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I think what's missing in Globalization, is enforced fair regulations.
@Zero G. prior to WWII we didn't have a large standing military. But we did have a superb manufacturing base.
Now our superb military relies on Chinese chips for the majority of its weapons. It could be argued that we really don't even have the superb military we think we have. Any one who has ever studied warfare knows that logistical support is everything, cut the support lines, and the army in the field is lost.
What we have is the equivalent of a used lemon with a brand new paint job, it looks great, but you're not going to get much mileage before it completely breaks down.
re: Dale Robertson, tea party and health care
we could win the health care debate with a 7 word slogan:
"Medicare for all, or Medicare for none."
If Medicare is so broken, or so inefficient, or so corrupt, or tainted by fraud, as claimed by the tea party, then shut Medicare down.
No Republican or Independent or Tea Party member would survive if they had to argue to shut down Medicare.
I wish there were a way for a simple 7 word bill to be introduced.
"Medicare for all, or Medicare for none."
It seems like even the bumbling disorganized Democrats could get that one passed.
thom whats happening for don siegelman and abraham bolden in their quest to find justice
From what you talked about today.
What am I talking about?
This program takes money from a large pool of people, and distributes some of it back to a smaller number of people. Some people will get more back then what they put in, the rest will never see a penny. The people running it take a % off the top as administration fees.
Is that insurance or a Ponzi Scheme?
So, have the tea-baggers ever been subjugated to free speech zones?
Madeleine Albright once said, "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?"
Other than the obvious answer, deterence from attack, the frame of the question underscores the notion of American exceptionalism, which seems to be accepted by both major parties, and why I don't believe that either party will ever confront the national security state.
@Zero G: Don't forget, the military is also rapidly occupying the United States.
re: Tort reform: One time a woman called me up wanting an interview on my radio show representing a tort reform group. I replied that my experience is that these groups are actually working to absolve corporations of product liability. Well, she got all indignant and asserted "I'm not going to tell you who our funders are!"
I just laughed and told her to call back when she's ready to do so.
"Terrorism, however, is a very good business. The number of extremists who are planning to carry out terrorist attacks is minuscule, but there are vast departments and legions of ambitious intelligence and military officers who desperately need to strike a tangible blow against terrorism, real or imagined, to promote their careers as well as justify obscene expenditures and a flagrant abuse of power. All this will not make us safer. It will not protect us from terrorist strikes. The more we dispatch brutal forms of power to the Islamic world the more enraged Muslims and terrorists we propel into the ranks of those who oppose us. The same perverted logic saw the Argentine military, when I lived in Buenos Aires, “disappear” 30,000 of the nation’s citizens, the vast majority of whom were innocent. Such logic also fed the drive to root out terrorists in El Salvador, where, when I arrived in 1983, the death squads were killing between 800 and 1,000 people a month. Once you build secret archipelagos of prisons, once you commit huge sums of money and invest your political capital in a ruthless war against subversion, once you empower a network of clandestine killers, operatives and torturers, you fuel the very insecurity and violence you seek to contain." - Chris Hedges from
The Terror-Industrial Complex
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/08
Geez Thom, I doubt if Palin knows what Tort reform is... I doubt she know much of anything she is prompted to speak about. All she knows is she likes the spotlight and will do anything to step into it.
Also left out the affair in the Balkans. Must be my faulty memory.
@Foodfacist, your comment on the USDA is interesting. I admit, I'm ignorant about this issue... could you elaborate on it a bit?
@ harry ashburn,
Definately Yemen in terms of drone attacks, not sure about boots on the ground.
@ Zero G.
I forgot to say that your point is well made. Not requiring a war declaration makes things easier for those who seek to promote conflicts.
A GENUINE Populist Movement cannot gain speed today because there is no media that will allow its views to spread. For some reason, the Internet is too cerebral and still not available to The Poor and utterly exploited because of cost.
The Teabag Party will only gain speed via the Media if it serves a purpose in the Right's Counter-Revolution.
@Zero G: Don't forget Pakistan and (probably) Yemen.
Privatizing Social Security is a Wall Street scam to bring about the largest transfer of funds from the poor to the rich. It will create a bubble like never seen.
Think about it this way. There are a limited number of stocks currently traded by a small number of investors and investment groups. If you add in the Social Security funds into the mix, the price of the stocks held by the current investors will explode as an artificial demand is created. Those holding the stock will cash out with huge profits. The cost-to-earnings ratio of the highly inflated stocks will not be justifiable causing the bottom to fall out of the market and a panic to ensue as the new investors dump their stocks before they lose all value.
Who do think will be there to scoop up all those devalued stock? And, who will be there to scoop up all the indigents left in the wake?
DDay,
Thanks for the reminder - I knew I left a couple out. Pakistan as well.
ANOTHER VICTORY! U.S.D.A.
Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock VICTORY! U.S.D.A. Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock• By William Neuman The New York Times, Feb 5, 2010 Straight to the Source Faced with stiff resistance from ranchers and farmers, the Obama administration has decided to scrap a national program intended to help authorities quickly identify and track livestock.
This is that law that was freaking out the smaller farmers back in the Bush Administration. This article was posted on the Organic Consumers Assoc .org site.
Me thinks Rambo Sarah is engaging in a little hand to hand bombast.
@ Zero G.
You forgot Grenada. (Reagan's triumph) :-)
Foodfascist,
What chance do you give the jury award actually being dispursed after appeal?
The national security state does is not compatible with democracy. The Congress of the United States has not declared war since WWII. Since then we have fought in:
Korea
Laos
Cambodia
Vietnam
Santo Domingo
Haiti
Panama
Guatamala
Colombia
Nicaragua
Somalia
Lebanon
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iran?
just off the top of my head.
Good News for GMO watchers: Arkansas Organic Farmers Woop Bayer's Behind!
Exactly why we need to be able to sue corporations. !
Fair Food Fight Reports from El Dragon!
The little guys win some gold from Goliath. From AP News:
A federal court jury has ordered the German conglomerate Bayer CropScience to pay $1.5 million to farmers in Arkansas and Mississippi whose rice seed was contaminated with a genetically altered strain.
Damage awarded apparently, their crops became contaminated and when this occurs, the European Union shuts its doors on those crops. So this settlement was about the loss of buisness.
See the rest of the article here at Fair Food Fight http://ow.ly/156qX