My taxes have gone up too,just like the cost of everything else. And despite efforts for decades, including a Constitutional requirement for the state to shift school funding from property to income taxes. But he Republicans dont want to pay income taxes, dont want to pay their fair share. Dont want to lose a chance to give their kids "all the advantages" , meaning the only well funded schools.

Of course my schools are some of the best in the state anyway. People around here think teachers should be paid well, and deserve a lot more than most private employees. People actually are suing to get into our district, where they pay more taxes.

Of course, It wasn't the Teachers who convinced you to vote Republican so you could not join a union. It wasn't the firefighters who told you you would have more fun with a 401K played for Wall Street's pleasure. And it wasn't the snow plow drivers who said we should use taxes to subsidize shipping our jobs overseas. And it wasn't the teachers who said we should not charge tariffs on Chinese goods, even if they tax our goods so as to be uncompetitive over there.

That was pretty much Ronald Reagan and his successors. Certainly not the Unions.

REPUBLICANS ARE SOCIAL DARWINISTS -- they believe the government should help the rich live long and prosper! THE government should let the rich exploit the working classes until they die from hard work and exhaustion!! AND should let the poor die off from starvation and disease because they will never amount to anything and are a drain on society!!!

""Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and later received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection.

According to Darwin's evolutionary theory, nature is a "kill-or-be-killed" system. Those that cannot keep up are either left behind or cut off. The strong survive, and those best suited to survival will out-live the weak.

The seeds of Social Darwinism were actually planted before the publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species"(though of course the name didn't originate until after). Herbert Spencer, the father of Social Darwinism as an ethical theory, was thinking in terms of elitist, "might makes right" sorts of views long before Darwin published his theory. The concept of adaptation allowed Spencer to claim that the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time, and the concept of natural selection allowed him to argue that it was natural, normal, and proper for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak. Whether it be humans, races, or the state, Spencer's thoughts were clear: "If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they die." In its simplest form, Social Darwinism follows the theory of "the strong survive," even in human issues.It is the application of the theory of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues. According to Social Darwinism, those with economic, physical, and technological strength flourish and those without are destined for extinction. This theory was used to promote the idea that the white European race was superior to others, and therefore, destined to rule over them.

Social Darwinism was used to justify numerous exploits which we classify as of dubious moral value today. Colonialism was seen as natural and inevitable; people saw natives as being weaker and more unfit to survive, and therefore felt justified in seizing land and resources. Finally, it gave the ethical nod to brutal colonial governments who used oppressive tactics against their subjects.

At its worst, the implications of Social Darwinism were used as scientific justification for the Holocaust. The Nazis claimed that the murder of Jews in World War II was an example of cleaning out inferior genetics. This view embraced the assumption that the strong were superior, and thus ordained to prevail. Social Darwinism applied to military action as well; the argument went that the strongest military would win, and would therefore be the most fit. Casualties on the losing side, of course, were written off as the natural result of their unfit status. Thus, if two countries were to make war on each other, the victor was biologically superior to the loser. It was therefore right and proper for that victor to subjugate or even eliminate the inferior opponent. Not only was survival of the fittest natural, but it was also morally correct. Indeed, some extreme Social Darwinists argued that it was morally incorrect to assist those weaker than oneself, since that would be promoting the survival and possible reproduction of someone who was fundamentally unfit. A second way pseudo-evolutionary concepts were applied to human interaction was in the development of cut-throat capitalism in the United States. Here the ideology was that the cream naturally rose to the top; the successful made a lot of money simply because they were superior to the unsuccessful. Those who found themselves in poverty were poor because they were intrinsically inferior. It provided a justification for the more exploitative forms of capitalism in which workers were paid sometimes pennies a day for long hours of backbreaking labor. Social Darwinism also justified big business' refusal to acknowledge labor unions and similar organizations, and implied that the rich need not donate money to the poor or less fortunate, since such people were less fit anyway. This political philosophy resisted suggestions like universal education, welfare, minimum wage; in short, anything which interfered with the business of the "superior" ascending to the top of the heap and squashing the unfit beneath their expensive shoes.""

http://www.allaboutscience.org/what-is-social-darwinism-faq.htm

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml

British Invasion anti-war:

Two absolutely brilliant British Invasion anti-war songs:

The Kinks - Some Mother's Son (from Arthur: Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire)

and

The Zombies - Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) (from Odessey & Oracle)

I am afraid we will be seeing more needless carnage due to budget cuts, but perish the thought that the Air Force should have to fund raise for a new bomber or the Army fundraise for a new tank because our tax money was used for keeping more fire stations open.

There was a television series and it may been the one where Joe Friday would say, "Give me the facts, just the facts." I believe that Americans want truthful facts in order to make the right decisions.

Thomas Woods, Jr. recently wrote in the American Conservative that military spending is parasitic as it feeds off the economy rather than grows it. The scale of resources used by the military is exorbitant, Woods writes: “To train a single combat pilot, for instance, costs between $5 million and $7 million. Over a period of two years, the average U.S. motorist uses about as much fuel as does a single F-16 training jet in less than an hour. The Abrams tank uses up 3.8 gallons of fuel in traveling one mile. Between 2 and 11 percent of the world’s use of 14 important minerals, from copper to aluminum to zinc, is consumed by the military, as is about 6 percent of the world’s consumption of petroleum. The Pentagon’s energy use in a single year could power all U.S. mass transit systems for nearly 14 years.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

----- Self-Inflicted-Disaster Capitalism -----

Of course there's a silver lining to the Wisconsin situation. The Republicans can win only by not revealing what they are. But the anti-union bill and Scott Walker's prank phone call have shown it.

Challenge FoxFake to publicly sign the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics if they are indeed a "news" outlet, not an opinion outlet:

The Code is available at the Society of Professional Journalists website:
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

And/or publicly sign the Code of Ethics adopted by the Radio Television Digital News Association:

http://www.rtnda.org/pages/media_items/code-of-ethics-and-professional-c...

Why doesnt anybody ever mention the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The TAX CUTS ON THE RICH investor class is what is driving up the price of commodites.

When all the wealth goes to the upper 1% they gamble with it. They are gambling on the commodities right now. Oil went to $140 / barrel in 2008 on pure speculation.