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AIW -- Bravo! -clh
C'mon Matt, spare us the bullshit about what we progressives "think" and "feel". Enough already.
People who don't agree with basic progressive principles ARE exclusionary, because they think you should only get what simple necessities like healthcare, education, etc. you can pay for out-of-pocket. It is is all about exclusion. Conservatism is about compartmentalizing us all according to income or wealth, even around the barest necessities, and it is all about one-upmanship. Has exclusion written all over it: "I've got mine and screw you!"
You sound like you're sold on privatized education, Matt. And anything "private" is, by the word's very definition, about exclusion. If you're against progressive ideals, you reject the notion of us all "being in this together" and think it's every person for him/herself, that we don't need to care about each other in a society shared by all. If some kid's parents can't afford to send her to the best schools, gee what a shame. If you can't afford regular visits to the eye doctor or the dentist and wind up blind and toothless, too bad for you.
You assume all we do is "look at people and say, 'They have too much!' or 'they don't work hard enough!'" That's just a shallow, trivialized, dumbed-down version of things said in this forum. It doesn't begin to describe the breadth and scope of these discussions regarding class in America. Whether or not you've noticed it from your cushy pedestal, Matt, there's a serious class war taking place in this country. It's likely to get a whole lot worse before it's over, if it's ever over.
You can leave the blinders on and your head stuck in the sand if it makes you happy. Keep on posting these stupid, condescending messages about how simple minded, petty, envious, etc. you think we progressives really are, and how persecuted you well-to-do conservatives are for having "more", ad nauseam. But you won't be getting much sympathy here, except from Kend the clueless Canadian... maybe a few other like-minded individuals who pop up on Thom's blog from time to time. If you'd prefer a more appreciative audience for your take on reality, you've come to the wrong forum. Seems to me that someone would have to be a glutton for punishment, posting that shit here on such an ongoing basis. We have lots of fun picking apart conservative arguments, especially with so few platforms available from which to do it. Sure beats yelliing at the boob tube. - Aliceinwonderland
This is in regard to Pat who just called in. Issues goes far beyond false paternity claims. There are countless cases of false abuse claims, custodial parents who deny visitation with little or no recourse imposed. Non-custodial parents who lose their income and are prosecuted for not keeping up child support and other issues that affect children as much as they do parents. I love it you would take a look at the father's rights movement, although I would prefer they take more of a non custodial parent's point of view since it can happen to women.
ChicagoMatt ~ Nice volley! However, as Aliceinwonderland pointed out, it was you who were judging liberals and progressives as being envious and greedy. It was also you who proudly described yourself as wealthy, proud of it, and wanting of more wealth. Sounds like greed to me. How does that make me a judge? I'm just a listener.
Indeed, Alex Jones was out front for a lot of this. What will it take for the average American to react? I wish I could pour everyone into a funnel to the Thom Hartmann program.
One solution is to build support and get votes for the National Citizens Initiative.
I want my top tax rate above 90% with lots of loopholes for investing in America
Chi Matt -- The power elites have done a very good job. They have not done a perfect job. If they had done a perfect job Thom Hartmann would not be on the air. You really need to read "Crash of 2016"; especially, the parts about the Powell Memo. In 1970 he described the plan for the power elites. One can easily correlate what they planned with policies the republicans have been pushing and passing.
I think you need to quit looking at the views of progressives, and start looking at the policies that the dems are trying to pass. I think the key law that needs to be passed is "The Employee Free Choice Act". One more dem vote in the senate and it would be the law of the land. I think it would have leveled the playing field between labor and business. I always like to point out that my favorite metric of that playing field is inflation vs. unemployment. It seems are economy does best when each of those are hovering around the 4% mark.
"I Want My Constitution Back," indeed!
Alex Jones, not looking so crazy anymore is he?
