REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 19:58
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VIEWED: 11812
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Saturday, December 21, 2013 1:54 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

It’s the season to show concern for the less fortunate among us. We should also be concerned about the widening gap between the most fortunate and everyone else.

Although it’s still possible to win the lottery (your chance of winning $636 million in the recent Mega Millions sweepstakes was one in 259 million), the biggest lottery of all is what family we’re born into. Our life chances are now determined to an unprecedented degree by the wealth of our parents.

That’s not always been the case. The faith that anyone could move from rags to riches – with enough guts and gumption, hard work and nose to the grindstone – was once at the core of the American Dream.

And equal opportunity was the heart of the American creed. Although imperfectly achieved, that ideal eventually propelled us to overcome legalized segregation by race, and to guarantee civil rights. It fueled efforts to improve all our schools and widen access to higher education. It pushed the nation to help the unemployed, raise the minimum wage, and provide pathways to good jobs. Much of this was financed by taxes on the most fortunate.

But for more than three decades we’ve been going backwards. It’s far more difficult today for a child from a poor family to become a middle-class or wealthy adult. Or even for a middle-class child to become wealthy.

The major reason is widening inequality. The longer the ladder, the harder the climb. America is now more unequal that it’s been for eighty or more years, with the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of all developed nations. Equal opportunity has become a pipe dream.

Rather than respond with policies to reverse the trend and get us back on the road to equal opportunity and widely-shared prosperity, we’ve spent much of the last three decades doing the opposite.

Taxes have been cut on the rich, public schools have deteriorated, higher education has become unaffordable for many, safety nets have been shredded, and the minimum wage has been allowed to drop 30 percent below where it was in 1968, adjusted for inflation.

Congress has just passed a tiny bipartisan budget agreement, and the Federal Reserve has decided to wean the economy off artificially low interest rates. Both decisions reflect Washington’s (and Wall Street’s) assumption that the economy is almost back on track.

But it’s not at all back on the track it was on more than three decades ago.

It’s certainly not on track for the record 4 million Americans now unemployed for more than six months, or for the unprecedented 20 million American children in poverty (we now have the highest rate of child poverty of all developed nations other than Romania), or for the third of all working Americans whose jobs are now part-time or temporary, or for the majority of Americans whose real wages continue to drop.

How can the economy be back on track when 95 percent of the economic gains since the recovery began in 2009 have gone to the richest 1 percent?

The underlying issue is a moral one: What do we owe one another as members of the same society?

Conservatives answer that question by saying it’s a matter of personal choice – of charitable works, philanthropy, and individual acts of kindness joined in “a thousand points of light.”

But that leaves out what we could and should seek to accomplish together as a society. It neglects the organization of our economy, and its social consequences. It minimizes the potential role of democracy in determining the rules of the game, as well as the corruption of democracy by big money. It overlooks our strivings for social justice.

In short, it ducks the meaning of a decent society.

Last month Pope Francis wondered aloud whether “trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness…”. Rush Limbaugh accused the Pope of being a Marxist for merely raising the issue.

But the question of how to bring about greater justice and inclusiveness is as American as apple pie. It has animated our efforts for more than a century – during the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and beyond — to make capitalism work for the betterment of all rather merely than the enrichment of a few.

The supply-side, trickle-down, market-fundamentalist views that took root in America in the early 1980s got us fundamentally off track.

To get back to the kind of shared prosperity and upward mobility we once considered normal will require another era of fundamental reform, of both our economy and our democracy. http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-what-will-it-take-us-get-
back-being-decent-society


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Saturday, December 21, 2013 8:25 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


When I was growing up, bank managers and ceo's probably earned about 3 or 4 times that their basic employee did. Houses were smaller, but almost everyone could afford to buy one. Electricity and gas, publically owned in those days, were dirt cheap. Cars were expensive. Most households only had one. Medicare had just been expanded and all education, including tertiary was free. Welfare was very generous and not many checks and balances about how it was accessed.

There are lots of things about those days I do not long for.... the position of women in society, the open sexism, racism and homophobia - but I do miss that it was a much more stable place and less dog eat dog. I'm kind of horrified at what ambition has done to some of my closest friends who are really chasing big big salaries and what it has meant for their lives.

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Saturday, December 21, 2013 9:27 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MAGONS, have you heard this before?


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Saturday, December 21, 2013 10:14 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Of course!


Not that version, which sound beautiful but the original.

Eric Bogle



The Pogues had a hit with it as well.



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Saturday, December 21, 2013 11:37 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Liam Clancy (of the Clancy Brothers) does a version of it that will make you cry.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:51 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I was talking with a temp who works in the lab. He was telling me about the jobs that have been offered him, the payscales, and the conditions attached. He has advanced degrees in both physics and chemistry and years of work experience. He was offered a job that paid $17/ hr. Another place offered to pay him by the month - no matter how many days or hours he worked. Another potential employer said he would get $25/hr but have to work Saturdays for free. He said the people who he knows - with his level of education and experience - are in the same boat.

So, I asked him if this was due to businesses being extremely wary about spending money, or if it was an attitude. And he told me it was an attitude, because those same people thought nothing about paying themselves hefty salaries and bonuses. They didn't mind spending business money on themselves - not for work but just b/c they were owners, they just couldn't see their way to paying other people a reasonable wage, for a 40 hour week.

His story corresponds with the stories of the other temps who come through. And it corresponds with what the security guard tells me, about how the owner of the company thinks nothing about having everyone's (minimum wage) paychecks 'accidentally' be a week late - every pay cycle. It corresponds with what the waitresses at the restaurant tell me - that they are expected to show up early and set up for free, and stay late and close up for free.

When the economy crashed and people lost jobs and got desperate, business people became what they always wanted to be - greedy without restraint. People got desperate for jobs, and business owners took advantage without any consideration.

