Bush would give you the impression that the Iraq war is free or cheap. But that's a hoax! The war is paid for with hidden taxes, higher prices, and American lives; the cost of the Iraq war has more than tripled since Bush declared "...major combat operations in Iraq have ended!"War is a racket fought by the masses for privileged elites. Bush's war on Iraq is not merely fought for the benefit of no-bid contractors like Halliburton, it is financed by America's working poor and middle classes who pay for the war —with their lives abroad and with their jobs, their retirement prospects, and their access to health care at home. Bush's base —the nation's elite, his corporate sponsors, and the so-called defense industry —have paid nothing, risked nothing! Rather —they feed at the trough. The upper one percent of the population has gotten several tax cuts while the big oil companies report record profits rising concurrently with higher prices at the pump.
Just two days after 9/11, I learned from Congressional staffers that Republicans on Capitol Hill were already exploiting the atrocity, trying to use it to push through tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. ... We now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited. The story of the latest terror plot makes the administration’s fecklessness and cynicism on terrorism clearer than ever.One of the more insidious falsehoods about Iraq has turned out to have been Bushco estimates of its cost. In 2002, George W. Bush himself predicted the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion —tops! To be expected —Bush was dead wrong. A report by the Democratic staff of the House Budget Committee now estimates that Bush's war of aggression in Iraq could cost the US $646 billion by 2015 —depending on the scope and duration of operations. Nobel prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University, estimates the cost of the war from one trillion to two trillion dollars!—
Hoping for Fear, by Paul Krugman, Using Fear Commentary, NY Times
Ongoing operations in Iraq were estimated at $5.6 billion per month in 2005. And costs have surely risen since then as the intensity of fighing increases accompanied by significant losses of materiel and maintenance.
The Bill So Far: Congress has already approved four spending bills for Iraq with funds totaling $204.4 billion and is in the process of approving a “bridge fund” for $45.3 billion to cover operations until another supplemental spending package can be passed, most likely slated for Spring 2006. Broken down per person in the United States, the cost so far is $727, making the Iraq War the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years.The Bush administration has been able to keep the precise cost of the war a matter of guess work and estimates. But however much is wasted killing civilians in Iraq that is money that is not being spent educating Americans, providing for health care, fixing Social Security, rebuilding a deteriorating infrastructure, or addressing real threats to our environment. However much has blown up in Iraq, it is lost forever to the victims of Bush's incompetence in the face of Katrina just one short year ago. It is lost forever to those millions losing retirements to corporate mismanagement and greed. It is lost forever to those unable to pay the high costs of education, transportation, housing, and getting enough to eat each day.Long-term Impact on U.S. Economy: In August 2005, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cost of continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at current levels would nearly double the projected federal budget deficit over the next ten years. According to current estimates, during that time the cost of the Iraq War could exceed $700 billion.
Economic Impact on Military Families: Since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 210,000 of the National Guard’s 330,000 soldiers have been called up, with an average mobilization of 460 days. Government studies show that about half of all reservists and Guard members report a loss of income when they go on active duty—typically more than $4,000 a year. About 30,000 small business owners alone have been called to service and are especially likely to fall victim to the adverse economic effects of military deployment.
—The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops, Institute for Policy Studies
U.S. Budget and Social Programs: The Administration’s FY 2006 budget, which does not include any funding for the Iraq War, takes a hard line with domestic spending— slashing or eliminating more than 150 federal programs. The $204.4 billion appropriated thus far for the war in Iraq could have purchased any of the following desperately needed services in our country: 46,458,805 uninsured people receiving health care or 3,545,016 elementary school teachers or 27,093,473 Head Start places for children or 1,841,833 affordable housing units or 24,072 new elementary schools or 39,665,748 scholarships for university students or 3,204,265 port container inspectors.Many delusions were promoted in order to commit this nation to aggressive war. In the short months after 9/11, Bush erected a strawman upon which to direct American frustration, anger, and vengeance: an “axis of evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. His intentions were made clear at the time: this "Axis of Evil" was responsible for world terrorism in general and our nation would wage war against it. Bush's speech was most notable, however, for what he did not say. Bush did not tell the American people that he had no intention of paying for the war. He would leave the deficit to future administrations and generations. Rather than expect his privileged base to pony up, he would reward their loyalty with several tax cuts. Nor are sons of daughters of that base required to serve their nation militarily. Bush's base gets a free ride as the rest of the nation bears the cost of war —in both lives and dollars.Social Costs to the Military/Troop Morale: As of May 2005, stop-loss orders are affecting 14,082 soldiers—almost 10 percent of the entire forces serving in Iraq with no end date set for the use of these orders. Long deployments and high levels of soldier’s stress extend to family life. In 2004, 3,325 Army officer’s marriages ended in divorce—up 78 percent from 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion and more than 3.5 times the number in 2000.
Costs to Veteran Health Care: The Veterans Affairs department projected that 23,553 veterans would return from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005 and seek medical care. But in June 2005, the VA Secretary, Jim Nicholson, revised this number to 103,000. The miscalculation has led to a shortfall of $273 million in the VA budget for 2005 and may result in a loss of $2.6 billion in 2006.
Mental Health Costs: In July 2005 the Army’s surgeon general reported that 30 percent of U.S. troops have developed stress-related mental health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq War. Because about 1 million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan some experts predict that the number eventually requiring mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
—The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops, Institute for Policy Studies
If wars are not paid for upfront, they are paid for in the form of higher interest rates, prices, and lives. Wealth does not trickle down; but the effects of a falling dollar is felt by everyone. The exponential rise of wage and income inequality began with a vengeance in the Reagan 80's, most closely associated with the Reagan tax cut of 1982. Only the top 20 percent of the population benefited. Wage/income disparities have increased since then with only a short respite in the Clinton years. The current trend began before a great wave of technical change and a computer revolution —none of which has benefited working Americans. Indeed, if you work for a living you have paid and continue to pay for Bush's war of aggression while Bush's base gets preferential treatment!
It is no coincidence that as prices increase, so, too, the national deficit. American credit abroad is dodgy. As the dollar continues to slide on world exchanges, not only gasoline prices increase but also prices of imported goods. Bush had said that he favors a strong dollar but, in fact, his administration has let the dollar slide, a cynical ploy designed to finance the Iraq folly upon the backs of working Americans. That it provides a moderate relief to US exporters is a bad trade off. What, after all, do we export these days? How many new jobs are created when, in fact, Ford is only one of many American corporations in big trouble.
Like Bush's mythical "Axis of Evil" the idea that a nation can wage a free war is an evil GOP fairy tale. Wars are always paid for, if not now, later, and in ways you won't like.
