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I am one of the unfortunates that live under the reign of terror. We are fighting back but our state dynamics are very depressing. Our Government hides from us and avoids crowds, Governor Skelator doesn't care if he is a one term Governor. One term is all he needs to gain the riches holding office brings. Those who can afford to pay or better buy their office with corporate sponsors will guarantee their retirement. Meanwhile back at the ranch the cowboys are contracted and privatized, and the treasury is depleted by giving cash back rewards to the elite who financed the crook to begin with. I am thankful and supportive of PINK SLIP RICK and their efforts to chase Skelator like Scooby Doo and his crew at every public event; where they can reach him as he slinks around like one of the Pythons that have invaded our Everglades.
My take is our Corporate media is complicit in creating a state of Mass Hysteria and the culture of Empire. By choking free speech, faux news reporting, and developing programing that promotes their corporate agendas the majority of our nation is drinking their Coolaid. Two weeks before Troy Davis was MURDERED the debate brought the death penalty into the public eye and unfortunately it was made to be heroic. Fast forward to none other than Clarence Thomas. I imagine him dressing up into the robe of Caesar and having a party with the other emperors, Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy joining in for a thumbs down for Mr.Troy Davis, who deserved more investigation to uncover the truth. Our Supreme Court contains more hubris than the coliseum can hold as evident from the Liberty Tv News who highlighted the corporate sponsored justices, and the un justice Scalia bragging that his role in Bush vs Gore was because he could do it and no one should question him, demonstrating absolute power corrupts absolutely. This mass media and its low information audience attempt to take our country hostage just like the Tea baggers and Republicans do in Congress.
What is truly sad is some of us are cheering murder, killing the sick and poor, and marginalizing anyone who doesn't fit their narrow view of an ideal American. Governor Skelator is a leader in the pack on the race to the bottom. His view and the radical right's ideals are promoted and funded by the DeVos Family and others who profit at the expense of the middle class and below. Here in Orlando we are hoping Alan Grayson will be our HE MAN and he will conquer evil and return some democracy to one of the Reddest states in the Nation.
I don't understand. I believe the more that share in the wealth the merrier the party. I gladly pay taxes and I really hope and pray it supports employment. Saving jobs and new employment with living wages
is good for everyone, and I mean everyone. I don't think I need to explain the return on the investment
as far as improving society, ending social unrest, securing family values, and creating a model society for the world. What can't be understood by the Republicans. For me its all about giving and feeding multitudes with loafs and fishes. I have faith that this works. A few folks will have to be willing to give in order to receive. As far as I'm concerned it is all about caring for one another and it is in the giving that we all receive. I am self employed and have been for 30 years. I know my job is to circulate wealth.
Clients, vendors, employees, etc look toward the most activity as if your a light drawing a crowd. So for me it is not about financial hording it is about financial supercharging. I'm more interested in flow
than reserve.
Palindromedary: How about we get rid of their big screen televisions and give them a book to read called ....The Grapes of Wrath!
They are ill,
DRichards, spotlighted my family
Stockholm syndrome...
Who is "Joe the Exec"? Time to find out.
An Alternative to Capitalism (if the people knew about it, they would demand it)
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
For a government employee to make a comment that "government doesn't create jobs," and then brag about laying off 15,000 fellow government workers is extra hypocritical in Scott's case given his involvement in the biggest Medicare fraud in US history. Leeching off the tax payers has helped create his massive wealth and if he really can't see this about himself, then yes, he has a serious neurological disorder .......psychopathy!
Quick! Someone give those Tea Baggers some white sheets and hoods and some more flammable crosses and books to burn.
Progress means changing, and ever changing. We will always need voting, but we need to educate our citizens better so we'll never revert to the dark days of gop control.
I agree with dianhow. I will be voting for President Obama, but I believe that if we vote for Democrats and Bernie Sanders type Independents we would have a more transparent government.
The change would be a challenge, but in the long run we would be a much better nation and I believe many of our jobs would either return, or we could creat new ones and keep the corporations from taking over.
The one word answer to your question is Republicans.
To t-bird: It's a fantastic experience whenever I come across another USAF pilot who thinks. You must be even older than I. The t-birds were out of the inventory when I was a phantom flier back in VN days. Thanks for making me a believer in the possibility that there are other progressive "Nam" vets. I know but a few!