So no, I don't expect this society to go 'back' to being decent. For one thing, it never was. In the US we floated on the post WWII destruction other countries were struggling with to give us our first-place economy. And besides, this is a capitalist economy. Profit is the only goal. That won't change.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 5:42 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Liam Clancy (of the Clancy Brothers) does a version of it that will make you cry.



Aye, that he does.

A story about this song. Many years ago when i was a wee slip of a lass, I travelled through Ireland and ended up on Cape Clear Island off the west coast. Gaeltact area. In fact it had an Irish Language Summer school. Beautiful and bleak place. In the pub, it was tradition, as in many parts of Ireland, to sing. People were trying to get me to sing a traditional Australian song, but I just dont sing like that ie on my own in front of a whole bunch of strangers all be they friendly enough. Even a few draughts of Irish brew didn't give me courage. One Irish lad started with the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda and the whole pub joined in. I was stunned, I wasn't aware that the song was known outside of home, but the Pogues had recently done a version which was well known.

Anyway, speaking of the Pogues, Shane McGowan sings a duet that always makes me feel Christmassy (in a boozy, down and out, aint life a bucket of shit way)



still sad that the wonderful Kirsty MacColl was tragically killed.

Anyway, back to the thread.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 10:03 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

The supply-side, trickle-down, market-fundamentalist views that took root in America in the early 1980s got us fundamentally off track.


Complete rubbish. The slide started in the 60's. The 'decent society' you're looking for existed in the 50's. Or maybe the 30's. Or maybe... never ?

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 10:40 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Complete rubbish. The slide started in the 60's. The 'decent society' you're looking for existed in the 50's. Or maybe the 30's. Or maybe... never ?

"Wealth Gives Rise to a Sense of Entitlement and Narcissistic Behaviors"
www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/25/study-finds-wealth-gives-rise-to-a-sens
e-of-entitlement-and-narcissistic-behaviors
/
Here are two fun videos on the subject:
"Does money make you mean?"


"The Science of Greed : Why the Ideology of self interest could be the downfall of the American Dream."


"Upper class more likely to be scofflaws due to greed"
www.psypost.org/2012/02/upper-class-more-likely-to-be-scofflaws-due-to
-greed-10230


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Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:35 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


How about this for a theory of what went wrong recently? “Wealth is deranging the minds of America's most influential people, which steadily lowers, year after year, the quality of their major decisions affecting the rest of America.”


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


To riff on what KIKI said
Quote:

When the economy crashed and people lost jobs and got desperate, business people became what they always wanted to be - greedy without restraint. People got desperate for jobs, and business owners took advantage without any consideration.

So no, I don't expect this society to go 'back' to being decent. For one thing, it never was. In the US we floated on the post WWII destruction other countries were struggling with to give us our first-place economy. And besides, this is a capitalist economy. Profit is the only goal. That won't change.

A couple of important points: More profit means the ability to expand a business. With that kind of system driver in a positive feedback (more begets more) configuration, ultimately the greediest businesses are the one which will take over. When greed is consistently rewarded, people will become greedy. And, has been pointed out, wealth begets assholeness. So as long as our economic system rewards greed.... and, no, I don't mean a "pat on the head" kind of reward, I mean real rewards like the chance to survive and the capacity to expand... our society will be greedy.

In addition, we may have been decent in the 40s and 50s and 60s... and 70s and 80s and 90s and more .... HERE... but overseas we were brutalizing reformist governments all through Central and South America and the Middle East, and rewarding capitalist tyrannies everywhere. Our early "interventions" have caused ontold suffering, death, and instability... including the development of a hardline Muslim revolution in Iran and the creation of a tyrannical monarchy in Saudi Arabia. And don't forget our own racist heritage, which was widely accepted "back then".

And now we have the new generation, raised to be real consumers in a virtual world. They have no idea about anywhere, anyone, or anywhen else, and are completely oblivious to the environmental and social destruction that their demand for toys is causing.

So, what will it take for us to "get back to" being a decent society (if we ever were one)?

Get rid of money. As long as money can be traded and hoarded, it will continue to allow people to be able to buy power over others and over society.

Eliminate TPTB. Choose workplace democracy and social engagement over individualistic libertariansim.

Throw out smart phones, iphones, and the other highly mobile devices that allow people to be plugged into a virtual world virtually 24/7. Don't allow kids unlimited access to videogames and television and the internet. Childrens' developing brains are vulnerable to addiction. If you want a healthy society, make them go out and play... or go out and work... or just go out and daydream. But keep them engaged in the real world and in real people.

Stop buying a lot of crap. Opt for "just enough". Value education.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 11:59 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:



1776 Continental Dollar: The first coin authorized by the Continental Congress after the signing of the Declaration of Independance was the 1776 Continental Currency, called the Continental Dollar. Designed by Benjamin Franklin, America’s first coin was a one of beautiful simplicity. There was a sort of monetary anarchy in the United States so the Congress decided that issuing the Continental Dollar would help unite the nation by bringing some kind of standardization to the monetary system. The first coins of the United States showed a sundial with the legend "Fugio", meaning "I fly." The sundial refers to time, so the message was that "Time flies." Under the sundial is the motto, "Mind your business." On the reverse of these cents is a chain with 13 links. The legend on the reverse says, "We are one." All of these mottos are attributed to Benjamin Franklin and collectors call these "Fugio cents" or "Franklin cents." .



MIND YOUR BUSINESS - While some may view this as a message for others to butt out of YOUR business, it's also a reminder to keep your OWN affairs in order. To yourself, you should MIND YOUR BUSINESS.

I think if more folks would take the attitude of looking after their OWN affairs, instead of trying to blame othes for what they don't have, or looking to the govt to give them things they feel they are OWED, then society will be vastly improved.