By way of Mark, this update from the Washington Post:
From Fred Kaplan writing in Slate, this update:Securing Future Fiscal Health
By Bob Kerrey and Warren RudmanThe economic and moral case for long-term reform of fiscal policy is clear. Yet politicians refuse to act. If this stalemate persists, it could end in catastrophe.
Over the next 30 years, spending on federal programs is on track to go up by 50 percent as a share of the economy. If revenue remain at their historical level, the resulting deficits will approach 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2036 -- almost 10 times the current size. The debt will surge to 200 percent of GDP -- twice what it was at the end of World War II.
Political realities explain why nothing has been done about this. Changing course would require substantial spending cuts from projected levels or equivalent tax increases. Neither party wants to be the first to propose these tough choices out of fear that the other side would attack it. Similarly, neither side wants to discuss possible compromises of its own priorities, out of fear that the other side will take the concessions and run. Unfortunately, these fears are justified.
Since the regular legislative process seems incapable of dealing with the impending crisis, some alternative has to be found. President Bush has suggested a commission. Having served on many commissions, we understand their potential value. We also understand how they can go wrong. In our view, a new commission could be very useful, but only if it recognizes fiscal and political realities. It needs five elements to succeed. ...
Securing Future Fiscal Health, Washington Post
An excerpt:What a Moronic Presidential Press Conference!
It's clear Bush doesn't understand Iraq, or Lebanon, or Gaza, or …...
It's all just words to Bush and that's just as well. He doesn't know the meaning of any of them anyway. The war on Iraq is a war of aggression, i.e. a war crime. Whenever a crime is committed, one must ask: Qui bono?...
Asked if it might be time for a new strategy in Iraq, given the unceasing rise in casualties and chaos, Bush replied, "The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. … Either you say, 'It's important we stay there and get it done,' or we leave. We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president."The reporter followed up, "Sir, that's not really the question. The strategy—"
Bush interrupted, "Sounded like the question to me."
First, it's not clear that the Iraqi people want a "democratic society" in the Western sense. Second, and more to the point, "helping Iraqis achieve a democratic society" may be a strategic objective, but it's not a strategy—any more than "ending poverty" or "going to the moon" is a strategy.
Strategy involves how to achieve one's objectives—or, as the great British strategist B.H. Liddell Hart put it, "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy." These are the issues that Bush refuses to address publicly—what means and resources are to be applied, in what way, at what risk, and to what end, in pursuing his policy. Instead, he reduces everything to two options: "Cut and run" or, "Stay the course." It's as if there's nothing in between, no alternative way of applying military means. Could it be that he doesn't grasp the distinction between an "objective" and a "strategy," and so doesn't see that there might be alternatives? Might our situation be that grim?
An update:Cheney's remaining US investment
Firestarter5 asked a question in a previous post about who of the neo-cons has stock in Halliburton. Well, we certainly know that Cheney does. In 2005, his 433,333 stock options soared by 3,281%. Now, Cheney says he has "pledged" the proceeds to charity. Yeah, and did you also know that the insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes"? I hope this so-called "charity" isn't counting on Cheney's word on this. Unless, of course, it is a charity run in the mold of Tom DeLay's "charitable organisations."Halliburton's government contracting has increased by 600% under the Bush/Cheney administration and was the fastest growing contractor between 2000 and 2005. The stock did drop, although lately it has recovered and leveled out, as this five year plot shows (vertical scale is compressed compared to the Cheney stock options value graph.
No doubt this is due to the fact that Halliburton has raked in about [all] it is going to from US government contracts in Iraq, unless Bush keeps all those troops over there for as long as he can -- and he certainly intends on doing that. KBR will then keep pulling in some change.
As far as other of Cheney's neo-con cohorts, well, not much is readily apparent. I'm certain that any investment in Halliburton by these others is probably well-veiled. ...
Some additional resources:Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams; becoming third world
By Chuck McCutcheon
A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.
Newhouse News ServiceNone of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad — if not worse — as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch (www.christianbeckner.com).
The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.
"I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm," said Casey Dinges, the society's managing director of external affairs.
British oil company BP announced this month that severe corrosion would close its Alaska pipelines for extensive repairs. Analysts say this may sideline some 200,000 barrels a day of production for several months.
Then an instrument landing system that guides arriving planes onto a runway at Los Angeles International Airport failed for the second time in a week, delaying flights.
Those incidents followed reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), the intelligence world's electronic eavesdropping arm, is consuming so much electricity at its headquarters outside Washington that it is in danger of exceeding its power supply.
"If a terrorist group were able to knock the NSA offline, or disrupt one of the nation's busiest airports, or shut down the most important oil pipeline in the nation, the impact would be perceived as devastating," Beckner said. "And yet we've essentially let these things happen — or almost happen — to ourselves."
The Commission on Public Infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report that facilities are deteriorating "at an alarming rate." ...
- The Declining Dollar, Global Policy Forum
- Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz Calculates Iraq's Stunning Price Tag, Columbia Review
- Whoops! It's 1985 All Over Again, ibid
- The Hidden Cost of Iraq War, LA Times
- How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime
The Existentialist Cowboy
Quagmire
Iraq
War Crimes
Krugman
Bush
37 comments:
Hey EC -
The circumstances that abound in the world and particularly the US have exhausted me: Fellow American J is no more.
I am reading still, though, and have you bookmarked so I won't derail from the Train Of Thought That Leads To Sanity....
Please urge all Texas reps and sens to support bill S.494, which revises the Whistleblowers Protection Act. It's the least we can do for those who are working for the Government and see the corruption.
Keep up the great writing!
thanks jae. I haven't read S494 but I support the rights of Whistleblowers. If you haven't already seen it, I recommend the movie "The Insider" with Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, and Christopher Plummer. A must see.