Don't call baby boomers self centered, Matt, they are and were less so than generations subsequent and previous. The real self centered generations, Matt, are mine, the Generation X, as it were, the "greed is good" generation, followed, perhaps, by your generation or the one coming after (depending on how old you are), judging from what you told us about yourself it might be yours, followed by this "greatest generation" who were so named only to take a pot shot at baby boomers - who were morally far superior to the "greatests" - in retaliation for boomers' calling those "greatests" out on their bullshit. The so called "greatest" generation was really two generations - or there was another, not popularly named generation between the "greatests" and the boomers that was too old to rock and roll in the '60s and too young to die in WW II. They were born in the Great Depression and teenagers in the '50s. They would surpass the "greatests" in self centeredness - but not my or your generation. The boomers were the least self centered and it is their thinking you are rejectecting because of your admitted self centeredness.
The blame, naturally, belongs to the ones in charge, the ones with the power to make things as they are. It's not the Jews or the Catholics or the Masons, the Communists or the Knights Templar but it is the rich and powerful who deserve the blame.
SINCE 2000 60,000 FACTORIES HAVE MOVED "OVER THERE"
multiply that by 10 by 100 by 1000 people who have lost good wages and benefits.
IF they found another job, more than likely it was for wages much lower than what they were receiving and no benefits at all.
PLUS, that is how many people were moved outta the middle class.
REPUBLICANS ask
"""PRESIDENT OBAMA where are the jobs"""
my answer is
"""over there, over there, spread the word spread the word over there, that our jobs are coming, our jobs are coming """
and they get tax incentives to move "over there."
WHO benefits?
THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY OF NARCISSISTIC CORPORATE CEOs.
WHO have loyalty only to seeking the highest profits at the lowest costs and no loyalty to that country and its people - or this country and its people.
THE government, nor any agency in the government, does not require corporations to move "over there." Corporations voluntarily move "over there" to increase profits by exploiting the environment and workers.
ChicagoMatt: I remember that a while back you mentioned Khan Academy. I think that is a fantastic idea. Even those tutorials on youtube.com are a great idea. Although some people suffer communication skills and some have very bad audio (eg:computer fan whirring in the background) or background music which makes understanding the speaker almost impossible. But every once in a while I find excellent, clear and understandable youtube tutorials. Another problem with some of these youtube videos is that they happen in a classroom setting where the teacher uses an overhead projector or blackboard and the video can't properly capture very clearly what is being shown. Also, the background noise of the class fidgeting around, coughing, etc. detracts from that kind of setting. The best ones are when it is not a classroom setting. Some of the best youtube classroom settings are MIT or Harvard or Stanford...some of the top Universities put out some fairly good youtube videos. An example of one of the best classroom videos are the CS50 lectures by David Malan of Harvard U.
https://cs50.harvard.edu/
http://cs50.tv/2013/fall/
Do you know what those really old machines were called, where there was a big drum that was hand-cranked and there was purple ink and that's how they used to make copies? I vaguely recall those from when I was a kid.
Anyway, the copier we have here is about one step above from that, from what my colleagues who actually use it tell me. The beauty of scanning things is that I can just use the same scans year after year. Most textbooks now feature an online code where you can just view the book and the worksheets online. I can just email students the link to the specific chapters. As long as there is a physical copy of the textbook per student, it's not a copywrite violation. If we bought just one copy, scanned and diseminated it, that would be different.
I only use the textbook for Social Studies. English is novel-driven. I'm working on my summer reading list for the students right now actually. It's a lot of pressure to find a good novel for a diverse group, reading level and interest-wise.
I really, REALLY want to teach "Dune", but it's WAY too hard for these grade levels. I've read it a few times and am still trying to figure some of it out.
Status quo doesn't have a negative connotation for a lot of people. If you're happy more often than not, then the status quo is working out just fine for you.
That implies that people who don't agree with progressive ideals are exclusionary. I disagree. But I guess it all comes down to personal experiences. It sure didn't seem like the liberals/progressives were eager to include people with conservative views when I was in college. The message I always got was, "If you disagree, keep your mouth shut."
Again, probably just my personal experience.