Yes. There are those with needs out in the world. No one denies that fact. But when the idea of seeing others being taken care of gets a hold, some start thinking " Why should I bother working so hard, when I can get stuff for free ? ". It's THAT 'Let someone else do it ' mentality that's become a cancer to the American public.

You didn't build that! - Implies that all the effort you put forth wasn't of YOUR doing, but in reality, was a product of " The Collective ". With that sort of outlook on life, the West would have never been explored or tamed. The frontier may have never exceeded past the Mississippi valley. America would not be America were it not for far sighted, free thinking INDIVIDUALS.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:06 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


And here we have an example of our very own wealth-begotten asshole.

Rappy, if the wealthy really did MIND THEIR BUSINESS, and ONLY their business, we would be far better off than we are now. But, as it is, the wealthy not only want what they can earn on their own and keep by dint of personal effort, they want the banks, the military, the police, the copyright office, the law... indeed, the entire government of the USA... to mind their business for them.

I wish to god you were on your own, with nothing but your "individual" "hard work" to survive on. You wouldn't last a month. In fact, you'd be one of the first to go.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:12 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

I wish to god you were on your own, with nothing but your "individual" "hard work" to survive on. You wouldn't last a month. In fact, you'd be one of the first to go


Schadenfreude much?

There you go, NOT minding your own business, and instead trying to interject yourself into the business of others.

You don't know me. You don't know what I do, and you have absolutely no clue of what you speak. Again.

You really are among the worst that lurks on the internet, Sig.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:17 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

There you go, NOT minding your own business, and instead trying to interject yourself into the business of others.
Says the man who is telling everyone else they have to play by HIS rules? Hey, all I did was wish for you to be living YOUR OWN personal fantasy of how you think the world should work... yanno, everyone living off their own individual effort and hard work... and it seems you didn't like it much in there. So please, dear god, make it so that rappy has to live by the fruits of his own labor!




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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:26 PM

AGENTROUKA


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
With that sort of outlook on life, the West would have never been explored or tamed. The frontier may have never exceeded past the Mississippi valley. America would not be America were it not for far sighted, free thinking INDIVIDUALS.



This is a pretty bad example for Mind Your Own Business. Those jolly explorers and "tamers" were invaders who happily butted into the business of the people already living in those areas, acting as if they were owed the land these people lived on.

If that's not a sense of entitlement to forcibly taking what belongs to others because you feel you are owed that...

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:30 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
. . . Get rid of money. . . . Stop buying a lot of crap. Opt for "just enough". . . .

That is no way to run a country. I've seen this kind of Henry David Thoreau advice before. Do a search at Amazon for all the books titled "How Much is Enough?" It is great for people with money volunteering to live poor; it improves their souls and clarifies their minds. But it doesn't help real poor people. They need incomes and jobs. Or put more crudely: Money. One way to make that happen was having World War II. There are now other ways, less destructive, to reverse economic recessions.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:30 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

This is a pretty bad example for Mind Your Own Business. Those jolly explorers and "tamers" were invaders who happily butted into the business of the people already living in those areas, acting as if they were owed the land these people lived on.
Aided, in no small part, by the US Cavalry. So, yeah... not much "minding your own business" going on there.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:36 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

That is no way to run a country. I've seen this kind of Henry David Thoreau advice before. Do a search at Amazon for all the books titled "How Much is Enough?" It is great for people with money volunteering to live poor; it improves their souls and clarifies their minds. But it doesn't help real poor people. They need incomes and jobs. Or put more crudely: Money. One way to make that happen was having World War II. There are now other ways, less destructive.
No, they don't need money.

The world is awash with money. And yet, while people need to be educated and healed, and homes need to be built, and land needs to be farmed and environments need to be remediated and population growth needs to be tamed... why is there unemployment?

What people NEED is some technology to make their lives more productive and less brutally hard. They need food. They need houses. They need education. They need a source of power. Money isn't necessary to obtain those things. You really only need work, and maybe some helpful tools.

That is the difference between exchange value (money) and use value (goods).

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:37 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

There you go, NOT minding your own business, and instead trying to interject yourself into the business of others.
Says the man who is telling everyone else they have to play by HIS rules?



Only, I never have. I'm not the one demanding that everyone give the federal govt more and more, out of some misguided claim of " fairness ".

Quote:

Hey, all I did was wish for you to be living YOUR OWN personal fantasy of how you think the world should work... yanno, everyone living off their own individual effort and hard work... and it seems you didn't like it much in there. So please, dear god, make it so that rappy has to live by the fruits of his own labor!






I'd still be there if Obama and company didn't keep taking from me.

When the govt comes and takes the fruits of everyone, and tells us " it's for the greater good ", I don't trust the govt. Especially not those in power today.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:50 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

That is no way to run a country. I've seen this kind of Henry David Thoreau advice before. Do a search at Amazon for all the books titled "How Much is Enough?" It is great for people with money volunteering to live poor; it improves their souls and clarifies their minds. But it doesn't help real poor people. They need incomes and jobs. Or put more crudely: Money. One way to make that happen was having World War II. There are now other ways, less destructive.
No, they don't need money.

The world is awash with money. And yet, while people need to be educated and healed, and homes need to be built, and land needs to be farmed and environments need to be remediated and population growth needs to be tamed... why is there unemployment?

What people NEED is some technology to make their lives more productive and less brutally hard. They need food. They need houses. They need education. They need a source of power. Money isn't necessary to obtain those things. You really only need work, and maybe some helpful tools.

That is the difference between exchange value (money) and use value (goods).