A major problem with the tea party/republicon view on healthcare for all in this country, is that friends, family, churches etc. CAN NOT PROVIDE ADEQUATE HEALTH CARE! Friends, family, churches can assisit with food and shelter when neccesary, but healthcare must be provided by well educated, professional people. In my opinion healthcare is a basic human right which should be provided to all and paid for by all.
I'd say they are hybrid anarchists: the political belief that governments should be abolished and the state replaced by the voluntary cooperation of individuals and groups (from The New American Encyclopedia)--who instead want the cooperation of the military to aid in policing a corporate state. They sure do sound like they want to destroy the government and democracy and replace it with corporate slavery, I guess. I'm mystified...horrified....
Sound gastly and like something dreamed up only in science-fiction--oh, right, they don't believe in science, but they do live and breathe fictions every day.
Do human beings really want to live in a world like that? Haven't we been down that road before? It's similar to fuedalism (where humans/countrymen were used and discarded for amusement and enrichment of a lucky few)--not like facism, because didn't facists (and Nazis) feel and demonstrate, at least, nationalism and well-being toward their countrymen?
Complete tranparancy can not be attained for obvious reasons We elected someone to make these decisions. I have trust in Obama His record is not perfect but pretty good if one looks at it fairly , not falls for Fox Beck Hannity Rush smear/ rumor mill .IF voters are too lazy to vote Shame on them They should at least respect those who died for our Freedom to vote unlike many countries.
Far too many on the political right wing in America use Ayn Rand's psychopathic philosophy (Objectivism) as their playbook which is ironic, given Ayn Rand was pro-choice and a devout atheist. According the the philosophy, fictionally expounded in "Atlas Shrugged" (and confirmed in face-to-face interviews), Ayn Rand considers that most people are worthless and the government is irredeemably evil. The rest follows.
Gov. Scott's career will be coming to an end soon......he is laughable...don't know how he even got elected - he is responsible for the largest scam against Medicare - can't believe he didn't do jail time - he paid a fine and now he is Governor of Florida - what is hysterical is he is demanding drug tests for public employees and he owns the company that is going to do the drug testing...
Considering the Bush name will leave a stain on this country's history, the Tea Party is right behind him -
They're the first cousins of the German people that Hitler hypnotized in the years prior to world war one. They are either people who have made a lifestyle of being angry and blaming others even when there's no problem to blame on the "others," or they very angry for completely personal reasons. They key is that they must be ready and willing to blame all of their personal problems on "them," (which could be black people, Mexicans, American teachers, American government employees, or whoever- they're not particular about who they get mad at). Well, actually, they are particular in one sense: they will NEVER blame the rich people who sent their job overseas, never blame the rich people who foreclosed on their house, never blame the rich people who charge them 29% interest on their credit cards, and never blame the rich people who have screwed them in other ways. No sir, even though it really is the rich people who did all of those things to them, they only blame the people the rich people tell them to blame. They blame the nigras, the wetbacks, and the big government. The latter is sort of interesting, because the only protection that we have from the super-rich people IS the government. If and when the government completely stops protecting us from the super-rich, we will have two choices: be slaves, or have a revolution.
I'll repeat my refrain: when the poor southern crackers and the just-as-ignorant northerner republicans and tea partiers realize that the rich have been leading them around by the nose while stealing everything from them, they're going to be... irritated. And these are people who have been very carefully trained to view all problems as being solved by violence.
You know, at first blush, the rich people who are running this destroy-the-middle-class-and-steal-the-poor-peoples'-last penny program, look smart. But I sure wouldn't want to be them when the crap hits the fan... In fact, even now one of the fastest-growing businesses in America is the business of protecting rich people from the poor people they stole all that money from. What a way to live: always looking over their shoulder for someone who wants to harm or kill them, having to live in gated communities (even if they don't want to live in gated communities, they HAVE to, because they're scared of the people they have harmed), always worried about their families' safety. There's an old saying: Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown, and it was never more true than now. I feel sorry for those people who, for all of their education and all of their airs of superiority, never learned that there is always a cost for harming others, and there is no way to avoid that cost.
I would rather be poor, than to pay the many costs that the super-rich pay.
Is in your face, corporate fascism always unsuccessful because of how many people it screws? Time to end another dark era of american history.
The rich made their wealth on the backs of all Americans. Why Donald Trump himself on Fox this morning said that he was in Australian on the weekend and everything was neat, tidy, clean. Nothing was falling apart and he comes back to broken down America.
