• Welcome to BellGab.com Archive.
 

2012 Democratic National Convention Agenda

Started by Zircon, July 29, 2012, 10:45:01 PM

Quote from: Zircon on September 06, 2012, 12:15:59 PM
... Renton was a cesspool then and remains one now - even with all that money once coming in. Typical government waste and tons of social programs funded by hard working people and a highly successful company. You would not believe how lucrative it once was for those on the dole in King Country in the 1980s-1990s.

There's nowhere to cut, there's never anywhere to cut.  The rich aren't paying their fair share.

Ever notice when the subject of taxing the rich comes up, no one proposes actually taxing overall wealth - instead they talk about taxing current income.  Probably realize the rich would just pick up and move somewhere else if we had a true wealth tax.  Either that or the people shouting the loudist about taxing the rich - the folks in Hollywood, people like the Kennedy's (then) and Pelosi's (now) - are themselves already rich and want anything but a tax on wealth.

Most people go thru the various stages, poor and low paid coming out of school, earning more as they move up thru the ranks or as their farm or small business grows, more highly paid later in life - when they are paying for their kids tuition and saving for retirement.  None of that matters to the Liberal though, nope, we just get a constant drum beat of 'Tax the Rich' sloganeering.




BobGrau

Quote from: onan on September 06, 2012, 12:44:44 PM
No we are not ok. And placating isn't the answer. We can be better.

I wasn't suggesting a placid mindset, more a rational one.
I agree one should always try to be better, whether as an individual or a society.

Quote from: onan on September 06, 2012, 12:44:44 PM
I don't have the "McAvoy speech" memorized but I believe he was stating we used to have a reverence for intellect and reasoned debate/discussion. We don't have that today.

I'd say this is more a worldwide issue, or at least a Western so-called First World one. And a lot of it is due to the fact that we have increasing amounts of people all yelling at once, with increasing amounts of range and volume.

Juan

Actually, I see more of what passes for reasoned debate on this forum than I've seen elsewhere in years. It's one reason I've stayed.

Quote from: Ben Shockley on September 05, 2012, 11:04:43 PM
I hate to see stuff so misunderstood and misrepresented.

If you're talking about "boat people" from Southeast Asia, more specifically Vietnam, around whom the term came into general use back in the '80s, those achievements aren't too miraculous when you understand that the people in the biggest hurry to get out of the newly-Communist-run "South Vietnam" were the existing middle- and upper- classes anyway! 
They were overwhelmingly NOT "poor downtrodden" masses seeking economic improvement or some such crap.  They were the local ex-capitalists and pro-American types who were seen as problematic anyway by the new Communist government.   Further, lots of the "boat people" were ethnic Chinese who comprised a huge proportion of the entrepreneurial class in the ex- "South Vietnam" and who were seen as sort of a "fifth column" because-- believe it or not-- not "all them commie countries" were controlled out of Moscow; they were actual independent countries who had their own various tensions, like when China invaded Vietnam in 1979.

In any case, those capitalists and ex- members of the U.S.-puppet government who left Vietnam had existing social and business networks  that the upper- and middle classes of any society use to maintain and advance their status, and these were transferred largely intact to the U.S.Good question.   Find another example in history of a nation collapsing and transferring it's elite largely intact to another nation.   Because that's what happened.   It bespeaks nothing particularly "great" about the U.S. that people with connections can easily regain wealth here.

What does it say about the U.S. that it creates puppet states and grinds them to death in needless, artificial wars?



you DO understand that those "freedom fighters" turned into "al-Qaeda," right?

I was just pointing out that elections matter, but since you asked..


Yeah, those damn yellow people, living in refugee boat people camps in Hong Kong for years and years, some getting sent back and disappearing into 're-education camps, others finally getting the US and working more years as janotors and dishwashers, saving thier money, living in cramped lousy apartments.  Now they are capitalist oligarchs - they've somehow gotten complete control of the Pho and Noodle Houses here.

You seem to focus on race a lot, would you feel better if they were white?  Or black?


And about al-Qaeda.  It was the Taliban that emerged the strongest of the factions fighting the Soviets in Afganistan.  There were some Arab 'foreign fighters' also there, including apparently bin Laden, that eventually were with al-Qaeda years later, but they were low level soldiers at the time.  Al-Qaeda didn't show up in Afganistan until their previous hosts in The Sudan offered bin Laden to Bill Clinton - he turned them down - that's when they moved operations to Afganistan. 

By the way, the Talibs were prepared to offer bin Laden to Bush Jr, but he wanted to attack instead.  It's a mstake to think al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the same.

Zircon

Also the Nittally Lions (rather than Nittany Lions) and Miami "Heats" (rather than Heat). Wonder if he really knows there is a difference between the Cubs and White Sox?

Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod