What is happening????

It sounds like some weird paranoia sci fi movie of the Cold War. We've fallen asleep and have awakened into the reality of a Twilight Zone episode where our rights and freedoms have become obsolete due to companies needing to show profit.

BUT it is reality, and we are made to believe that people trying to warn us are the crazy ones. The true insanity is sitting down and not doing shit.

We have been brainwashed to believe that social services and our infrastructure must suffer in order to "balance the budget", meanwhile we are paying banks and collection agencies to collect student loans and taxes from people that can't afford to pay. So we throw them in jails OWNED by the banks that own the collection agencies.

The world has truly gone mad. Our once great country is becoming a joke where the very rich can get away with whatever they want while everyone else is pitted against each other to fight for the scraps.

People used to own land because it had value and that value throughout history never went down... now surprise that land is worthless (or so we are told) and the only way to get any money for it is to sell rights to the frackers who pollute our waters and air with their fracking materials.

People sit and remain silent but they can call and vote for the latest American Idol.

Look at the Occupy movement and compare it to the Right Winged homogeneous Tea Party... we can sit by and watch Occupiers get peppered sprayed and be represented by ALL RACES, RELIGIONS, SEXES AND SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS, BUT the Tea Partiers are never harassed by the police, the press or the government because if you look at them, they are vastly white, middle class, Right Winged Christians, who sold their religion out for 30 pieces of silver and a pipe dream that THEY were the selected few. They can forget the whole "love thy neighbor..." and "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" but they will wave flags and demand a bigger war effort to wipe out innocent Muslims in a country half way around the world that costs more in 1 week than EVERY SOCIAL PROGRAM COMBINED COSTS IN A YEAR. They will bitch about education, they had THEIR FREE education and CHEAP student loans, WHY SHOULD THEY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR PASSING IT ON... WHY THAT JUST ISN'T CHRISTIAN.. THAT THAR'S COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM. THESE PEOPLE DON'T EVEN KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.

Why am I upset? Because the very people that are losing everything are the ones that are willing to give up their freedoms and everyone else's so that they can believe in a make believe world that they can keep what they have, while they are losing it all... but they can blame everyone else that doesn't agree with them. The people that are wanting to keep freedom and wanting pass on a better life to their children not at best keep a status quo or as reality shows LOSE what we have.

I am no Bible scholar, but WHERE IN THE BIBLE DOES IT SAY TURN YOUR BACK ON THE WEAK AND INFIRMED AND BITCH ABOUT SOMEONE IN NEED GETTING A LITTLE BIT FROM THE GOVERNMENT? You can bail out Wall Street and Auto companies, but you are going to bitch and moan about investing into the people by giving universal healthcare and programs to help people become better educated and thus more productive??????


The companies and banking industries are too "BIG TO FAIL"? But the people that pay taxes and work hard to try to better their lives, it's ok for them to fail????? WTF? This is ok with you?

Some laugh thinking "oh it's just a tirade and I have mine who cares if others don't have theirs.... don't even try to touch mine."

Eventually, when the poor have nothing left to give and become "burdens" and you imprison them all... who do you think the masters will come after next?????

 

You must hate your heart to put it under so much strain, all because of these silly things.

 

View: http://youtu.be/Pz8mG-chs1E
--- merged: Apr 23, 2012 5:19 PM ---

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btXtDnrzCj4&feature=share
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Really?? No discussion, no thought behind your answer? Just that? You can truly do better.

 

What is happening? Is not all bad news.

In a series of scathing letters to Republican chairmen of House Committees, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Republican ally on the contraception issue, is blasting the proposed Republican budget as immoral and an attack on those "least among us"...creating quite an embarrassment for Boehner and Ryan as they attempt to explain the "shared sacrifice" of slashing social services, lowering taxes the wealthy and spending more on the war machine.

In a small but growing grass roots effort (on the left) that has OWS appeal and participation as well as "good government" support, folks are pushing back against the obscene level of money in this year's election as a result of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United.