Happy to be bookmarked. You'll find a lot of great regulars and excellents comments here.
the terrorists will never have to blowup anything in the US.they will just BLEED US DRY finaically.
the militaray/industrialy complex is in total control.i and my lifemate are nearing 70yrs old.i have retired,but he is still working.we've saved through the years,but we don't consider ourseles in the middle class.i've watched prices for basic,groceries,gasoline,utilities steadly rise.thankfully we are debt free.thanks to Mr. greenspan and his low intrest rates he has buried new home owners with back breaking ARMS house notes huge creditcard debt.yes Bush and his cohorts will walk away very rich.the US will be just above 3rd world standing.a good read for people would be THE AMERICAN THEROCY.
anonymous, I can relate to absolutely everything you write. The US government has always waged an economic war against everyone not among the robber baron elite class. Assaults by the modern GOP, and Bush in particular, seem especially egregious. These "social darwinists" —neither social nor Darwin —have, in fact, enriched their class and impoverished everyone else. Many, living on charge cards, have deluded themselves into thinking that they are IN this class. But when their jobs are utterly phased out and the dollar collapses, all will be gone. Their blackberries and CC's will mean nothing. This very nearly happened under Reagan. People who had been living in large suburban homes suddenly found themselves living under bridges and overpasses in Houston. The lucky ones had tents. It happened in the early 80's. Bush didn't attack Iraq in order to bring down the price of oil and, thus, gasoline; he has accomplished his real goal. Gasoline at the pump has never been more expensive. And neither have oil company profits and CEO salaries and benefits. We are expected to believe that its all coincidental. BS!
Too true, Len, as are those comments above - and may I say it is so refreshing to see an American commentator give Greenspan his due. An incredible mystique attaches to this doddering old fool. Popular legend has it (in some circles) that Alan Greenspan had forgotten more than most of us will ever know about financial curves and trends, and the overall health of the dollar. None of this was true (except that Alan Greenspan has probably forgotten most of what HE ever knew), and the United States owes as much of its current economic malaise to the laissez-faire interest slides of the Greenspan years as to the current machinations of this president's cronies.
All of this truth was out there, for those who cared to look - and the few who got a feeling of creeping unease while the president threw his hands in the air, and encouraged Americans to party like it was 1979. Economic realists like Paul Krugman pumped grim injections of truth into the soothing blanket of foam the Bush administration spread over reality, but few bought it.
As I alluded to earlier, why would anybody listen to Bush, who got shoehorned through every insitution of learning he ever attended without...well...learning anything, and then embarked upon a lurching business career which consisted of running every company he managed into the ground? Especially where Krugman has economic respectability oozing from every pore, and has been right time after time.
History will tab this episode as one of the great puzzles of the modern age; that this drunken, stupid pied piper could have led a stubbornly and willfully unbelieving nation to grief based upon their eagerness to be fooled some more. And, I might add, in the face of chorused warnings from outside as well as lone voices from the wilderness inside.
At various points throughout a crazy ersatz "boom" reminiscent of the South Sea Bubble, in which redline warnings were ignored in favour of novocaine daydreams, Krugman and others like him stated unambiguously that the "good times" were being financed almost entirely on people living beyond their means. Now that the bewildered are coming to the end of their savings, the predicted disintegration of the fabulously-overvalued real estate market is beginning.
Have a look at this depressing snapshot (and it is that, because the numbers are constantly adjusting upward) of the national debt.
http://www.uwsa.com/uwsa-usdebt.html
Note also the helpful but poorly-understood information that, even if the deficit is minus (meaning you are reducing the debt, and running a surplus), you will be still paying interest on the remaining debt.
The American people were led into this by charlatans who played upon their general ignorance of global finance and national solvency. This, however, does not let them off the hook, because there were frequent sober and reasoned warnings.
There are, unfortunately, none so blind as those who will not see.
By the way, I love the poster that leads the article! Where'd you get it?
Mark, it seems typical of the GOP mentality to seek comforting over-simplifications in every area. Economics, being beyond anyone's ability to model accurately, invites over simplification from psyches accustomed to thinking in black v white, good v evil, and conservative v liberal.
Greenspan may not typify monetarist policies better than lesser known figures, but he was certainly a poster boy for monetarism on steroids. Monetarism seemingly reduces all of economics to a single curve: the demand curve for money.
It is thought that by controlling the prime interest rate —the interest rate charged by banks to their best, most creditworthy customers — all economic activity can be controlled, regulated, and, most importantly, made predictable.
That very concept, an extremist version of laissez faire capitalism, ignores the social needs of so-called "economic man". Economics is difficult because mankind IS not merely economic but psychological and sociological. Greenspan was technical to a fault —but who who wouldn't want a job that only requires a single statement, a pronouncement, every quarter? Besides, merely moving the curve or, more precisely, moving interest rates to different points on the curve, does not address the very real problem associated with income disparity, productivity, et al.
Though Friedman claimed to have accepted Keynes, I doubt that Friedman, who popularized an educational "voucher" concept, ever embraced Keynes' recipe for full employment: put bank notes in sealed jars and bury them in a landfill; leave it to private enterprise to dig them up. Presto! No more unemployment.
Thanks for the link. There is much confusion about the terms "debt" and "deficit". If I buy a car for 20,000 and put down five grand, my debt is $15,000. But if I earn 5,000 every month even as my monthly bills total 6,000 my "deficit" is 1,000. If my defict remains unpaid from month to month, it is added to my total debt. Of course, the debt must be repaid with interest. At some point, unless I begin to earn more money, my total debt, including accumulated deficit and itnerest, will surpass my ability to ever repay at my current income. I will have to continue borrowing to make up the short fall.
The US is doing this currently, but T-bill purchases become less attractive as the Iraq quagmire threatens total bankruptcy. Yes...nations can go bankrupt and the US will be so when NO ONE will buy a T-Bill for fear of being stuck with a worthless piece of paper. Other nations, primarily China, Japan, and the nations of the EU, currently support the dollar. For them it is a trade off. They will support the dollar so that they can sell their good to the US. At the moment, the collapse of the dollar will hurt them as much as it wil hurt us. But for how long will that be true?
Thanks, Len; your comments are illuminating, as usual. Also, your analysis may help some readers understand debt and deficit and their relatonship to one another, although readers of this blog likely will not need it. Sadly, millions of unaware Americans who think, "as soon as we get in the black, we're home free" DO need financial counselling in the worst way. But it suits the Bush administration to keep people ignorant and nervous for as long as possible.
Your final paragraph perhaps suggests a trend toward viewing Asian economic policy as similar in inspiration to Western. I doubt that is your thinking, considering how well-traveled and educated you obviously are; it was more likely my interpretation. In any case, it is not - Asians , and formerly the Japanese but now more so the Chinese, view economics as a legitimate form of warfare, and are at the very least unrelentingly competitive.
China could easily shrug off a cataclysmic financial disaster like losing billions in worthless economic paper - if it meant the dragon throne would emerge dominant from the ashes, and America would be ruined, both in terms of reserves and global confidence. Above all the Chinese are not fools, but they appear to be playing a fools game; letting the alcoholic nephew have ever more money for bar-hopping, without ever providing a warning that the cash supply is limited for those who will not learn self-discipline.
