j_b

You are a racist as long as you decide to be one.

Honestly, I'd rather have morons burn the koran than their not being able to do so due to excessive pressure not really what he said. The headline says more about the Guardian than anything else IMO.

their marginal productivity compared to that of developing nations' workers earning $2/day? You must be joking. They couldn't survive on $2/day. more like you haven't got a clue.

Who could seriously claim that on average organizing is a result of welfare than the opposite? You are a denialist of labor history. laughable. As if your ideological brethens (the Koch brothers) worried about workplace safety, little less optimizing its cost. there are other social organisations responsible fotr it but they result from organizing against your ideological brethrens, the likes of the Koch brothers. I am going to vomit now. When did JayB gave credit to unions for the 8-hour day (what's left of it thanks to JayB's ideological brethens)?, or vacations (what's left of it thanks to JayB's ideological brethens)? or no-child labot (what's left ..), or benefits, etc, etc,

Another exercise in manicheism and non-sequitur from JayB. Of course unions weren't solely responsible for providing impetus to the evolution of industry, but it is clear that without workers organizing, JayB's ideological brethens (the likes of the Koch brothers) would have behaved like robber barons for the entire 20th century instead of for half of it and very few people would have raised their economic status to that of the middle class.

"You can't expect to wield supreme executive power because some watery tart threw a sword at you" LOL

Style over substance has been around for a long time but it is indeed probably at an all time high these days (see the infotainment complex). Isn't it a sign of societal decay when pretty empty heads (not all of them to be fair) rule the roost?

It is my favorite scene of the Holy Grail.

A one-pager version of the 10 pages New Yorker piece for those without the time or desire: Two Multibillionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit by Jim Hightower There's a difference between being paranoid and being suspicious. Paranoia is mental disturbance; suspicion is a rational deduction. For example, if you suspect that America's economy, politics, government, media, judiciary and practically every other system has been wired to favor corporate interests over every other interest in our country, you're deducing, not hallucinating. From the infamous Wall Street bailout to the Supreme Court's shameful decree that corporations have more political rights than humans, we see again and again that corporate might overwhelms what's right. This is not by accident, but by the deliberate, relentless efforts of corporatists to bend our nation's institutions to their will. Take one huge corporation you've probably never heard of, even though your consumer dollars are financing its right-wing agenda. Do you buy Northern tissue, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups or Vanity Fair napkins? These well-known brands are owned and produced by Koch Industries (pronounced "coke") in Wichita, Kan. Koch is also a major producer of oil, gas, timber, coal, cattle, refined petroleum, asphalt, polyethylene plastic ... and much, much more. Charles and David Koch, who control this family-owned empire, have a net worth of $14 billion each, ranking both in a tie for the 19th richest person on the planet. They boast of being "self-made" billionaires, though they had a little help from Daddy. Fred Koch started this namesake business, and his sons got a leg up on their climb to billionairedom by inheriting Fred's company. They also inherited something else: a burning ideological commitment to right-wing politics (Daddy Fred helped found the John Birch Society). Charles and David have used the wealth they draw from Koch Industries to fuel a network of three Koch Family Foundations, which have set up and financed a secretive army of political operatives dedicated to achieving the brothers' antigovernment, corporate-controlled vision for America. This force includes national and state-level think tanks, Astroturf front groups, academic shills, university centers, political-training programs, fundraising clearinghouses, publications, lobbyists and various other units useful to their ideological cause. They spend freely on dozens of ideologically grounded right-wing groups to influence schoolteachers and high-school curricula, state and federal judges, lawyers and legal scholars, conservative policy thinkers and media producers, city-council candidates and local party activists. Their aim is to shove the country's national debate to the hard right, discombobulate the public's progressive wishes, and alter government policies to advance corporate interests generally and the Kochs' own interests specifically. Americans for Prosperity, the third-largest recipient of Koch foundation largesse, is the brothers' overtly political unit. Essentially, it is a front group for mass-producing front groups. Much like McDonald's churns out Big Mac franchises, AFP can pop out a grass-rootsy-looking, cookie-cutter political operation on demand. Its menu includes such garnishes as hoked-up studies, alarmist talking points, deceptive attack ads, divisive hate messages, celebrity and religious endorsers, and a menagerie of media stunts. Consider the "tea bag" rebellion. No one professes more hatred for the two-party, business-as-usual political system in Washington than those angry Americans who're caught up in the tea-bag rallies. Yet unbeknownst to most of the mad-as-hellers who have showed up, it was AFP's Republican-tied lobbyists and political functionaries who cynically financed, organized and orchestrated the very first tea-bag protest. AFP has steadily co-opted the tea-bag faction to make it a front for the corporate agenda, and many of the tea-bag groups have devolved into subsidiaries of the Republican Party. Indeed, AFP has become the Astroturf-to-Go Store, fabricating and spreading fake grass-roots organizations all across the country, including Patients United Now (anti-health care reform), Hot Air Tour (anti-global warming), Free Our Energy (pro-offshore drilling), No Stimulus (tried to kill Obama's economic recovery plan) and Save My Ballot Tour (tries to keep workers from joining unions). It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you - and they are! While such corporate elites as the Kochs are a tiny minority of Americans, they are able to hide their own selfish agenda behind front groups, surreptitiously skewing our public debate, agenda and policies to serve themselves. Ultimately, what they are out to get is nothing less than America's essential uniting ethic of the common good, replacing our democracy with their corporate kleptocracy. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/08-6

Please, do tell me you are joking. With Democrats like you, who needs neanderthals to defend regressive propaganda outfits that justified the greatest upward transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.