But there are millions of poor people that can't work. Work in exchange for goods in a moneyless transaction is not touching those people. They get nothing from that idealized arrangement.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:51 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I'd still be there if Obama and company didn't keep taking from me. When the govt comes and takes the fruits of everyone, and tells us " it's for the greater good ", I don't trust the govt.
Oh, bullshit. Sop whining. Your taxes have neither gone up nor down under Obama. They're just the same as under Bush, so all you're reflecting is your own irrational (race-based) hatred of a single person.

As far as YOU'RE concerned, the government should get out of money-printing business. Get out of the business of protecting copyrights and patents. Stop negotiating international trade deals. Stop insuring banks or maintaining roads or educating the workers of tomorrow or investing in blue-sky research. Should have never "subdued" the Natives, or toppled reformist governments elsewhere. In other words, allow EVERYONE the ability of make it on their own, without government interference.

Correct?

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:54 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.


As evidence of "rape mentality"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is

whore

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies.


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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:00 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Do you mean oxycontin



Or viagra?





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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:06 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

But there are millions of poor people that can't work. Work in exchange for goods in a moneyless transaction is not touching those people. They get nothing from that idealized arrangement.
Do you mean can't work ... as in: too young, too sick, or too old?

Or do you mean Can't find work for a wage that will ensure survival?

I need clarification before I can respond to that point because I don't understand what you're saying.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:14 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I'd still be there if Obama and company didn't keep taking from me. When the govt comes and takes the fruits of everyone, and tells us " it's for the greater good ", I don't trust the govt.- rappy

Oh, bullshit. Sop whining. Your taxes have neither gone up nor down under Obama. They're just the same as under Bush, so all you're reflecting is your own irrational (race-based) hatred of a single person.

As far as YOU'RE concerned, the government should get out of money-printing business. Get out of the business of protecting copyrights and patents. Stop negotiating international trade deals. Stop insuring banks or maintaining roads or educating the workers of tomorrow or investing in blue-sky research. Should have never "subdued" the Natives, or toppled reformist governments elsewhere. In other words, allow EVERYONE the ability of make it on their own, without government interference.

Correct?-signy



Waiting for an answer from rappy, proposer of "individual hard work" and government non-interference.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:18 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

I'd still be there if Obama and company didn't keep taking from me. When the govt comes and takes the fruits of everyone, and tells us " it's for the greater good ", I don't trust the govt.
Oh, bullshit. Sop whining. Your taxes have neither gone up nor down under Obama. They're just the same as under Bush, so all you're reflecting is your own irrational (race-based) hatred of a single person.


So, you think you're Harry Reid now, and know what others pay in taxes, do you ?

Funny.

And Obama's vast expansion of govt and inflating of our debt has ZERO to do with race. You're the gutless race baiter here.

Quote:



As far as YOU'RE concerned, the government should get out of money-printing business. Get out of the business of protecting copyrights and patents. Stop negotiating international trade deals. Stop insuring banks or maintaining roads or educating the workers of tomorrow or investing in blue-sky research. Should have never "subdued" the Natives, or toppled reformist governments elsewhere. In other words, allow EVERYONE the ability of make it on their own, without government interference.

Correct?



Nope. But keep telling other people what THEY believe, because that's all you frelling want to hear anyways.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:20 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Well, technically you can only get addicted to

oxycontin



not viagra.


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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:25 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

As far as YOU'RE concerned, the government should get out of money-printing business. Get out of the business of protecting copyrights and patents. Stop negotiating international trade deals. Stop insuring banks or maintaining roads or educating the workers of tomorrow or investing in blue-sky research. Should have never "subdued" the Natives, or toppled reformist governments elsewhere. In other words, allow EVERYONE the ability of make it on their own, without government interference. Correct?- signy

Nope. But keep telling other people what THEY believe, because that's all you frelling want to hear anyways.-rappy

Well, since you suggested that we should be like the old west (as you saw it), where people lived and died by their own efforts and luck... not much money, no insured banks, little law, no roads. and no industry ... I thought you were making a broad-brush "get rid of government" proposal. If not, in what areas do you think a government SHOULD interfere? And why? (Gets in car to run errands and some popcorn, will be back later.)

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:25 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

But there are millions of poor people that can't work. Work in exchange for goods in a moneyless transaction is not touching those people. They get nothing from that idealized arrangement.
Do you mean can't work ... as in: (A) too young, too sick, or too old?

Or do you mean (B) Can't find work for a wage that will ensure survival?

I choose (A). Social Security does work well for the old, although some elderly aren't doing well today because of decisions they made 50 years back. It is too late for them to undo those mistakes by their own efforts in 2014.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:29 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


That is the point of having a society with surplus. (Not savings. Savings is "money", surplus is "extra goods").

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:36 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Well, technically you can only get addicted to...



*sigh* Different pills, 1kiki






Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference. Oh well.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:39 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.


As evidence of "rape mentality"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is

whore

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies.


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Sunday, December 22, 2013 2:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference.
Oh, you mean you thought that we didn't???

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Christ, rappy, you gotta stop with the jokes so early on Sunday!

Oh yeah, BTW it's a fact that Limbaugh is a blue-pill addict.

And, you can answer my questions any time now!

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:02 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.



WAS, I believe, is the operative word. And yes, his choice to toy w/ that drug. What's that suppose to mean to me ? He didn't kick the habit with some govt intervention program, did he ? And who did he hurt, with his addiction? His body, his choice, at least.

And your inane sig, literally makes no sense, what so ever. 'rape mentality' ? If anyone is showing a rape mentality, it's the Sandra Fluke types, who want to use the power of govt to FORCE others to pay for her drugs. SHE should be the one who decides, not the govt. Good grief, your mind is completely upside down and backwards, as usual.

Siggy, I was talking to 1kiki, who made the viagra / oxy comment. It's evident the reference was NOT understood. Not sure what point you're trying to make. Still butthurt, I see.