Similarly, I believe China has already twice experimented with their capacity to destroy the American economy - the most recent being an announced decision to shift some of their assets out of the dollar and into euros. It was almost immediately recallled - a mistake; Comrade Wu in accounting, such a cut-up - but the Dow dropped more than 200 points in less time than it takes to write it. Calling in its note on borrowed money would be destructive almost beyond imagining, because the U.S. couldn't honour it, it is too overextended. The talk of a so-many-trillion dollar economy comforts those who don't look closely enough to see how little of it is liquid assets.
Thanks again for your introspective analysis - I think this blog entry is going to generate some interest (no pun intended).
China could easily shrug off a cataclysmic financial disaster like losing billions in worthless economic paper - if it meant the dragon throne would emerge dominant from the ashes, and America would be ruined, both in terms of reserves and global confidence. Above all the Chinese are not fools, but they appear to be playing a fools game; letting the alcoholic nephew have ever more money for bar-hopping, without ever providing a warning that the cash supply is limited for those who will not learn self-discipline.
Indeed, Mark! This forum continues to be my education. And your comments with regard to China are very much mine. The nephew analogy is on target. And China will compute the "trade off" in non-western ways.
I would like to think my view of China realistic —not jingoistic. Having studied a bit of Chinese philosophy in my college years, I would hope to have outgrown a narrow view of China that is often associated with the treatment of Chinese immigrants to the US during the construction of our trans-continental railroad as well as the gold rush. However, having suffered under the regime of Mao, the people are now sold yet another ideology: capitalism.
I worked recently with a Chinese immigrant who differed little in attitude, lifestyle and outlook from the very spirit of American GOP-ism that I have grown to loathe. When he opined that he was, in fact, a doctrinaire communist, I must confess I laughed out loud: "You're not a communist; you're a Republican!" So much for Sino-American relations.
At the same time, Sino-American relations will define the state of the world in this century. I am therefore fearful. The Chinese government has sold the Chinese people the same materialistic bill o'goods that the GOP have sold Americans. This is a short sighted, materialistic Weltanschauung —a "Greenspan" policy, if you will. It ignores at a very basic level what it means to be a human being. I level that critique at both dogmatic capitalism as well as dogmatic communism. I am not optimistic about the future of China, and thus, I am not optimistic about the future of the US.
There is still time for both countries to change course. But when China floods the Yangtze even as the US opens up wilderness areas for oil exploration, I tremble. Alexander Hamilton wrote: "Those who stand for nothing fall for anything". Both China and the US, I fear, have fallen for crassest materialism but for different reasons. In China, capitalism is still called communism, and, in the US, fascism is still called free enterprise. We are not so different. Both our government lie!
I believe China has already twice experimented with their capacity to destroy the American economy - the most recent being an announced decision to shift some of their assets out of the dollar and into euros. It was almost immediately recalled - a mistake; Comrade Wu in accounting, such a cut-up - but the Dow dropped more than 200 points in less time than it takes to write it.
I am reminded of the final scene in Clint Eastwood's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. As you may recall, the film is a parable. From a review: Three gunmen set out to find a hidden fortune. Who will walk away with the cash? [the Clint Eastwood character]...just wants to live his life and get rich, a very different Western hero [an Existentialist Cowboy?]. [Eli] Wallach's Tuco is one that we can hate, yet feel sorry for at times. For example, we can despise him for pretending to be Eastwood's friend then turning on him, but we can feel sorry for him when he's pummeled by one of Angel Eyes' brutes.
Or, as Sigmund Freud said: "A man is never so miserable as when all he wants is to stay alive!" As a drug may mask a symptom, a shallow suburban lifestyle —in the US or the "new" China —merely masks the underlying angst. Surely, this angst is found in the writings of those living in the time of Rome's decline. This is surely the source of Marcus Aurelius' stoicism, and, some two thousand years later, it is found in Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Heidegger.
Why is the nature of Sino-Chinese relations an existentialist issue? It's the bill of goods that we are sold. The very existence of the Chinese regime and, indeed, the Bush regime is dependent upon our believing, accepting the falsehoods we are told. This demands of us that we believe the lies of the regime; we must conform and surrender to an "...unauthentic life" that is characterized in both China and the US by its banality. Or as Rita Mae Brown wrote in Venus Envy: "The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself."
This is all way too depressing for me to comment on, especially since I got nothing to add but, "oh shit". I'll toss in a link with a few bits of info illustrating just how far we've sunk towards being a third world nation.
I'll also toss in a Cheney quote I found:
"let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States" (Washington, D.C., Oct 1986).
Apparently, when FuckYou Dick said "the United States", he meant "me and my rich oil buddies".
drive, geat link! It's an eye opener. That we are NUMBER ONE is just some of the eye wash that we are sold. It's deliberately intended to deflect our attention which the "ruling class" gets away with robbing us all blind.
Len, Dave - what a literary feast your replies were! I agree, Dave, the link is fascinating. If I actually lived in the U.S., it'd be a huge eye-opener, and I would be aghast at the catching-up we had to do. To be fair, the various categories didn't offer the previous American position; for example, it's not that much of a disaster to learn you've been 26th in the world in mathematical ability since 1956. Maybe that's where you belong. However, if you've dropped from, say 10th to 30th in 5 years, there's something going on that can't be left unchallenged.
It's true, though, that Americans are fed a steady diet of "We're the best", and there's a pervasive belief among the public that anybody, anywhere would give anything they had for the chance to be an American. In fact, that's a lot of the emotion behind the drive to democratize and Americanize everything - the belief that the receivers of that generosity will be grateful for it.
Still, there's little about such a public muckraking of rankings worldwide that wouldn't benefit any country (except maybe whoever's number 1 in nearly everything, it'd make them cocky and give them ideas). I'd venture to say Canada has dropped in a lot of things as well, although we're fed much less of the "we're number one" diet.
Len, I don't know that I've ever seen Communists compared to Republicans! Only every election campaign, you say. Yes, you're right, name-calling is a big part of modern politics, which becomes more brawling and discourteous every year. However, I don't think I've ever seen a point-by-point platform comparison between the two.
Examination of Chinese philosophy, at least a cursory once-over, offers little insight into Asian business ethics as a whole. What I submit is that Asian business takes the long view - if I take a short-term loss, can I make my enemy greedy, and cause him to overreach? The Japanese model is the most illustrative, because it's the one I know best. What I see as the bottom-line difference, if it's reduced to a single point of principle, is that the American businessman will say, "What's in it for me?", and the Japanese businessman will say, "What's in it for Japan?"
