prole

It goes to show if you speak in broad enough generalities, you can hide your ideological dispositions and political allegiances indefinitely.

WELFARE QUEENS!!

You're referring to the banks here?

Damn, da ho damn global capitalist system done got isself in uh big ol' pickle! Whut tha hell y'all gon' do about it dis time?

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That's the bottom line w/Greece. The Euros are soon going to have to come to the conclusion that the pain is going to be shared and the German and Swiss banks are going to take a haircut on this one. The Germans are particularly pissed they are propping up Greece when, really, they are propping up German banks. The can has been kicked down the road only for a couple months. Once back from the August break I think a reality is going to settle in on the finance ministers. LOL, I thought this was about fat-cat toll-booth operators and bus drivers!

I wasn't going to vote for the GOP until I got this in my inbox. Thanks Grandpa! [font:Comic Sans MS]There is a relatively new terminology in the cyber world called, 'going viral'. It's when an email gets blasted around so much, everyone seems to know about it. This email is a true candidate to go viral.. Pass it on-and on-and on![/font]

Economic policy on the Right is dominated by economic liberalism and market fundamentalism. This has also been the case with the Democrat Party starting with Carter, continuing unabated since Clinton's "triangulation". That the GOP practices a more extreme brand of laissez-faire capitalism is what keeps people like Jay_B coming back to them, despite the efforts of the socially conservative wing to impose Christian sharia law. The GOP's Faustian bid with social conservatives, beginning with Reagan's courting of Falwell and the Moral Majority, is essentially a way to maintain electoral support amongst populations who're being fucked over by their economic policies. At this point, the GOP is facing an enormous crisis: on the one hand the rising inequalities in wealth and power, crumbling institutions, financial crises, reliance on unsustainable bubbles to maintain economic growth, debt, etc. that are the enduring legacy of economic liberalism (Reaganomics, trickle-down, supply-side, neoliberalism) are plain to see but they've no alternative to the tax-cut, deregulation, privatization paradigm they've been (up to now) successfully peddling. On the other, demographic shifts and cultural progress has outstripped the angry Christian white-man narrative employed since Nixon's reactionary "silent majority" movement and now threatens electoral aims. The resulting confusion has widened the schisms within the GOP (David Brooks vs. Ron Paul), but luckily for the corporations and the wealthy, the gangbangsters and the cops, the Democrats have proven more than willing to cleave to the status quo.

Conservatism, if it can be defined as a coherent set of beliefs at all, is at its core irrational.

Unfortunately it's working. Obama's looking more like Herbert Hoover every day.

Wow, hadn't thought about that! I never have to read another book again! I'll just decide how the premise of the book fits into my already fully-formed, airtight worldview, read the five-star or one-star reviews on Amazon, determine whether or not I think they seem "well written", and go about my day not having learned a fucking thing. Ah, the internet...

"Loud pipes" might just be the perfect case study for the failure of sociopathic freedumb.

Works for me.

Don't get your panties in a bunch.

Dude, you are depressing me. Yeah, me too. The military should start sharing another feature of contemporary American life with its civilian counterparts. Oh wait, it already has...

I'd say that the public, and the politicians shouldn't get to vote on this. Let the experts define what our countries strategic needs are based on an estimated budget to make our country secure and then execute that plan. Realistically, we need to spend on space based weapons and drop the carrier. China already has cheap assed missiles that it is said can and will sink a carrier. Those assholes have sold it to Iran it's been said, and Iran has hardened sites in the Persian gulf to hit our ships with this Chinese missile. Congress exasperatedly publicly berated the pentagon for not developing a defense to this bullshit. We have enough carriers already. Develop a defense for the supersonic shore to ship missiles. Pull back from the bullshit we are wasting $ on, like being in Afghanistan. Support those in Afghanistan who support us (formerly the Northern Front, General Dostrum and his tribe). Pocket the difference, but fully fund the VA and space based weapons. But it's not my call, nor the public's call, to make. Leave it to the experts who live and breath this issue. Is this a joke?

You got it ass-backwards. Most labor saving technology is geared toward dumbing down the operator, diminishing the skill set, and cheapening the cost of labor not skilling up. If the owner is the operator what happens to the cost, and value of his labor in the above scenario? WTF? This conversation and the scenario you outline above centers on employers and workers. Now you're shifting the goalposts? Get back to me when you find some intellectual honesty and/or a belief in the legitimacy of your own arguments.

This might be more convincing if the actually existing pool of permanently unemployed in America was primarily composed of out of work minimum wage earners. It isn't.

You got it ass-backwards. Most labor saving technology is geared toward dumbing down the operator, diminishing the skill set, and cheapening the cost of labor not skilling up.

Now would be a good time to respond with a graph that's totally unrelated to the question!

The people making $8 an hour are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, you dumbass. Is paying them $5 going to make them better off?

Really the only question is whether Mitt is evil enough...

OMG! Not Mitt! Anybody but Mitt! Where do I sign up and get a "Not Mitt" yard sign?! Put me down for canvassing at Whole Foods!

Which part about Obama mobilizing grassroots support, running a left campaign on "real hope and change you can believe in", winning by a large margin as a result and then governing as a conservative all while taking in record amounts of corporate cash did you forget? Give me a break. Knee jerk reference to Obama, as always. Yawn. Obama's just the latest kid on the block, but you know that. Try some real discussion some time. You might like it. Wait, you said: The point is they did (in record numbers), responding to a message and platform from the political left for systemic change and a rollback of Bush era infringements on civil liberties. They got fucked on both counts. How does that square with your quote above? I'm not sure you can count on them tuning into the "I'm not Mitt" show in '12 while Obama muddles over the prospects of systemic unemployment and "ums" and "ers" through GOP-manufactured crisis after GOP-manufactured crisis. Then again, he's a great "orator". Puts a southern preacher to shame.

Which part about Obama mobilizing grassroots support, running a left campaign on "real hope and change you can believe in", winning by a large margin as a result and then governing as a conservative all while taking in record amounts of corporate cash did you forget? Give me a break.