I counter with this one:
" Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matt. 7:1-5)"
That's why I don't look at people and say, "They have too much!" or "they don't work hard enough!" I was just reading another of Thom's posts about having a minimum salary for everyone, even if they don't have a job. I can support that. But I also read people riffing on the wealthy. I am curious, what should be the maximum salary? For some random, generic city (since we all know big cities are more expensive), what is the most that a person should be allowed to make?
Judging someone as being "too rich" is just as bad as a tea partier juding someone as being a "welfare queen". You're both still judging people.
Aliceinwonderland ~ As the saying goes, "It takes one to know one." I couldn't agree more with your analysis. I seem to remember a former drug addict once telling me that when he was high he thought that the whole world must be high too. He actually believed that they were just better at hiding it then he was. Funny how the mind can work.
Nevertheless, I still put my faith in that quote from Matthew--the Apostle not the blogger-- "You cannot serve God and Mammon" (Where Mammon = greed.) If you love the one you will have to despise the other.
Then find a nice like-minded Church you can pay off to help you convince yourself nothing is wrong with you and the bad guys are someone else. Anybody else! Churches, the ultimate enablers of the guilty and predators of the innocent.
They still have arranged marriages in some countries...some Muslim countries. Ayaan Hirsi Ali had an arranged marriage but she escaped to the Netherlands before they could impose that on her.
But of recent news...
"EARLIER this month Brandeis University rescinded its offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born women’s rights activist, saying its officials had not been fully aware of some her more scathing remarks on Islam. Conservatives have accused Brandeis of muzzling Ms Hirsi Ali and bowing to Muslim pressure groups. Liberals have wondered how the university could possibly have overlooked Ms Hirsi Ali’s condemnations, not just of radical Islam, but of Islam as such."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/ayaan-hirsi-ali
I flew into and out of Saudi Arabia about 8 times when I lived and worked there. And I had heard that a stewardess had cracked a joke on one flight, not one that I was on though, that went something like: "Attention: All passengers please fasten your seat belts for our landing into the 16th century." I understand she was fired.
ChicagoMatt ~ If you didn't already you might want to know that today's digital copiers have scanners built into their document feeders. They take a bit of training to learn how to use, however you can automatically feed your originals into the feeder--usually at somewhere around 35 pages per minute. In the same way many of our clients today buy the machines solely for its network printing capabilities, many also buy them for their network scanning abilities. You can actually scan a large 60 page two sided document in a couple of minutes and either have it stored on the Hard Drive of the copier, sent directly to your computer, or even emailed to you, or a specifed group. A lot faster and more efficient than a desktop scanner. The newer models even scan in color and have character recognition software so that the output PDF file can be searched and edited.
Matt, it seems likely enough that someone whose "personal and political leanings seem very greedy" (as you describe youself) would assume progressives are all about "envy" and taking someone "down a notch". But only a greedy, selfish person, comfortable and satisfied with the status quo, would interpret progressive values that way. It amounts to little more than a knee-jerk projection on your part. I suppose it makes greedy, selfish people feel better about themselves to simply assume that anyone wishing to create a more inclusive society is selfish too. But "saying it's so doesn't make it so", (to quote David in Vegas). After all, envy is just a selfish emotion. I hate to break it to ya Matt, but the progressive ideology has no resemblance to that. It's really about inclusiveness and simple fairness. It's about opportunities for everyone to have a life, one that's free from deprivation, tyranny and fear. It's about taking back our democracy and making it better, about striving for a "we" society in place of a "me" society. - Aliceinwonderland
I'm going to believe what you say is true. Then the logical conclusion is:
1. The power elites have done a perfect job of subduing the masses. They factored in how many people would have to be placated in order to avoid a revolution. There is just enough wealth and opportunity out there to keep the masses occupied.