That has been the plan for over 40 years now, when plutocrats (Coors, Scaife, Koch, etc ..) started pouring 100's of millions into "think tanks" like CATO, Heritage, AEI, etc) and propaganda campaigns to give an air of legitimacy to regressive views in the corporate media. Just take the concept of 'trickle down' that has been spewed like religion for decades now to justify growing economic inequalities despite never having been shown to have any legitimacy whatsoever by academics.

By definition, the social contract that exists in all societies demands delegating power to government. That isn't in question and hasn't been for several centuries despite the best attempts by libertarian nincompoops to make us believe it is still an open question. This article is about how libertarian plutocrats manufacture consent to enforce their grab of government, not about the need for this essential democratic institution.

"In 1958, Fred Koch became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. In a self-published broadside, Koch claimed that “the Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties.” He wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini’s suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the American civil-rights movement. “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America,” he warned. Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment “a vicious race war.” In a 1963 speech that prefigures the Tea Party’s talk of a secret socialist plot, Koch predicted that Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.” Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=3#ixzz0yuk3Icbh

you have nothing of substance to say, and are incapable of responding to any comment.

"redistribution" is your term, moron. According to jackass, progressive taxation is communism. Fucking libertarian extremist!

It's nice that aristocrats like Bertrand had time to philosophize about liberty but freedom from basic want is most liberating.

The state is us until we decide otherwise. Don't let the Koch brothers (and their corporate shills) decide for you.

The libertarians are coming, or how the plutocracy controls the nations politics. Covert Operations by Jane Mayer The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer#ixzz0ytnrk2of

Newsweek Poll: Republicans Think Obama 'Probably' Wants To Impose Islamic Law Eric Kleefeld | August 31, 2010, As Sam Stein has pointed out, a majority of Republicans suspect that President Obama wants to impose Islamic law, also known as Sharia, throughout the world, according to a new national poll from Newsweek. But even as they say this, a lot of them aren't completely sure. The poll asked: "Some people have alleged that Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world. From what you know about Obama, what is your opinion of these allegations?" The top-line result was definitely true 7%, probably true 24%, probably not true 36%, and definitely not true 25%. Among Republicans, however, it was definitely true 14%, probably true 38%, probably not true 33%, and definitely not true 7%. [..] Another question asked: "Thinking about Barack Obama and what he has said about issues like the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York City... Do you think Obama favors the interests of Muslim Americans over other groups of Americans, or do you think he has generally been even-handed?" The top-line result: favoring Muslims 30%, he has been even-handed 60%. Republicans said that Obama favors Muslims by 59%-34%, Democrats said he has been even-handed by 82%-9%, and independents pretty much matched the top-line, saying he has been even-handed by 62%-28%. more: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/newsweek-poll-republicans-think-obama-probably-wants-to-impose-islamic-law.php

Can you fathom that more than half of the neanderthals actually claim to believe Obama agrees with islamic fundamentalists that sharia law should rule the planet? Are regressives really sick fucks or just morons? Discuss.

I know you like to think this is a good troll but the fact that nobody can really tell whether you are joking, even though your talking point is effing ludicrous, ought to tell you something about the average credibility of right wing talking points. So, are you behind all this islamophobic nonsense too?

Considering how frequently right wingers (just take the case of Beck for example) say the most inane things, how are we supposed to know when PP doesn't mean to be taken seriously? For example, perhaps PP knows whether we are supposed to take seriously regressive claims that their current bout of islamophobic hysteria isn't an electoral ploy. I want to know because they are so obviously lying about it (it's the same old racist ploy they have used for the last 40 years [at least] during each election cycle) that perhaps I should just relax because they don't mean it and it's a joke. Which is it PP?

"Republicans were all about Prof. Steve Doig when he low-balled the crowd size at President Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Bachmann keeps insisting that at least 1 million people attended Glenn Beck's Restoring America rally last Saturday. But Doig, a University of Arizona professor who estimates crowd sizes from photos, pegged that number at about 80,000 people. Doig used AirPhotosLive.com pictures, published in an article by CBS, to make his call. He didn't see 1 million people. He saw big patches of green grass on the Washington Monument grounds, and picnic blankets where self-described patriots should have been. Conservative bloggers called the number laughable. Doig in turn called Michele Bachmann's 1 million person estimate laughable. Everyone seemed to be having a good laugh, especially after Bachmann decided to let it ride on the Laura Ingraham show and upped her ante to 1.6 million. The professor was alright with the Right when he put the crowd size at Obama's inauguration at 800,000. But now that Beck is down in the count, they're dismissing his science as blatant lies from the Left." http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2010/09/professor_who_l.php 80k people is pretty lame for a rally advertised 24/7 on the most watched cable news channel.

Lomborg is likely as little trustworthy as he was before. He was accused of dishonesty by many environmental scientists.

So, the nincompoops are having this big freakout about muslims and the first black prez 2 month before the mid-term elections, and it's all a big coincidence. They aren't race-baiting like they did during every single election cycle for decades now, it's your stupid lying eyes.