Japan destroyed the American home electronics industry by taking short-term losses that were incomprehensible to the U.S. industry base. "How can they afford to sell stuff so cheap?", they asked. And of course, the simple answer was that they couldn't; they were absorbing the short term loss, in exchange for market share. After they humbled the domestic companies, they bought them out. When American companies tried to invest in Japan, and one-up their adversaries, they ran into an interlocking thicket of foreign-ownership statutes that essentially meant you could never own a Japanese company if you were not Japanese. Other countries that had the "there's plenty of room for all" attitude found themselves the victim of takeover after takeover. Canada is a prime example - we own hardly any of our major companies any more, and Canadian and American business interests are so closely interlocked that we're hardly separate countries.
Anyway, that's the relevance to China, and the danger of placing your fiscal future in the hands of the only other world power as hungry for (and to its mind, deserving of) global hegemony as the United States itself. China is now aggressively moving in on world markets in a broad application of the Japanese business model that annihilated electronics competition in the 50's and 60's.
I can remember waking up at around 4:00AM in Shanghai in 1998, unable to sleep, and going up to the forecastle for a smoke (a habit I'm happy to say I've beaten, and I haven't touched one since New Years 2000). River traffic had not slackened significantly from afternoon, and it appeared it never stopped - the barges and tugs and cargo vessels kept cycling past like one of those montages painted on a rotating lampshade, day in, night out. There were 13 million people in Shanghai in 98, and I doubt it's gotten smaller since. It was by no means the biggest city in China.
There's always something being built in China, and manpower is cheap and plentiful. Far from the quaint cities of coolies and bicycles, most Chinese now drive cars and, although the farming communities (Fujiyan province, for example) remain desperately poor, the standard of living has jumped enough that many expatriate Chinese working in North America have returned home to get a piece of the pie.
China is an emerging energy hog who, along with India, is a serious global competitor for known and undiscovered resources. It is the purest ignorance to imagine China is financing the war in Iraq because they sympathize with America's worldview, or even that they want America to be successful. Far from it, in fact - they like America just in the position it's in: bogged down and fighting a bitter war of attrition it cannot win. That keeps it too busy to interfere with China's global ambition, alienating the owners of the largest easily-recoverable oil reserves on the planet and, if icing were needed on this cake, financially amortized to China!
Neat piece of work, Mr. Bush. What an internationalist!
Mark, I hope I haven't given you the impression that I think GOPPERS are communists or that communism is Republicanism. I am saying that China has not been communist for a some time now. It is, rather, seduced by all the trappings of gaudy, western style capitalism.
Likewise, the US is fascist but, for different reasons, will not admit it. The co-worker I referred to was clearly NOT a communist, though he said he was! Real communists do not live in Sugar Land, TX —and most certainly NOT in Tom DeLays' district.
Indeed, much of your criticisms of Chinese and Japanese business practices are mine as well. I just happen to think that they are as easily seduced by "Republicanism" as they might have been by communism at one time. The current regime must know this. In place of ideology, the leadership has given the people bread and circuses. And, I rather suspect, that when the definitive history of China's transformation is written, a trip to China by one George W. Bush, Sr., paving the way for Nixon's historic visit to Beijing will be seen has having been the genesis, the catalyst for change. At the risk of oversimplification, Bush offered China a Faustian pact! But that's what the Bush family does.
The US, on the other hand, has similarly not been a Democratic republic since the end of World War II. China and the US are more alike than different. Both worship money. Both have imperial ambitions. Both build ugly buildings. Both are overly impressed with spectacle and gigantism. Both are seduced by illusory wealth.
My distrust of US ambitions is, admittedly, more informed than my distrust of China. But my distrust of China is no less alarming than my distrust of Bush. As Shakespeare put it: "A plague o'both your houses!"
Len; not at all. I just suggested I have never seen a point-by-point comparison between Communist ideals and Republican ideals. In truth, I know little about Republicanism save that it's supposed to stand for small government and fiscal responsibility. If so, this government has been an enormous failure of the movement's holy grail. The government is everywhere we look, snooping in your pockets and in your bedrooms, and spending is far past out of control.
I don't doubt each who acts as midwife to a new form of government is convinced it is the ideal model for the people, to ensure they have responsible and accountable leadership while offering each every opportunity to better himself. Communism is no different, and in its original form it must have been a clever system. My wife lived under communist rule, and she said they were taught they were the luckiest people on earth; they had plenty of everything. Who can argue with the original manifesto - from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs? It's easy to see why somebody like Cheney would despise a system like that, because there weren't supposed to be any fiefdoms, any landlords or peasants. The idea of giving away money to a bunch of rabble would be anaethma to a Cheney or a Rumsfeld.
My wife's grandmother and grandfather were managers of a collective farm; as a child, she remembers a big house, and an abundance of everything - the table was no sooner cleared than it was being reset for the next meal. The rivers were full of fish, and there was plenty of meat from the farm as well as every type of fruit and produce. She says the workers were more like an extended family, because they were landowners themselves, everything belonged to the state.
Mind you, there were barbarous cruelties. Sticking with my wife's experience, I remember discussing with her a news item I had seen which suggested more people in Russia still had a favourable view of Stalin than did Americans of Cheney at present: I think his ratings were somewhere down around 18%, and some wit had thought to research the comparison. In any case, she didn't think it was funny at all. She said nearly every second family in Russia lost somebody to Stalin's paranoid purges - in her family's case, it was her great-grandfather. He was taken away, and never returned, and no explanation was ever forthcoming.
Communism failed, just as American style democracy is tottering, because its ideals were betrayed. Oligarchs bent the state to their service and for their personal enrichment and empowerment, and despite perhaps the most rigorous education-by-rote of any government model, it imploded. American democracy is based on the American dream; that any man can be anything just so long as he wants it badly enough, and tries hard enough. Once it was true. But now democracy in America is rotted to the core, and bears a striking resemblance to Communism before the collapse - a glutted ruling elite who keep the masses in servitude, while feeding them a thin pabulum of dreams that any goal is attainable, if only they work hard enough. Meanwhile that same ruling elite ensures the middle class will rise no higher, and that it will be the group that feels the suffering of the poor most acutely, feels the most responsibility to alleviate their misery.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. ... We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."
George Orwell
If Orwell had a lesson for us, it is there, in that kernel - that nobody ever relinquishes seized power, and that power is a means, not an end. Having ammassed more unchallenged power than any president in history; what, pray, does Mr. Bush intend to do with it?
I have never seen a point-by-point comparison between Communist ideals and Republican ideals. In truth, I know little about Republicanism save that it's supposed to stand for small government and fiscal responsibility. If so, this government has been an enormous failure of the movement's holy grail.
