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What gay people thinking about enlisting in the military NEED TO KNOW: There's no way to file a sexual harassment lawsuit, so if it happens (either to you or by you, your word against theirs)--- the military doesn't work like the private sector, you're SOL. (sh** out of luck). Also, In Afghanistan, where we are fighting, being gay is punishable by death still today. Both of these facts suck big time. So many women being raped in active duty, you don't think it's criminal? I, being a female veteran and almost every other gal I know who served were harassed, several of them raped. WTF can you do about it? Nothing. If you do, well you saw what happened to Maria Lauterbach. I'm just saying, the proper channels do not exist. Being raped sucks, being discriminated against sucks. I'm not trying to discourage you from going. JUST KNOW before you go.
I want the Republicans to come to the House full force with their agenda ! and let the general public see who/ what they voted for...............hopefully the tables will be turned!
Economic terrorism is much bigger and broader an issue than the politics of a single party over a single issue; it's the weapon of choice of today's arrogant international plutocracy. The good news is that as citizens of the United States, for every little political battle we win, for each hypocritical corporatist we expose and toss out of office on his (or her) ear, we're one great giant step closer to reclaiming our right to compete fairly, to be rewarded for genuine value added at our place of businesses and community organizations and to live in a peaceful environment without fear. It may seem a daunting task to achieve a critical mass of public consensus but the momentum and all that our country stands for is in our favor; together, we will do it. Never give up!
I prefer asking "When will the brain dead American public get it through their heads that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do with fighting terrorism, and everything to do with establishing military dominance in a region to control access to transit routes of that region's energy reserves?"
http://www.takingon.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82:...
As hyperbolic as this question may sound....it is actually a valid and serious question. It IS terrifying not knowing how you are going to be able for health care for yourself and your family. We are at a real crossroads in this country....we are either going to fall into a full-blown fascist plutocracy or we will REALLY fight back and save this once-great democracy. Right now, if I were betting, I can't say I would vote that we are going to survive...the elite simply has taken over every aspect of our society and country.
This man is living a pipe dream. It is unconstitutional for one person in Congress to have that level of power. No one who wants to ever be re-elected to office will vote yes on this. I will be very surprised if this passes. The one good thing that is coming out of all of this, is that we now know for sure who we are dealing with, and you can bet he is going to lose his next election.
Medicare and Social Security are government programs. They cannot be privatized, via the US Constitution. It won't past the Constitutional Vetting Process. This is just another attempt by the Wealthy Elite, and Corporatist Globalists to whip people up into a frenzy with another threat of what they claim they will take from us "peons" if they don't get their way. This is what happens when people vote with emotion instead of reason, and vote against their own self interests.
Hold on to you hat, it will be a bumpy ride, that will go nowhere and spell disaster for the Repugnican (Republican) Party....get your popcorn.
The Roosevelts were old money and were the closest thing we had to a Landed Aristocracy in America which could explain their paternalistic Nobless Oblige attitude. - from Ch 5 - The Lord of he Manor. "
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrSKQMOh7OIC&pg=PT207&lpg=PT207&dq=Noblesse+oblige+fdr+great+depression&source=bl&ots=f7zw2kYina&sig=aJVPRdwqfhupWWBigkAPjysP4gc&hl=en&ei=rmcjTfi8KIO8sQPTsMytCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941
By Robert S. McElvaine
==============
From "The Hundred Days of FDR"........Born in the Hudson River aristocracy, he inherited a sense of obligation to land and to community. He was indeed, as John T. Flynn labeled him in a once famous polemic, a country squire in the White House. The Republic was Hyde Park writ large, and he saw himself as trustee for a national estate that required vigilant protection and cultivation.
There was more than a touch of paternalism and noblesse oblige in all this, but there was also a vivid feeling of responsibility for the national community as a whole, especially its most defenseless members.
F.D.R. had had a reasonable exposure to the economic thought of his time. At Harvard he had taken more credits in economics than in any field except history and English. His teachers -William Z. Ripley, A. Piatt Andrew, O.M.W. Sprague - were in the reformist school that hoped to mitigate laissez-faire by regulation.
In the 1920's he had been active in the business self-regulation movement. As Governor of New York, he had pioneered in regional planning, conservation, electric power development and welfare legislation.
The President-elect emerged from this varied experience with a patrician disdain for business wisdom and a curiosity about economists. ''This nation asks for action, and action now,'' he said in his inaugural address................
Our president can still learn about our country and the world.
http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2011/01/03/obama-should-read-wikileaks-on-afghanistan/
Hey Thom, in reference to your 1984 allegories, don't forget that we have to listen to the morning Hate too, like good party members. What do you think Rush and Beck are on air for anyway?