And 'early' on Sunday? I posted the reply @ 1:30 pm. Unless you're in Hawaii for Christmas, how is that 'early' ? And my sig has been here for a while, so you're just full of fail on this matter.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:44 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
When I was growing up, bank managers and ceo's probably earned about 3 or 4 times that their basic employee did. Houses were smaller, but almost everyone could afford to buy one. Electricity and gas, publically owned in those days, were dirt cheap. Cars were expensive. Most households only had one. Medicare had just been expanded and all education, including tertiary was free. Welfare was very generous and not many checks and balances about how it was accessed.

There are lots of things about those days I do not long for.... the position of women in society, the open sexism, racism and homophobia - but I do miss that it was a much more stable place and less dog eat dog. I'm kind of horrified at what ambition has done to some of my closest friends who are really chasing big big salaries and what it has meant for their lives.



Yep.... Accept these inalinable truths...

In the mean time, isn't it really cool how almost 0% of families in America can even exist now unless completely government subsidized without two parents working, even if the daycare expenses are almost as much as the 2nd salary after taxes? Most women I know personally envy my stepmom for being able to be a stay at home mom. The house was always spotless, and although her two sons had some problems like we all do, they both went to big colleges for free because of sports and their brilliance.

God Damn America in the 80's and my parents split for making my Mom go to work doing data-entry in the late 80's. By the time she retired, she was a consummate Project Manager for 15 years for Ameritech (formerly Ma-Bell).....

She fought so hard to have Ownership of her children, only to leave us with her parents or day-care because she worked nearly 80 hours a week (salary) with zero overtime pay. Being a woman at that time, she had to work twice as hard as a man in the same position.

She doesn't understand why I don't want a wife. Why I don't want to get married. Why I don't want to have a kid or 12.....

Everything I learned, I learned from my mom. Her life sucked.

I appreciate her love for her kids, but it was all she had outside of that miserable job, and the deeper she got into it the less she even acknowledged her kids over the years. Meanwhile, I'm quite certain that at least two Rich Old White Guys got huge Golden Parachutes when they bailed. Last I heard it was "SBC". Ma Bell whem my mom joined, then Ameritech, then SBC.....

Wonder how many people in India they employ now..........




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Sunday, December 22, 2013 5:22 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
I was talking with a temp who works in the lab. He was telling me about the jobs that have been offered him, the payscales, and the conditions attached. He has advanced degrees in both physics and chemistry and years of work experience. He was offered a job that paid $17/ hr. Another place offered to pay him by the month - no matter how many days or hours he worked. Another potential employer said he would get $25/hr but have to work Saturdays for free. He said the people who he knows - with his level of education and experience - are in the same boat.

So, I asked him if this was due to businesses being extremely wary about spending money, or if it was an attitude. And he told me it was an attitude, because those same people thought nothing about paying themselves hefty salaries and bonuses. They didn't mind spending business money on themselves - not for work but just b/c they were owners, they just couldn't see their way to paying other people a reasonable wage, for a 40 hour week.

His story corresponds with the stories of the other temps who come through. And it corresponds with what the security guard tells me, about how the owner of the company thinks nothing about having everyone's (minimum wage) paychecks 'accidentally' be a week late - every pay cycle. It corresponds with what the waitresses at the restaurant tell me - that they are expected to show up early and set up for free, and stay late and close up for free.

When the economy crashed and people lost jobs and got desperate, business people became what they always wanted to be - greedy without restraint. People got desperate for jobs, and business owners took advantage without any consideration.

So no, I don't expect this society to go 'back' to being decent. For one thing, it never was. In the US we floated on the post WWII destruction other countries were struggling with to give us our first-place economy. And besides, this is a capitalist economy. Profit is the only goal. That won't change.


I agree, I think businesses will always try to get away with paying you the least they can and making you work the most they can. They whinge about unions because that's generally the only thing in the way of workers being completely screwed over.
I work in the community sector. You'd think it'd be all love and cups of tea over here because you know, most of us are in the so called 'caring' professions, but no its as ruthless and bloody as working for the biggest multinational, but without the healthy pay checks. And its all bullshit, it doesn't make you more productive, it makes for a resentful, hostile workforce who leave at a moments notice even though many of the positions are hard to replace.
I'm so jacked off with the harshness and inhumanity of the system I live in. Not inhumanity unbearable North Korea style, but nasty niggly little indignities and injustices inhumanity.
I can only change myself in this crazy system, make choices about how I go about things. Do I buy into the ruthless mindset? I can make lots of money, have a good life. Or do I practise humanity and speak out when I see wrong? Chances are I'll be unemployable, washed up.
What should I do? What would you do?

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Sunday, December 22, 2013 7:22 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MAGONS, KIKI I have to bring this up again, it was so funny the last time:

Quote:

Crazy Eddie [Lampert] has been one of America’s most vocal advocates of discredited free-market economics, so obsessed with Ayn Rand he could rattle off memorized passages of her novels. ... Lampert took the myth that humans perform best when acting selfishly as gospel, pitting Sears company managers against each other in a kind of Lord of the Flies death match. This, he believed, would cause them to act rationally and boost performance. If you think that sounds batshit crazy, congratulations. You understand more than most of America’s business school graduates.

Instead of enhancing Sears’ bottom line, the heads of various divisions began to undermine each other and fight tooth and claw for the profits of their individual fiefdoms at the expense of the overall brand. By this time Crazy Eddie was completely in thrall to his own bloated ego, and fancied he could bend underlings to his will by putting them through humiliating rituals, like annual conference calls in which unit managers were forced to bow and scrape for money and resources. But the chaos only grew.

Lampert took to hiding behind a pen name and spying on and goading employees through an internal social network. He became obsessed with technology, wasting resources on developing apps as Sears’ physical stores became dilapidated and filthy. Instead of investing in workers and developing useful products, he sold off valuable real estate, shuttered stores, and engineered stock buybacks in order to manipulate stock prices and line his own pockets.


http://www.alternet.org/economy/eddie-lampert-and-ayn-rand

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Monday, December 23, 2013 12:07 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

THIS.