Ah...that's the crux of the problem. Of late, nothing said by the GOP about the GOP is true. "Smaller government" was, at one time, a GOP mantra. That, of course, has not been true since Ronald Reagan, who made similar promises of smaller, more efficient government, in fact, doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy and tripled the national debt. So much for small and efficient. The GOP, since, has stood for big and inefficient. But they will not tell you that and get away with it because Americans, likewise, score badly on education and attention span. We are SO screwed!
My wife's grandmother and grandfather were managers of a collective farm; as a child, she remembers a big house, and an abundance of everything - the table was no sooner cleared than it was being reset for the next meal. The rivers were full of fish, and there was plenty of meat from the farm as well as every type of fruit and produce.
That description could almost be mistaken for the lives of some Native American tribes before the "White Man" came. The Iroquois Federation, for example, was arguably more advanced than the newly arrived colonists from England. They had better houses, equal rights for women, a sophisticated "Constitution", and plenty. The "White Man" changed all that.
Communism failed, just as American style democracy is tottering, because its ideals were betrayed.
That seems to be the failure of all governmental forms. Many are fine on paper, but, in practice, principles are betrayed for individual gain and/or power grabs by subversive factions. The NEOCONS in present day US, for example, bear little resemblance to "Republicanism" as espoused by Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, for example, believed in a "fiscal conservativism"; latter day GOP are often heard repeating the mantra: deficits don't matter. Just 30 years ago, that charge might have been credibly leveled at Democrats, often tarred with the label: "Tax and spend Democrat". But "taxing and spending" is clearly preferable to "borrow and spend". And what money is spent on matters. It is there that you will find clear differences between GOPPERS and Democrats. The Republican party, for example, will divert federal revenues to religious organizations in violation of the Constitution and will do so by a ruse —faith-based initiatives.
Good Morning, Len; sad, isn't it, that we have arrived at a point that the government does not fear to break the law right out in the open, defiant in its insufferable arrogance. If serious impeachment efforts were to be undertaken now, this minute (and I don't believe they will, even the Democrats are content to let Bush destroy the country yet further, because it increases their chances of being elected), Bush would still likely reach the end of his second term before anything concrete could be made to happen. By then, the damage is done.
Communism viewed through the rosiest filter might well have seemed similar to Native American tribal life, because indeed natives did take pains to look after the elderly when they could no longer work, and assist in the care of families who lost their breadwinner; a simple welfare state. The difference, of course, is that the collective farm had its power bestowed by the state, while the natives had no central government.
We do see eye-to-eye on many things, the invasive nature of government power among them.
Well; in an effort to get back on topic, I offer this link -
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/age25.html
- which is somewhat of a rehash of the Bush Baghdad Palace story. However, it includes some points of interest, in that the U.S. Embassy in Iraq project is now the only one that is on track for completion. It is also candid in its admission that it means America is there to stay, even if there is little to no discussion of the permanent base issue in the MSM any more. I was interested in the dynamic shift of opinion suggested, in that Sunnis now want the Americans to stay to provide security, while Shiites want them to go. Other sources are speculating that Sistani is losing his power to control the Shiite majority, as the country drifts ever closer to all-out civil war. Partition now seems inevitable, and I have probably suggested before that suits the Bush government, regardless what they might say publicly about national unity. That would allow them to skip the large parts of Iraq that have no oil, and concentrate security (not to mention reconstruction money and bribes) in an effort to win over the new regional governments. Bush still wants that oil, and is prepared to sacrifice whatever and whoever he must to get it.
we have arrived at a point that the government does not fear to break the law right out in the open, defiant in its insufferable arrogance
And Bush has made no secret of his contempt for law and order, the rule or law, and, more specifically, the Constitution. If he did say of the Constitution that it was "...just a Goddamned piece paper", he might as well have. It sums him up precisely. Bush is at best a sociopath who considers himself, by virtue of his birth, to be above social restraints of any sort; at worst —he is a psychopath who confuses his psychotic delusions with "God" —or whatever it is that he thinks is God.
No one, anywhere in the world is safe so long as Bush occupies the Oval Office. I think that over the last four weeks or so, we narrowly averted World War III. There were under-reported sources for the conclusion that not only did Bush urge an Israeli attack on Syria, Olmert refused it! An Israeli attack on Syria would most certainly have involved Iran giving Bush the pre-text he still actively seeks to nuke Iran. It's hard to see how Russia could have avoided that threat to its own security. With any luck, Bush has run out of proxies. I can't remember a time when the US has been so utterly isolated.
Democrats are content to let Bush destroy the country yet further, because it increases their chances of being elected
Talk about a "scorched Earth" policy! Indeed, the biggest beneficiary of a Bush impeachment now would be the GOP. The same argument has been made about Nixon. Among those Republicans urging Nixon to resign was George Bush, Sr. Senior feared that a broader Watergate investigation would reveal numerous "ethnic" fascists —post WWII immigrants —literally making up the membership of the GOP at all levels.
Hey, Len; by way of follow-up, here are a couple of interesting links. This one -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700557.html
- from todays WaPo, lays out the steps necessary for a bipartisan commission (groan, yes, I know) to try getting the economy back on track. It sounds like just more talk, and would perhaps achieve little, but it is quite clear in identifying the urgency of the situation. It suggests, for the first time I'm aware of, that Bush could actually cause the economy to collapse. Moreover, he will, if allowed to continue his slash-and-burn tax cuts.
The other -
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_09_11/cover.html
- is an interesting (but off-topic) dissection of the new success achieved by guerilla warfare specific to Arabs, and how the West is pissed off at them because they will no longer come out and muster by battalions to be annihilated in the conventional way. In fact, this issue of the American Conservative is particularly juicy, with several excellent free-to-nonsubscriber articles on timely topics.
A must see, a veritable gem - a short (10 minutes) US propaganda educational film from 1954 which is quite poignant in its relevance to the present times: Despotism. If you're on a dialup, it will take a while to upload but is well worth the long wait.
Privet, Vierotchka; kak dela? Sorry I can't do Russian fonts with this setup. It is good to hear from you!!
Hey, Cowboy, you're on the C&L Blog Roundup again. You're becoming a regular feature - that's where I found you in the first place.
Priviet, Mark! Khorosho, spasiba! Neither can I. :) So you can do a bit of Russian too! That's great - how many other languages? Did you go to see that video called Despotism? I find it so very relevant for today...
I am still downloading that video but, as you say, it is worth it. America has been slow boiling in the fascist pot at least since Nixon. Viet Nam provided a sense of shame and failure just in time for Ronald Reagan —a saviour —to make people "...feel good about themselves".