United For the People and Lawmakers Unite with Activist Groups to Press for Constitutional Amendment on Citizens United | United Republic

IMO, if the Tea Party was true to its roots, it would support this as well, but I wont count it.

 

There goes your idiocy again. Where in my comment do you see a hint of participation in this discussion?

Couldn't care less about the dead-horse topic. Felt I had to make an observation, though.

Keep cool, or you'll find yourself getting a stroke.

 

Lot's of problems in the world. It isn't just in the US, although the current state of things could be better.

I suggest coming up with an escape plan, or at least some way to avoid paying money into the current system.

 

So why comment???? Just because..... you don't like the topic don't comment, pure and simple. I'm sure I won't get a stroke because you showed a "care" in my health. lol
--- merged: Apr 23, 2012 at 3:10 PM ---

It's not just the US, true, but in the past the US was the beacon of freedom and hope.

Not paying money into the system or having a viable escape plan are almost impossible. Not to say they are totally impossible, just depending on where you live, near impossible.

The fact that private for-profit prisons are showing record profits should be scary enough. It shows that there is no incentive to rehabilitate or try to keep crime down. If anything there is more incentive to pass more laws to move more people into these prisons.

 

I never said that I don't like the topic either. Someone as obviously passionate as you probably can't understand when somebody has no feelings towards something.

Not everyone either completely loves or hates something and is about to pick up a gun to shoot up the conspiracy aliens in black suits of the Freemasons, pan.

Whether I care for your stroke or not, maybe cool down anyway.

 

I agree, there are way too many fees. You may as well just call them taxes. Those more than anything prevent the little guy from trying to start his own business.

Is it Stossel that had the "everything is illegal in the US"? It is Stossel and it's Fox:

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMhapZrqvdg

 

Looks like somebody forgot to appease The Ghost of Host.

Shit, son.

 

The hell you doing in Politics?

 

The US may have been the beacon of freedom and hope at one time, but our interests have always been primarily invested in the virtue of the corporation.

Perhaps if more Americans hadn't sat around shitting on activist movements and talking shit about the people who tried through the last century to help us open our eyes to what is/was/will be going on we wouldn't be in this situation right now. This is what comes from a century of buying shit and not caring about anyone or anything but your own: jackshit and debt for everyone but the very wealthy. I don't know that anything can be done to correct the trajectory at this point. I am concentrating on getting my degree and perhaps just getting the fuck out of this place.

 

Here is an interesting synopsis on the history of the corporation. Initially, corporations were tightly controlled, this eroded over time. This occurred when individual real people became lax. Politicians became beholden to corporate interests. Even today, we have a two party system and individual real people will not hold the alleged party supposedly fighting for the rights of individual real people. Republicans tend to be honest about what they stand for, and want simple and clear rules. Democrats tend to use deceit, and use complexity to hide what they really fight for. A perfect example is the "to big to fail" financial fixes. The end result is fewer corporate financial institutions that are bigger, exerting more control over individual real people and small business.

About ReclaimDemocracy.org

The "founding fathers" had it right.

People who normally comment on what I write are going to pretend to be confused by my post. As a right-wing conservative, I do not and have never supported big corporate interests. Where I disagee with the above synopsis, is regarding money influencing public policy. I think the problem is with real individual people, in particular when they lose the will to fight for freedoms and rights. Far too often, we hear, "well that just the way it is", "they all do it", "my guy has to play the game", "the other guy did it", etc. - that is a b.s. cop out.

 

Corporations weren't anywhere near as big or powerful when the nation started. And there is something to be said about an only small and medium size business economy. The goal is to provide better service, not to make as much of a profit as possible...


Here is an interesting article:
In Nothing We Trust - Ron Fournier and Sophie Quinton - NationalJournal.com
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/nothingtrustgraphic.jpeg
(The man they covered, and a bunch of other people that are in similar situations need to look at home prices and why we can't pay them off. In 10 years, and if they had a decent income, they should have been able to come up with $40,000... If the wife had a government job, at the least she probably made $250,000 over those 10 years...)