Morality and Ethics aside, historically it's the ONLY thing that ever HAS worked, problem is... it's a temporary solution that simply feeds the cycle by skimming the scum off the top and never addressing the root cause of how those learned sociopaths are created and enabled, so eventually you wind up with meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss.

However, in order to reformat a society and address the issues of our social, legal and educational systems formenting sociopathic behavior on a goddamn assembly line, well, that takes time, and it's time we don't HAVE, unless, of course, it's bought with a heavy price - as violence scars those who use commit it as well as those subject to it.

But those numbers keep haunting me, 25% casualties concentrated primarily in women, children and the elderly, with a potential for up to 25% more of the remainder over the next five years...
Or 8%, more immediately, concentrated primarily amongst the most vile factions of our so-called society.

I don't pretend it isn't a monstrous suggestion, that it isn't every bit as evil as those inflicted daily upon us en-masse by laughing sociopaths, I simply point out that it may well be a matter of survival rather than morality - and frankly, the decision isn't really up to me, or you, as much as all of us, and you can bet your sweet bippy there's a whole *lot* of hungry, angry, desperate people out there with nothing left to lose thinkin the same bloody thing.

Damn tragedy, is what it is, cause had we not chosen this course back in the 80's, we'd be in a different place now with maybe better solutions more readily available.

-Frem

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Monday, December 23, 2013 1:34 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"Seriously, I figured fans of Sci-Fi would get that reference."

Unlike you I deal with facts when I think about the real world. OTOH you have not posted a single fact yet. You keep posting fantasy.

FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.


As evidence of "rape mentality"

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:11 PM
MAL4PREZ
And just remember, according to Rappy, the term befitting a women who wants the insurance she pays for to cover medications affecting her reproductive organs is

whore

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:23 PM
little rappy
The term applies.


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Monday, December 23, 2013 8:11 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Quote:

Unlike you I deal with facts when I think about the real world. OTOH you have not posted a single fact yet. You keep posting fantasy.

FACT: Rush Limbaugh is a blue pill addict.



Facts do no cease being facts simply because you don't want them to be.

How do you KNOW that Rush is still an addict ? Talk about others posting only fantasy...

WOW.

More like evidence of 1kiki's sad, pathetic state of mind.


Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Monday, December 23, 2013 8:37 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

The slide started in the 60's.



Actually, the Raptard IS right about this one tiny fact. The decline of the American economy started in the LATE 60's, specifically 1968-'69, after the inauguration of Nixon, when he floated the price of the dollar against gold. Before that, gold had been worth 20 dollars an ounce since at least the Civil War, until Roosevelt raised it to $35- $37 an ounce during the Second World War. The dollar was a rock solid, stable currency- that's why it was valued as a medium of exchange, sought internationally, valued everywhere. Even debased as it is today, it still is that, mostly.

Now, Nixon had some justification- Johnson caused great inflation by paying for the Vietnam War on credit, rather than raising taxes to pay for it; but old Tricky could have ended the war sooner, or raised taxes to cover its costs, but he didn't like either of those choices.

And y'all will remember that inflation came back to bite RN in the tail later, right before the Gerald Ford Presidency and the "Whip Inflation Now" button. Floating the dollar was a short term Nixon solution in '69 that contributed to the problem only a few years later.

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Monday, December 23, 2013 8:54 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



Well, the issue of society's fall had its own path,imo. The ever growing power of labor unions in the auto industry didn't help matters either. A sense of entitlement , getting more and more for less and less, tipped the scales and all but destroyed the industry and Detroit along with it.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Monday, December 23, 2013 9:45 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Thank you Frem.

Indeed, culling the sociopaths from among us would be profoundly beneficial. The other option is that we... the 99% of us... simply build another society and then refuse to share. 'Cause those Randists? They NEED society; they couldn't dig a latrine or cook a pot of beans or write code if their LIFE depended on it- which, it does. (BTW, my immediate reaction to the end of the story, when all of those capitalists run away to found a "better" society was Good riddance!. Unfortunately, they will never do that because like all parasites, they do need their host.)

Until we rid ourselves of parasites and predators, all the rest of us are doing is licking each other's wounds and sharing our crumbs so that we can hobble forward to another day of being sucked dry.

But once that is done, we need to keep the parasites and predators from re-developing. You and I had this discussion many years ago. At the time, I think you suggested barter and smaller semi-independent communities. I said it would be impractical, as modern technological economies need wide-scale trade. Your answer to that was that that we needed to take a couple of steps back, and my answer to that was nobody would tolerate such as move. And YOUR answer to that was that we either do it voluntarily or we will be unprepared for when it happens on its own. Over the years, I think I've come to your position. Anyway, it was obviously an interesting discussion because its stuck with me all of these years.

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Monday, December 23, 2013 10:01 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MEANWHILE... rappy is dikcing around (so to speak) with blue pills...

YOO HOO! Rappy! You "forgot" to answer this. Here are all of hte main points, in context, So hey, you don't even have to scroll! What could be easier?

Quote:

I'd still be there if Obama and company didn't keep taking from me. When the govt comes and takes the fruits of everyone, and tells us " it's for the greater good ", I don't trust the govt.- rappy

Oh, bullshit. Sop whining. Your taxes have neither gone up nor down under Obama. They're just the same as under Bush, so all you're reflecting is your own irrational (race-based) hatred of a single person.-signy

So, you think you're Harry Reid now, and know what others pay in taxes, do you ? Funny. And Obama's vast expansion of govt and inflating of our debt has ZERO to do with race. You're the gutless race baiter here. rappy

Stop trying to change the topic. YOUR original complaint was about Obama's taxes. Now that you realize I know something about the tax code, and that that argument won't fly, you're just trying to divert the discussion. You would be paying the same under Bush as under Obama because the tax rates haven't changed, so that makes YOU the gutless race baiter, donnit? (BTW, my guess is that you're invested in stocks, and you're just crying because you have to pay any taxes at all on your capital gains.)