Hi, Vierotchka; I can speak a little of the French derivatives (or those similar in structure) like Spanish and Portugese, but nothing like fluency. Ditto Russian, I understand it better than I speak it (I should, I hear it every day), but my sentence structure is very weak. If I ever get enough free time, I'm going to put some serious effort into learning it, because my in-laws speak no English or French.
not American enough
Hey, Vierotchka - I saw that film, that was seriously creepy. By every single standard of measure, the United States has become a despotism; decisions made without the consent of the citizens, restricted access to information, manipulation of the vote, concentration of power in the hands of the few, lack of respect for the voter... I have high-speed Internet, so I was able to watch it in real time. I'll be passing that one on.
Anonymous, that's a sad story - I remember reading the piece about the original conviction, when the father was interviewed and could barely speak English, and it was clear he had been betrayed by the informant who had played on that weakness. It just shows how desperate this administration is to get any kind of terrorism conviction, and how grimly they will hang on to a possibility, no matter what thugs they look in the process. This is a glimpse of what the rule of law is like under an administration to whom public opinion is meaningless.
Ummmm....what great reserves of oil would those be? The U.S. passed peak domestic production years ago, and has been in decline for more than a decade.
Do you suppose there would be such intense pressure to drill in the Arctic Wilderness if the heartland itself floated on great reservoirs of oil? Even at that, unless significant new finds have come on stream, the potential oil in the Arctic Reserve will fall a long way short of removing the yoke of foreign oil dependency.
Much as all liberals drive cars, all conservatives eat food. Are you ready to rip up all America's farmland in a fruitless quest for oil? Good luck; then you can become dependent on foreign food supplies, too.
Your suggestions that liberal policies, which seem somehow to always involve extortionate taxes, are responsible for a less desirable financial state than prevails are simply not supported anywhere outside your belief mechanism. Bill Clinton, the horrible whoremonger responsible for all conservative anguish in the world, left office with balanced books and a significant cash surplus. George Bush turned it into a staggering deficit in no time at all, and the only reason this government hasn't broken through the permissible debt ceiling is because they keep raising it whenever they get close. The last administration to run such soaring deficits was that of another icon who brings sentimental tears to conservative eyes - Ronald Reagan. The U.S. dollar has lost 30% of its value under George Bush.
No doubt you believe anybody that doesn't think as you do is a tree-hugging, spotted-owl-loving luddite enemy of legitimate commerce. Fine with me. Vive la difference!!
Re: truthteller
First the bank; the liberal strategy of tax and tax again, while supporting big government effects every American's pocketbook.
Surely, you mean conservative tax cuts that benefit ONLY the upper quintile in the case of Ronald Reagan, and only the upper 1 percent, in the case of GWB. And when you refer to "big government", surely you must mean Ronald Reagan who tripled the national deficit and doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy. Had he not done so, the number of people out of work during his administration would have been even worse. Reagan is still considered a conservative and the GOP is still thought to be in favor of smaller government.
Bush will have made Reagan look like a pauper.
Moreover, I have the cold hard stats from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Stats, and the BEA that proves beyond ANY reasonable doubt that Democratic Presidents have consistently presided over greater American prosperity than have GOP "Presidents".
Bush is no surprise except with respect to the astounding degree of his incompetence and blatant criminality.
Finally, no Democratic President in the 20th Century ever declared himself to be above the law, the rule of law, or the rulings of the Supreme Court. No Democratic president of the 20th Century ever openly denigrated the Constitution.
At last —TERRORISM HAS BEEN WORSE IN GOP REGIMES SINCE 1980. That is my conclusion based upon FBI stats published by Brookings.
According to data from the IRS, the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay approximately 4 percent of income taxes.
That's because they earn less. If they earned more they would pay more. See how that works. Finally, So what?
The top 25 percent of income earners pay nearly 83 percent of the income tax burden, and the top 10 percent pay 65 percent.
That's because they earn more. And, in a more equitable and just society their earnings might not be so disproportionately high. They would actually pay less tax in such a society. My heart does NOT bleed for them. Did you have a point?
Liberals cost us at the pump: Tapping into the great reserves of oil the United States has would reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern countries. All liberals drive cars, so those who think that big oil is evil are hypocrites.
Nonsense. Liberal have nothing to do with the price of gas at the pump. Big oil, however, does! GWB, owned by big oil, does, Dick Cheney does. But not liberals.
Besides —we don't need to be polluting the only atmosphere that we will ever have by wastefully burning fossil fuels anyway. And we certainly don't need to be killing innocent civilians so that we can do so. We don't need to be stealing Middle Eastern oil nor do we need to exploit our own wilderness areas. You present us —however disingenuously —a false dichotomy. You should learn to think outside the box.
Besides —liberals will surely support electric cars...which are, in fact, economically feasible and environmentally friendly in themselves, and more so, since electricity can be generated in various environmentally friendly ways. Los Angeles, for example, was a successful electric car experiment. Several thousand electric cars were loved by the users. They were sleek and stylish and would leave a Ferraris behind. The cars were charged up overnight with hydro-electric power. The cars were taken back by GM and destroyed. There were too good!
Liberals cause American lives; mistakes made during the nineties may have stopped Osama bin Laden before he could have planned 9/11.
Bunkum! There is NO hard evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with 911. And, if he did, why is he still on the loose? Didn't Bush promise to smoke him out and bring him to justice.
At last, liberal is from the Latin "liber" which means "pertaining to a free man". Why do kneejerks persist in demonizing the very derivation of "Liberty" unless they are, themselves, fascist and despise freedom and liberty?
Mark, Your [truthteller's] suggestions that liberal policies, which seem somehow to always involve extortionate taxes, are responsible for a less desirable financial state than prevails are simply not supported anywhere outside your belief mechanism.
According to the GINI indices at the Census Bureau, 1968 was the most egalitarian year in American history. Since that time the rich have gotten obscenely rich and the poor obscenely poorer. Tax rates were higher for rich people, but the cost of merely staying alive is much higher as a percentage of income for those who are not rich. At last, their has arisen a veritable chasm between rich and poor in this country. Wealth and power is concentrate, generally, in the same hands. Bush's base!
George Bush turned it into a staggering deficit in no time at all, and the only reason this government hasn't broken through the permissible debt ceiling is because they keep raising it whenever they get close.
Bush should have been impeached for pissing away the surplus. Iraq, as I pointed out, is costing us some 5.9 billion dollars a month. That money is NOT comming out of the ass of rich folk. It's comming out of MY ass!
The last administration to run such soaring deficits was that of another icon who brings sentimental tears to conservative eyes - Ronald Reagan. The U.S. dollar has lost 30% of its value under George Bush.