N
really we need to (this is not an advertisement) read thom's book rebooting the american dream. i have learned a lot more than i already knew. it simultaneously pisses you off and inspires you w facts and real things to do. thank you!!
Well perhaps we'll get economic collapse and war.
N
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." - Noam Chomsky
I think you just invented a slogan, Thom.
"Tax the fat, not the bone!"
"The Left has Nowhere to go" - Ralph Nader http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_left_has_nowhere_to_go_20110102/
The previous post dove tails nicely into this one. Why is that?
Having learned nothing from his midterm drubbing, the president is considering making JPMorgan Chase executive William Daley his chief of staff. Because what this administration needs is more sympathy for the criminals on Wall Street.
Daley, one of a seemingly endless supply of think-small corporate Democrats, is the founder of a think tank that goes by the unfortunate name of Third Way. http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/gag_me_with_a_banker_20110104/
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bill-daley-20110104,0,189776.story
Jobs should be brought back to America. Regulations should be put in place to make it rewarding for companies to do so and penalize them for jobs held and created elsewhere. There are plenty of enthusiastic, intelligent and respectful Americans wanting a job at a living wage right now. What are these people supposed to do without corporate employment, waive a magic wand and poof-a-job? Government is here for a real reason, to govern and protect the nation through the voice of the people, not just a couple of people, but all the people. The problems is that the voice of large number of people is being ignored. The voice of reason is being shushed. Deception is spewed in the news headlines. We need government to work for "we the people" again and the only solution I see it is to converse with others and vote in 2012.
Well, don't move yet (like any of us can escape the octopus arms of multinational corporations and banks determined to steal our air, our water, our food, our livelihoods, and our futures). We give up, they win. We give up, EVERYONE loses. So I say, let's raise hell instead. And keep waking people up. I say we do our best to make this info "viral" in the next 24 hours. The site www.congress.org (not a government site) lets you write your reps and write letters to the editors of a bunch of newspapers at one site, and post a bulletin board. I'm sending copies to all the progressive groups I know to put out action alerts. I'd like to greet the new House leadership with about half a million or more letters, petition sigs, etc giving our opinion of these meglomaniacal rules. May not work, but I will have TRIED. They WANT us to give up. They are expecting us to give up. They also expected that with the civil rights movement, the farmworkers' movement, the miners and labor movement. I OWE those people who died in those movements to not give up. I've been doing this for 40+ years and will admit I get tired. But I'm not dead yet, and I'll be damned if I'll just let them run over me. As one of the best said,
"In the past, apathy was a moral failure. today, it is a form of moral and political suicide. --The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back?
Perhaps this will be the straw that breaks that proverbial camel's back...Baby Boomers-and-older will not tolerate it! There are some who remember the time before Social Security...OR have parents who had no safety net during and before the Depression. And, surely baby boomers remember the pre-Medicare days...
Many BB are enjoying, for the first time, security and support - limited though it may be.- in these times that have not been easy.
I cannot imagine anything negative happening to medicare or social security. If there ever is a true threat i can only imagine the kind of March on Washington that would/will take place. I mean...get the RV hook-ups and the Mall ready pronto!! Now THAT will be a visual for the country to behold...[all those visuals of grey hair, canes, walkers, and wheel chairs. And, also the outright integrity of the indignation - for all to see!]. It might take something this drastic, and if it does, Obama is a shoe-in in the next presidential election! The Republicans just may be digging themselves into a very deep hole. If they are, it's a good thing to be doing at the start of the upcoming legislative session. Maybe something real can happen.
The Big Lie - Robert Reich
"Republicans are telling Americans a big lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is that our economic problems are due to a government that's too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.
The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity."
http://robertreich.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/post_1496_b_803900.html
Sure it'll pass.Why not? We're headed down the road of totalitarianism and nobody seems to care, except a very few of the left of the left.
Voices crying in the corporate wildnerness.
You think? When the people are allowing themsleves to be groped and irradiated without sayigna word when they want to simply fly across the country?
If they succeed in privatizing Social Security there will be riots. That I can promise.
Suggested abbreviation for Paul Ryan is: Pryan.
Alarmingly similar to Prion, but with slight differences, this one is:
Boyvine Sponging Forum and Selfish-itis (vs. bowvine spongiform encephalitis)
I pray these don't pass. But, if they do, I'm seriously considering emigrating.
JLN-G
Maybe the question should be:
""how could it not pass, with all the republicans and blue dog democrats (on the multi national corporate payroll) all working to make these changes, and FOX NEWS there to confuse people into voting to keep these people in office?""
I am with the other poster (wishing I could move to Mexico., or somewhere)..
Was it this bad under Al Capone? Maybe someone smarter than I could do a comparison. Sure there was physical violence with machine guns, but the overall effect of all this corporate caused poverty must be many times greater than the environment created by Al Capone..