Quote:

As far as YOU'RE concerned, the government should get out of money-printing business. Get out of the business of protecting copyrights and patents. Stop negotiating international trade deals. Stop insuring banks or maintaining roads or educating the workers of tomorrow or investing in blue-sky research. Should have never "subdued" the Natives, or toppled reformist governments elsewhere. In other words, allow EVERYONE the ability of make it on their own, without government interference.
Correct?-signy

Nope. But keep telling other people what THEY believe, because that's all you frelling want to hear anyways.-rappy

Well, since you suggested that we should be like the old west (as you saw it), where people lived and died by their own efforts and luck... not much money, no insured banks, little law, no roads. and no industry ... I thought you were making a broad-brush "get rid of government" proposal. If not, in what areas do you think a government SHOULD interfere? And why? (Gets in car to run errands and some popcorn, will be back later.) -signy



Well, obviously I've been back for quite a while now, and you still haven't explained your views on which areas you think government SHOULD support and which areas it shouldn't. I expect a very self-interested answer from you... so surprise me.

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Monday, December 23, 2013 10:17 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


"What will it take for us to get back to being a decent society?" Not this, certainly:
Quote:

As millions of Americans gather in their homes for the holidays, there will be those who will congregate in a different kind of home.

An abode common to other parts of the world now proliferates across America: Tent cities.

The total number of homeless people residing in tents and makeshift homes is unknown. Many of these communities are small and hidden from public view, while others claim hundreds of residents and are sprinkled through major urban areas.

Some, like those tucked under roadways, are temporary and relocate frequently. Their conditions are vile, unsanitary and fail to provide refuge from storms and winds. Then there are communities, such as Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon, that have a more sustained presence. The 13-year-old "ecovillage" set up by homeless people is hygienic and self-sufficient.

Preliminary findings by The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty show that tent cities have been documented in almost every state, and they're growing.

A report released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, for example, found that homelessness and hunger rates are rising, culminating in 47 million Americans living below the poverty line. A fledgling economic recovery, high unemployment and contracting government services are largely to blame. So is the paucity -- or paradox -- of affordable housing. While homelessness is increasing, more than 10% of homes in America are empty.

Emergency services, meanwhile, aren't filling the void. Homeless families and single adults are routinely turned away by shelter homes because of lack of bed space.

Tent cities are an organic, last resort response to crushing economic circumstances. Yet, rather than ameliorating the conditions that give rise to these communities, many states and municipalities are cracking down. While some encampments are legally sanctioned or permitted to operate on church grounds, officials routinely invoke prohibitions against public camping and sleeping to disband these encampments, leaving tenants languishing out in the cold.

Epithets suggesting that homeless people are mentally ill, lazy, criminal, violent or some combination thereof only fuels the fire.

These accusations are largely urban myth.

Most homeless people do not suffer from mental illness or drug abuse. Many homeless people have jobs but simply can't afford housing. Some tent cities, for example, cater to local economies, and many of their residents are gainfully employed. Homeless people also tend to be the victims of countless hate crimes, even though they are a protected class under numerous state hate crime statutes.

Lost in this shameful rhetoric is the fact that the right to housing is a bedrock of international law and protected by U.S. law. Some courts have held that tearing down camps when no alternative is available amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and a deprivation of property without due process of law.

That we can even stroll through our cities while some of the residents languish in squalor is hard to believe. A few decades ago, tent cities would have been unimaginable.

In 1964, a group of researchers famously roamed the parks of New York City and found only one homeless man. Fifty years later, homelessness in New York City has reached a record high. The same can be said for much of America: Homelessness has doubled since the 1980s. Those who declare that we're close to ending poverty just need to look around and see the victims of the Great Recession.

Tent cities are an ugly reminder of America's growing income inequalities. Yet, in the absence of meaningful economic reform, these self-reliant communities must not be dismantled. Nor should they be forgotten. For in sanctioning them, we risk capitulating to the epidemic of poverty and shifting our public policy from eliminating poverty to accommodating it.

This is already happening in other parts of the world. In Mumbai, India, for example, slums freckle the landscape like skyscrapers. But sprouting from the dilapidation are antennas and electrical wires. Some of the housing units have electricity, cable programming and mail delivery. And so the discussion no longer concerns extricating human beings from the slums but making the slums more habitable.

We must not succumb to America's great divide. Doing so isn't just a repudiation of the downtrodden; it's a stain on our national consciousness. http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/23/opinion/sethi-tent-cities/index.html?hpt
=hp_bn7




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Monday, December 23, 2013 10:21 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Well, the issue of society's fall had its own path,imo. The ever growing power of labor unions in the auto industry didn't help matters either. A sense of entitlement , getting more and more for less and less, tipped the scales and all but destroyed the industry and Detroit along with it.



You know, I can actually see where you're coming from here and why you think that, but you're missing the other side of this equation: that the car manufacturers were going to move operations overseas anyway, no matter what the unions did. The organization of the unions was a desperation tactic to keep their jobs, and they failed because they weren't getting liveable offers. Inflation in America meant that the employees couldn't live on the 5 cents an hour that the businesses could pay someone overseas in a 14 hour-a-day death trap. Now we have the proud distinction of being a former manufacturing powerhouse that imports more than we export, and every bit of those imports is covered in blood. This has thoroughly screwed over the job market and the economy and which has exacerbated our now endless debt and inflation. Fun times.

