equal in good looks and smart brains?”
hurf durf!
October 13th, 2011 at 10:18 am
the irony, the LIES:
http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/12/the_very_scary_iranian_terror_plot/
October 13th, 2011 at 10:24 am
They’re still off in the distance… but I can hear them. The war drums are and starting to beat.
October 13th, 2011 at 10:53 am
I’m not to fond of Victoria Jackson, too whiney. She makes some good points early on, then gets into the Tea Party fringe goofy stuff toward the end. She found a couple reasonable, well spoken subjects for her interview, they made some good points, but they admittedly don’t have an answer as to how to achieve their goals.
The Rolling stone piece was good as well, he has some proposals that are very reasonable. I like (4), all you have to do is change the classification of the tax rate of hedge funds without changing other capital gains. I don’t mind (3) but not sure how you would enforce it. (5) not a bad idea but shareholders should be enforcing it, not government. Also this stupid idea of taxing people that make over a million dollars is going to make this problem worse, which will make (5) more necessary, which makes things worse…
October 13th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Good to see you softening your tone. Also good to see Cain, Romney and others doing so as well. I’m assuming you guys did some polling and were like, “shit! these folks are the 99%!
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/10/13/ac-gop-views-occupy-wall-st.cnn&hpt=hp_c1&
October 13th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“[It is] going to make this problem worse, … makes things worse…”
Gee, what a whiner.
October 13th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Nl, I’m not softening, this guy just made more sense than most of this group, I agree with him and a few things, disagree with him on some. This group isn’t the 99% they claim to represent, they are a few percent, the group Victoria represents is another small percent (the more radical and less informed wing of the Tea Party), the group the guy she was interviewing is a little larger percentage, less radical, same as the group I represent, I’m just on the other side of the fence.
October 13th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Knarly, I prefer to be refered to as a winer, it’s more accurate.
October 14th, 2011 at 7:39 am
shcb,
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/14/understanding-occupy-wall-street/
A great column from a surprising source.
October 14th, 2011 at 8:50 am
I think no one wants everyone to be exactly equal in economic terms. Oh sure, maybe there are a few anarchists or libertarians or freegans revolutionaries, but they are beyond marginal, edging towards laughable.
OWS seems to be an inchoate mass of frustration, protest against injustice, lack of responsibility and financial criminality. No one went to jail for fraudulently labeling junk mortgages as AAA (America’s Treasury debt is below that according to the same bunch of criminals at Moody’s). Financial wizards (criminals) created CDSs or credit default swapss and blew these up into a $60 Trillion (yes, Trillion) dollar dark (unregulated) market. When this bubble of bullshit burst it erased Trillions of dollars in real assets. Google shadow banking system and CDOs. Watch the movie Inside Job for more info (no, it isn’t like Loose Change ;)
OWS is real grass roots, mud and shit n hippies n stuff. The TeaBaggers were funded by the Koch brothers and directed by Dick Armey. They riled up a bunch of old white grumpy assholes and racists about ‘th dang gubbermint is th problem!’ Yes, the government deregulated these markets so that is a big part of the problem (Gramm Leach Bliley). Free markets work great when there is strong oversight and transparency, they inevitably lead to ruin when you let the Rethugs at the tiller (or the till – which Presidents ran up our debt and crashed the economy?)
btw you can send a pizza or two to the OWS protestors via various internet sites (thanks Al Gore!)
Sally Kohn seems like a reasonable person, how the hell did she get a job w fox?
October 14th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Maybe she’s just contributed the one article to Fox. Check out her blog, she has lots of interesting observations, e.g. this account of going to the OWS site this morning to help defend the protesters against the threat to clear them from the park at 6 am:
http://movementvision.org
October 14th, 2011 at 11:36 am
Oh Canada!
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/journalist-chris-hedges-goes-canada-ends-fo
Click on Sally’s name at the top of that foxnewts link
she has 15 posts for fox
shhhh knarly, please! goodness knows wwnj has done his darnedest to pin our present state of affairs on negroes n mexicans (plus that boy and his administration), pointing out the actual reality is so impolite. ;)
October 14th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Yes Enk, sorry, I suppose that was a tad insensitive to our bigot.
About Sally, from Sally’s blog: http://movementvision.org/media/
October 15th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
OWS is going global in a way the teabaggers never will
http://images2.dailykos.com/i/user/123/oct15.JPG
good news wwnj! Somalia is still a paradise of unfettered darwinian free markets!
Go Galt! No, really, just go! You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps there like no where else! No dang gubermint! yeehaw! woot!
October 15th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Why would the Tea Party want to go global? They don’t want to be the same as the other socialistic countries, they want to be better. They only wish to change the face of American politics, that is the only politics that matter if it keeps us the best in the world.
October 19th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Based on the way America treats and cares for fellow Americans (insert issues here, e.g. access to Health Care, quality education, hopeless poverty, brutal repression of voices of dissent, government sponsored torture and assassinations) most impartial observers conclude that America is far, far from being the “best in the world.”
Enk, I should’ve posted this a while back, the images are powerful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RGRXCgMdz9A
October 19th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Change the face of American politics? It goes deeper than that, let’s let Naomi explain, she know the laws far better than most: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/19/naomi-wolf-arrest-occupy-wall-street
October 19th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
http://conspiracycards.com/Toys/NaomiWolf_Action_Figure_white.jpg
collect the whole set
http://conspiracycards.com/Truth_Troopers.htm
October 20th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Perfect! My Christmas shopping will be easy this year!!!