Indeed! That's money directly out of your pocket. The effect might have been less if the US still had an industrial base of any significance. How does Bush and the GOP screw us? Let me count the way...
Fuzzflah, The chocolate flavoured caribou milk in quart glass bottles tasted sensational but I sensed something phoney about the establishment's "ambience".
Designer ambiance! A first sign of capitalistic decadence.
Five years later in suburban Sydney, it dawned on me that Mr. Glover of the corner store was no more.
And that has been the tragedy of it all. I would trade all those supermarkets for locally owned businesses. In fact, there are very few local economies at all anymore. Small towns like Tom DeLay's Sugar Land are just Houston suburbs built around a chic mall. Gawd! How boring!
Glad you like the Rita Mae Brown quote. Hits it on the head, eh?
I have to ask, or curiosity will kill me. How do you make money come out of your ass? I understand if you don't want to say in an open forum; I mean, Dick Cheney could be listening - he'd drop Lynn like a hot rock! You're exactly what he's been looking for; are there others like you?
Mark, lol lol indeed, there are millions like me. In the American economic system, money flows out of every orifice and promptly trickles up!
Good one, fuzzflash! If the money is not forthcoming, those guys extract it. It "ain't" pretty.
Americans are paying for the liberal outlook on the world at the bank, the store, the pump, and the graveside!
Utter codswallop, "truthteller" (haha)! The liberal outlook on the world at the bank, the store, the pump, and the graveside is precisely what has made countries and provinces such as Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Eire (the Republic of Ireland, in case you didn't know), British Columbia in Canada, Finland, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Singapore, etc., the most prosperous, advanced, stable and solid countries in the world!
According to data from the IRS, the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay approximately 4 percent of income taxes.
That's because collectively, they only earn about 4 percent of the total income earned, if that much.
The top 25 percent of income earners pay nearly 83 percent of the income tax burden,
That's because they earn twenty times more than the bottom 50%, or thereabouts.
...and the top 10 percent pay 65 percent.
That's because they own over 90% of all the wealth in America - they should be paying considerably more than 65% of the total of the country's income taxes.
All liberals drive cars, so those who think that big oil is evil are hypocrites.
They don't have much if any choice, do they? After all, it is the Conservatives who have built the whole infrastructure and urbanization of America around the automobile.
Liberals cause American lives;
Indeed - they do tend to have babies, and unlike conservatives, they enjoy the whole process immensely and are good at it, whereas it is conservatives - mostly in the south, who have the most abortions.
...mistakes made during the nineties may have stopped Osama bin Laden before he could have planned 9/11.
Well, it was Reagan's administration which recruited, financed and trained Osama as a CIA asset to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, so the blame rests squarely on Republicans. Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that he planned 9/11, since it is so blatantly and glaringly obvious that 9/11 was a Republican and Neocon false-flag operation.
Finally, I am always amused by the way that rightwingnuts will systematically choose handles that are diametrically opposite to what they really are: They tend to call themselves True Patriot, America Lover, Truthteller - none of which is true! I don't know who it is they are trying to fool, besides themselves! LOL!
Fuzzflash, surely you meant "Corporocoprophagia"... ;)
Good Morning, Vierotchka - you know, it's funny I never noticed that, but you're right. Those who would defend their own perception of truth; that is, those who cling jealously to their view long after it has been systematically debunked, do tend to choose identifiers that would be likely to make you think of a superhero in a comic book. Too, their defense of an allegation seems to be directly tied to volume and stridency; to say it over and over loudly appears to make it so. It must bring a paternal smile to Dick Cheney's weary face.
Speaking of Dick Cheney, some of the media sources are starting to look past the jokes about who really runs the presidency, and to zero in on Cheney with an unforgiving eye. It's about time.
Anyway, I don't think any of the regulars are particularly upset by an infusion from Truthteller; it will be ever so. People will never agree entirely, it would be foreign to our nature, and this is after all the most polarizing presidency in living memory (thank you, uniter). The shot about taxes was actually pretty funny, and the complete unfamiliarity with taxation structure makes it easy to see how this myth is perpetuated. The poorest of the poor often pay no taxes at all, because they are under the income cutoff, but that is spun to look like they're getting a break!! The wealthiest have a particular sum identified as their share, but they rarely pay that, either - there are so many dodges to avoid it, such as investments and capital gains, things with which the poor will never have to concern themselves. The big harpoon to the rich is still the estate tax, but fear not! Cheney et al are beavering away to get that one eliminated.
Press on with a clear conscience, Truthteller, and others of your faith; there are no serious penalties for being wrong, unless you happen to be a soldier or a marine.
Ha, Ha!!!! -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2006/08/29/
AR2006082900585.html
- this is like, if you were the manufacturer of a particularly volatile barbecue lighter fluid, having a horribly burned man spring up in front of the television cameras to defend you!! Roman entertainment circa Nero!! Send in the tigers!
Vierotchka: it is the Conservatives who have built the whole infrastructure and urbanization of America around the automobile.
I can tell you what happened to trollies and streetcars. GM! Here's an interesting excerpt from the PBS program, The History Detectives:
Streetcars were once the most popular form of urban transportation in the country -- by World War I, most cities of more than 10,000 people had an electric railway system. But by the 1950s, this form of transportation had all but disappeared.
At the expense of over simplifying, GM created new companies and financed the purchase of city own trolly systems all over America. Having acquired a system, GM dismantled them and sold the various cities rubber-wheeled, polluting buses to replace the clean burning trollies that had been not only efficient but loved by the people. The evil corporation strikes again. Here's another interesting case study: Choosing Congestion: The Destruction of L.A.'s Trolley System
Mark, re the Washington Post article, I find it a Psychology 101 textbook example of projection... I mean, most of the time, Rumsfeld was describing the very maladministration in which he's a major player as he clumsily tried to portray Saddam Hussein as an evil and a danger of Hitler's magnitude... :)
Projection, indeed.
Rumsfeld's recent attempt to call Democrats "appeasers" is right out of Joe McCarthy's handbook. McCarthy tried to tar Truman and the the entire Democratic party. He called them "sof of communicism" or "...in league with the Communists". He used the phrase "twenty years of treason".
But Truman could give as good as he got. He called McCarthy the Kremlin's "...the best asset."
Similarly, it is fair to say that Bush has played into the hands of whatever terrorists there are. Iraq is a good example. If there were no terrorists before Bush's war of aggression, there most certainly are now.
The word "communist" in GOP propaganda is merely replaced with "terrorist". It's easy to be a GOPPER. Just fill in the blanks.
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