While there are positives to this system, and forms and conditions under which such a system can work, in other ways it can also be incredibly self-destructive. We decided to go down the path towards oblivion.

You know your history AURaptor, although perhaps viewed through a different lens than most others here. I know you scoff at comparisons to the Roman Empire, but they fell during a period of rampant inflation when they started contracting out their military and security to private and foreign entities. History always repeats itself.

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Monday, December 23, 2013 12:39 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


What Byte said.


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Monday, December 23, 2013 2:44 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Thank you Frem.

Indeed, culling the sociopaths from among us would be profoundly beneficial. The other option is that we... the 99% of us... simply build another society and then refuse to share. 'Cause those Randists? They NEED society; they couldn't dig a latrine or cook a pot of beans or write code if their LIFE depended on it- which, it does. (BTW, my immediate reaction to the end of the story, when all of those capitalists run away to found a "better" society was Good riddance!. Unfortunately, they will never do that because like all parasites, they do need their host.)

Until we rid ourselves of parasites and predators, all the rest of us are doing is licking each other's wounds and sharing our crumbs so that we can hobble forward to another day of being sucked dry.

But once that is done, we need to keep the parasites and predators from re-developing. You and I had this discussion many years ago. At the time, I think you suggested barter and smaller semi-independent communities. I said it would be impractical, as modern technological economies need wide-scale trade. Your answer to that was that that we needed to take a couple of steps back, and my answer to that was nobody would tolerate such as move. And YOUR answer to that was that we either do it voluntarily or we will be unprepared for when it happens on its own. Over the years, I think I've come to your position. Anyway, it was obviously an interesting discussion because its stuck with me all of these years.


Well, come to find out that this is prettymuch how most of the scandanavian countries developed, and they somehow managed to develop that wide scale trade and supporting infrastructure without the madness, in large part due to the stronger social bonds rooted in such a structure to begin with.

One enormous part of their current sanity, comparative to ours, is that the plague of fascism that reared its head back in the 1930's was mostly rejected by them because it required a form of childrearing which was inherently abusive in order for humans to become twisted enough to accept and embrace such a horrific and inhumane social structure, and to do this en masse was against their very nature - conversely america seems hell bent on it despite not only its proven failure as a system, but the unbelievably horrific aftermath of every attempt.

It was that aftermath, in fact, that gave rise to social consciousness of the form mostly attributed to Alice Miller, and firmly and scientifically proven by CITIVAS and Doc Perry.
A lesson we continue to ignore because instead of locking them up in a rubber room, we put these fuckers in charge, and that's gotten us where we are now.

The predictive model we're working from is in fact both well-sourced and backed up by something as close to an actual AI as makes little difference, and one of the analysts worked for 538 before Nate sold it off under suspicious circumstances, so it's not an off-the-cuff assessment, but one that's been formulated for some time, and basically there's a two way split.

The high probability course is a civil war in all but name, resulting in 25% near immediate casualty, concentrated amongst women, children, elderly, disabled, and so forth and so on, and a follow through of up to 25% more in the aftermath as the necessary infrastructure to support them will have failed or been destroyed.
People don't think about this stuff, but if you cut a major city off from power, water, fuel and food, for any extended period, they're dead, period - and in a severe civil unrest situation it's quite plausible for the powers that be to do such a thing ON PURPOSE, especially since a mild form of it has recently been pulled on us.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-committee-to-investigate-chris-chri
stie-bridge-controversy
/

Ain't the violence itself which'd be the primary factor of casualty, it would be starvation, exposure, and rampant sickness/disease which follows lack of clean water and sanitation surely as day follows dawn, and shockingly quickly.

The low probability course is your basic pitchforks and torches peasant revolt, with a side order of outright hatred for the riechwing, so essentially the french revolution redux, complete with purgings and lynchings and so on, till folks get sick of that shit and turn on them all in disgust, resulting in 8% casualties overall, primarily concentrated amongst the 1% and their enablers and hangers-on, and also resulting in Capitalism being filed right next to National Socialism in the dustbin of history as well as a profound and lingering distrust of the political establishment.

Either way we're likely to take a solid hit to the infrastructure, ignored, weakened and rotting that it is, a cascade failure is pretty goddamn likely, and folks have no bloody idea how quickly that can go to hell in a handbasket - remember the 2003 blackout ?

One thing I did put some time and effort into was contingency planning, I happen to be all but sitting on an enormous reserve of fresh water, and can have 2000 watts of power from sun, wind or muscle set up within 24 hours, and more as time, tools and personnel allow for - but I'd really rather it not come to that.

One thing for damn sure though, if it does, any of the bastards, jackboots and bootlickers would be well advised to get the hell out of dodge and keep on running, cause people are gonna want someone to blame to avoid admitting responsibility themselves, yanno ?

Not that it'd break my heart even a little to see em strung up from the lampposts like demented little xmas ornaments, mind you.

-Frem

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Monday, December 23, 2013 3:03 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

You know, I can actually see where you're coming from here and why you think that, but you're missing the other side of this equation: that the car manufacturers were going to move operations overseas anyway, no matter what the unions did. The organization of the unions was a desperation tactic to keep their jobs, and they failed because they weren't getting liveable offers. Inflation in America meant that the employees couldn't live on the 5 cents an hour that the businesses could pay someone overseas in a 14 hour-a-day death trap. Now we have the proud distinction of being a former manufacturing powerhouse that imports more than we export, and every bit of those imports is covered in blood. This has thoroughly screwed over the job market and the economy and which has exacerbated our now endless debt and inflation. Fun times.


Some things are out of the control of governments. Manufacturing and other industries are moving from wealthy countries where labour costs are at a premium to labour rich - economically poor countries, where large rural workforces move to find work in urban areas when farming becomes less intensive work.

The world has cycles, some of which are impossible to stem or change.

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