2. The power elites have won. In which case, some people who long for a return to the old ways (late 60s/early 70s?) sound just as out-of-touch as marooned Japanese WWII soldiers who spent 30 years manning their posts after the war was over, only learning then that the war was lost, and in some cases refusing to believe it. Or, like segregationists in the South in the 1980s, some 30 years after that debate was done. At what point do people, as practical, mature adults, move on and work with the system that they currently live under? Or, as parents are apt to say when their children don't like what's on their plate: "Take what you have and be thankful for it. There are others with less."
I will admit that my personal economic and political leanings seem very greedy. But will Progressives ever admit that their views are based partially on envy? People have more than them, and they aren't happy about it? So we have to take those people down a notch?
I once heard Thom interview someone about gay rights, and how the opponants of gay rights are, literally, dying off, and there will be no opposition in about 20 years. It's true for opponants of the Vietnam War as well. I am 34, and know one veteran. My own father was too young to have fought in that war, although he did have memories of it, the way I remember the first Gulf War in 1991. References to Vietnam, if they are supposed to bring about some emotional response, will not work. (Not saying that's what you were trying to do, but still...)
There is in sociology what is called the "Power Elite Thesis" (the book The Power Elite, written by sociologist, C. Wright Mills, the father of the theory, was published in 1956) that holds that the policy decisions in society are, in fact, made behind closed doprs by a relatively small group of business, political and military leaders and then the PR machine is mobilized to "engineer consent" of the public, in the words of Carles Bernay, the grandfather of the multi billion dollar PR industry, who got the American public to support the entry of the U.S. into WW I by villifying the Germans and getting the American public, who before didn't know or care much about the Germans, to hate them. More recently the PR industry got 70% of the American public to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. Some prominent advertizing firms right here in Chicago were behind that one.
In general, that theory is not even really controversial or even a theory anymore. Look ,for example, at Dick Cheney's refusal to reveal the minutes of his meeting with the energy industry execs in 2001 or the oil companies' influence upon that administration (of 20 cabinet members 15 were oil millionaires) or look at the military industrial complex. The examples are everywhere and ever more blatant now that money really talks. Anyway, not only progressives are aware and concerned about it, Tea Party and militia types are as well only they're silly enough to take the instruction of those same elites.
You need a larger sample for your survey of Viet Nam veterans' opinion.
I knew an Indian guy who had an arranged marriage. The first time he met his wife was when she flew to the USA, two days before their wedding. The way he described it, it made a lot of sense - none of the hassles of dating that other people had to go through.
Other people have kids too, I'm asking you, once again, to not be so self obsessed, like you're the only parent in the world. All kids deserve an equal chance and there are limited opportunities. Your kids would likely do alright even without that one high school.
How do you know Megan Fox even wants you? You know before capitalism, in feudal society, there was a system of arranged marriage. Everybody got a mate, might not've been the prettiest one but everybody got one. There were no old maids or the converse.
Then, with capitalism, people generally get someone of their own level of attractiveness. It seems you get the amount of attractiveness in a mate that you can afford to buy with your own attractiveness.
Even before feudalism or capitalism, in a pre agricultural society there wasn't even monogamy, because there wasn't private property. There wasn't need for monogamy because there was strong community and the entire community raised the kids. It took a village, as it were. There was a general sexual freedom and you would've had your shot at Megan Fox.
Chi Matt -- I judge you as a synchophant. There are those secret societys except they aren't very secret. One of them met in the caucus room restaurant the night of Obama's first inaugration. A couple more of them are ALEC and the US Chamber of Commerce.
Then there is the CATO institute (formerly called the charles koch institute) and the Heritage foundation.
Chi Matt -- Repugs always show up to vote. Just listen to Paul Warwick.
kend -- Regarding your freinds in the Artic, is there any chance they are employed by carbon corps? With respect to the XL Pipeline, Trans Canada said it was going to rise the price of gas. The dems in our congress tried to bring up a law to require some small percentage of the XL fuel would be used in the US. The repugs would not even let them introduce it. The XL pipeline only benefits billionaires like the Kochs. It is being piped to a duty free port in Texas. The US does not even receive the usual tax revenue. The reason they have not been told to piss off long ago is because the billionaires own our government.