Also, the news media needs to come together and have a few days where they cover everything for as long as it takes. The 5-10 minute 'stories' are getting old. Even the 1 hour investigations aren't enough for certain topics like the current state of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria... Let alone anything else going on around the world...

 

Laissez faire is a great concept and yes, it is a huge pendulum. Our government has always had a hard time with regulation.

The great Republican Teddy Roosevelt was one of the first to start regulatory commissions. He started by fighting the oil, steel, sugar and tobacco monopolies and he was a leader of the then GOP reform, progressive faction. He was also sympathetic to unions (1902 United Mine Workers Strike getting them more pay for fewer hours), getting the Pure Food and Drug Act passed (which later became the FDA). He also fought against child labor and exploitation. Even from there it took almost 60 years to devise employment laws such as minimum wage, 40 hour work weeks, holiday and overtime pay and have laws that made unions legal. (It took us the Reagan administration to destroy those laws.)

After his reign as president, it was not until his cousin FDR and the 1929 crash that our government went back into any form of regulations with the exception of alcohol (which they over regulated). FDR regulated the banks so that what happened in 1929 could not happen again. Since then there has been the constant fighting of both parties to regulate and deregulate everything from the banks to airlines to small businesses to the environment and yes the pendulum swings, one party wants to regulate one aspect and deregulate another. The far left swing was with Carter, we are now, I believe, in the midst of the far right swing and should by "nature" be swinging more towards center. However, the far right has been able to do something that has never been done, they are seemingly able to hold back the pendulum's swing back towards center and push it even further right. That would be why we are in the situation we are in.

Now, imagine IF the financial scare was manipulated, people were told that there was no money to regulate and one party was able to sell this to a scared population.... what would the effects be? Deregulating everything because of the debt, instead of ENDING the WAR where companies are making their fortunes selling weapons to BOTH SIDES because there are no regulations preventing them from doing so. "It's just business and profit and the government has no right to stop us." Hence we have soldiers being killed by weapons made by US "owned" companies.

We have a whole new industry without ANY regulations what so ever in the "for profit prisons" and we don't regulate the most powerful industry at all, the lobbyists.

We as a nation looked to Obama to lead us into a more equal society (regulate the banks and Wall Street especially the oil speculators) and because of partisan bullshit he hasn't been able to do so. He can't overstep his bounds and put into law, the changes 30 years of bullshit deregulations have given us, without a congress willing to help him. And Congress won't do so as long as we stay divided along partisan lines. The best we can hope for is a d'etante, which neither party wants because it makes them look weak.

The average poll (and if you truly want a Host post i'll be more than happy to show the polls) 20% of the population is far right, 20% is far left and 60% fall somewhere towards the center. Hence low confidence in the presidency and congress polls.

This is a centrist nation that will not do anything one way or the other as far as regulating/deregulating industries UNTIL it absolutely has to. We are a nation that for the past 30 years has been told on a daily basis our views do not matter.

Hopefully, with the early Tea Party movements and the Occupy Movements, there is some eye opening and it isn't too late. One of Obama's biggest mistakes was bailing out the banks and financial industry without having them agree to a regulatory reform. I am of the belief that greed just happens, it's not a group of people sitting down and planning it out. On the contrary, I believe that even most of the finance leaders would if asked be for some form of regulatory watchdog because they have found over the past 30 years they can not police themselves. Once something starts spinning out of control, it is nearly impossible to regain control.

Thus the people are paying.

 

Obama moves to curb oil speculators - Apr. 17, 2012

He is about 3 years too late, and I'm wondering why he didn't do this in the first few months in office...

But, I don't buy enough gas to care about oil prices anymore. And removing me as a consumer is helping to reduce demand and bring down prices(if other people didn't use more when prices are cheap...).

 

Ace, that is one of the best researched and well put together posts I have seen in a very long time. I have to agree with what your inner post from "reclaimdemocracy.org" says about allowing corporations and how states charter them. It was a very interesting read. I will most definitely check out the website.

Thank you for sharing it.
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Well, he has to show he is doing something to ease the prices at the pump, so he can get reelected.