Along the same lines as Elizabeth Warren,
Australia has a 30% flat tax on corporations. That's why it's so nice there. The people that built the infrastructure, PAY to maintain it. They don't flee the country with their millions, leaving all the maintenance on the middle class.
Not sure it's all true, just a cursory glance at Australian taxes, but The Donald made me look.
Hershey has hired a lobbyist about the "foreign exchange student" scandal at the chocolate packing plant 400 students were paid subprime wages to pack chocolates. The students organized and protested. I was objecting to paying for the lobbyist.They said I didn't pay. I do, cause corporations pay no taxes, so I have to pick up the slack and I'm tired of it. So this guy gets some numbers and it looked liked Hershey paid about 37% in taxes in 2010. Big deal I argue that what you want me to pay for a good tax accountant too now?
It really was hysterical. But now, I'm feeling it's real too.
I am all for free enterprise as are most Americans, but the taxes that used to spread prosperity to all Americans that contributed either directly or indirectly when innovation was happening in all the aspects of our lives, better foods, better transportation, better clothing, better technologies ... infrastructures were needed to get these products to not only the American people, but outside our country to other countries. That was a huge investment and now that we have, railways, ships and planes moving all this product all over the world, the corporations feel no need to contribute any more for maintenance. Thank you very much people, we're good now, we're moving on to reduce our costs.
First they went to other states to lower their costs and now they have moved right out of the country.
humph !
Yes! Back taxes for every job lost in America!
Bring back jobs, we lower the tax. Corporations have left the working and middle classes with the mortgage. The infrastructure was created to get their products out to market, first in America, then around the globe. They up and dumped us for some cheap labor in another country and left us with all the bills! What bums.
In my battles with right wing nuts, I have been inspired by Elizabeth Warren to use arguments like
"You keep missing the whole point. I am not in the position to want or ensure that Hersey pays equal to or less than it's fair share of tax. Maybe the tax they paid in 2010 includes what they owed from prior years? We have no idea and it doesn't matter. The tax structure that Bush set up pushed all the tax onto the middle and working classes for the sake of the job creators. Then the job creators left town while we are stilling holding the mortgage. It's like a skip. All corporations are skips. And when they skip on America, I pay and I can't afford un-American companies any more. The budget isn't big enough and I have to make cuts.
I do get a big kick out of this tho. (I am a free-lance writer) Ah ha! That's why this is play."
well the democrats should have gave more money to the candidate here in Kentucky 3 years ago if we want to get this country back on track senator no is getting what he wants all the time and that is 70 percent of what laws he wants to pass to bring this nation down McConnell is the problem he the most power in the country and he knows it.by the time the dems figure this out it is going to be to late.we know they are changing things to there advantage,on redistricting the states and rigging the poles.
Thom Hartmann, you need to fight harder for us progressives. Prepare better and stop letting bullies like Seaton Motley push you around. His arguments are easy to parry.
Yes!!! There is a Revolution underway.
There has never been one more real – or more sweeping. It is historic on a millennial scale and it is global. It is the transition from a competitive-based, thieving (stripping resources, war “contracting”, plane loads of money disappearing), cheating (ripping off pensions, booting people off of healthcare and out of their homes, phony financial “products”) society that survives on raiding, conquest, and “colonizing” areas of the world (and the USA itself now) for cheap labor and raw materials to build ever bigger pyramids for heartless Corporate Overlords --- to a cooperative society – here and abroad.
It is both an act of “Walking Away From the King”, as Thom says, and an act of creating the correct Way to live WITH each other, in a state of exciting, creative cooperation that restores the natural joy in the simple act of living – exalting in the natural gifts of the Creator, and exploring the depth of our Love for this Planet and for each other. We are rapidly learning together the difficult lessons and reaping the great harvest of true Community, True Family – which includes EVERONE (not some weird, funky, cultish, fake “Family” on C Street pushing the murder of Gays as an act of religious devotion).
I urge you to enlist with Rebuild the Dream and Van Jones, I urge you to hasten to the Center for Partnership Studies founded by Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade), I urge you to join or found a Transition Community Network in your own town, I urge you to read “YES!” magazine and study the work of David Korten on the post-colonial blueprint for a new future; and I urge YOU to help be a part of the solution by conceiving of, believing in, and participating in the Resurrection of the Dream.
The bigger picture on Madmen, Pan-Am and The Playboy Club is that they can get away with treating women as sex objects if it's a "portrayal" of a bygone era.