Capitlalism is a ruthless economic system of exploitation, morality is not part of the equation. Most economics courses that I am aware of teach us that morals are "external" to market forces.
Posted by teddy
Oct 6 2010 - 10:03pm
it's in examples like that - clear consequences of Capitalism and "free market" and "rugged individualism"...and Libertarianism....
that I am often wondering WHEN folks like RON PAUL . and his fellow "libertarians" can be made to crawl out, explain their sophisticated ideas of "libertarianism" attached to capitalism....and then explain what their moral and ethical positions are...
since they often explain their MORAL and ETHICAL positions on libertarianism and the "Free market" and capitalism with SUCH "strength" about all other things...
really/.....it would be nice of them ...
Posted by agelbert
Oct 6 2010 - 11:10pm
Now you know where they got the term 'capital punishment'.
But seriously this is all about time horizons for cause and effect.
The con artist mind set has gone mainstream. The con artist has a short window of opportunity to fool you and take your money. During the con, he can be such a nice, compassionate, helping, sociable human being BECAUSE he knows that you will not risk unless you trust.
Now, suppose said con artist was told that as long as he is a nice fellow, he will be fed, clothed and sheltered his entire life. Nine times out of ten, he'd go for decent behavior. The fact is, being a lying piece of shit is hard on the body, the mind, society and the biosphere. So we can deduce that a con artist is cutting off his nose to spite his face. The problem is the time horizon.
The reason that these selfish pricks that eschew socialism cannot 'get it' is that they cannot see how their positive actions in a socialist society would totally erase the need for avoiding being 'taken' at every step in a capitalist society. These morons are turning the world into the Gray Waste and think that's okay. They think they can preserve one tenth of one percent of the world real estate in a state of beauty while they trash the rest so they can be rich. Their concept of what is cost effective is an insult to natural predators everywhere. The rich are the most retrograde imbeciles humanity has ever been inflicted with. Ah, but, like their fantasy thinking, they have the media to convince us of their destructive fantasies.
Posted by billarneth.net
Oct 6 2010 - 11:36am
Basically, the philosophy of the rich has been this way and then they are church people as well, so they have a moral excuse. There are exceptions, who no matter how comfortable do not want to see others suffer. These are the people we must empower....to find them is key...anyone with suggestions?
Posted by conscience
Oct 6 2010 - 1:55pm
Evidently, you don't recall that George W. Bush "spoke with god" ... who first told him to attack Afghanistan and then told him to attack Iraq!!
What you're saying is that "All the saints are in churches and all the sinners outside of it."
Remember, Hitler himself was a baptized Catholic and related later that he was
only doing to the Jews what the Catholic Church had been doing for 1500 years, but that he was providing a "final solution" --- !!!
Who ever said that religion was good for mental health?
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Posted by billarneth.net
Oct 6 2010 - 11:56am
Yes, of course...sarcasm!
Posted by billarneth.net
Oct 6 2010 - 12:21pm
The Dwight was right piece by Moore gives a nice video of Eisenhowers last speech...needs to be seen by everyone! Amazing how quickly people forget. Gore Vidal often speaks of Americans lack of memory...Ellsburg was also disappointed how Americans miss the meat of a message. The Most Dangerous Man in America is a great Docu on Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers...
Posted by mustbefree
Oct 6 2010 - 12:43pm
It is like telling the homeless, why have you not done more for yourself? And quit bothering me. Do unto others as you would want them to do to you. Tony
Posted by pavroviandog
Oct 6 2010 - 1:52pm
Somebody please bring criminal prosecution of the firefighters who stood by and allowed 3 animals to die in that fire. Some prosecutor out there please use this angle to Fine$$$ and put these people behind bars. Would they have stood by if a child was dying in that same fire? It is a pure case of criminal negligence (and even intent).
Posted by Georga96
Oct 6 2010 - 6:02pm
I Absolutely agree with you whole heartedly! This is NOT the way we behave in this country!
Posted by teddy
Oct 6 2010 - 10:38pm
unfortunately, if there is any country in history in which BEHAVIOR of people, the culture, and the mentality is SHAPED by the "laws" and "rules" ....IT IS AMERICA.
if in the beginning, for example:
"we DON'T BEHAVE like people who condone torture".....soon enough MORe and MORE TOLERATE IT because they have been "taught" , gradually, through exposure in news ...reports, "discussions"...."threats of terrorists"...until it becomes NORMAL and acceptable.
how did it happen? through LAWS.
it's acclimatization.
take america's WAR IDEOLOGY.
any ordinary person can say "we don't BEHAVE LIKE THAT> warlike"
BUT AMERICA IS warlike - it even has a department of defense openly declaring war everywhere while americans mostly complain about the COST to the pocket or their personal lives if it touches them...but they DON'T REALLY MIND that it is waged all over the globe....where they DON"T have to see , upfront -- what a destroyed little boy or girl looks like...and that there are THOUSANDS ....but it's only "news"...soon enough left in the clutter of the drone about "terror"....and so they are ...for all purposes WARLIKE - whether actively or not , whether out of deliberately pushing it away from consciousness or making explanations to themselves and shrugging :
"what can you do? that's the way things are"...and then go about their business...and then say
"WE DON'T BEHAVE LIKE THAT"....
but then -- you JUST DID!!
one might as well say "we are not CAPITALISTS".
actually -- yes YOU ARE. you just don't want to be associated with its evils even when you PARTICIPATE IN IT, one way or another.
americans seem to forget in all the arguments...or it is under-acknowledged:
FOR ALL the "threats to america"....
the ILLS of AMERICA ARE AMERICAN-MADE.
NO ONE "invaded" america. not the chinese communists. not the "russians are coming", not the millions of taliban or al-qaeda sympathizers all over the globe, not those "socialist french"...not the canadians....neither the 200 million mexicans...nor the venezuelans. nor the Vietcong or the congolese, or vikings....
no -- the INVASION of america that DEALS AMERICA ITS ILLS -- are ALL HOMEGROWN...
they are themselves the VERY PATRIOTIC ONES....that very ones that tell themselves and each other how great america is -- and that to stay great -- "we all better watch out" .....
and watch they DO FOR ENEMIES OUTSIDE or "aliens"
when their real enemies are THEMSELVES and THEIR PARANOIA and RACIST "america is greatest" mentality. ..and their own insecurity at losing "our Number ONE NESS"...
they keep telling themselves "we WERE attacked" as if the ENTIRE human race elsewhere is OUT "THERE" on the borders and coasts...and BEHAVE ACCORDINGLY...right down to their daily little habits and attitudes about something that has NEVER happened. and NEVER CAN ..and which the world really COULDNT" CARE LESS about fitting ITSELF in the pARANOID ideas of americans about the outside world.
in my observation below...
americans confuse the first with the latter.
1) RATHER than being "invaded" by "aliens" from OUTSIDE
2) america is UNFOLDING ITS OWN EVILS from WITHIN!!
Posted by George Markley
Oct 6 2010 - 10:56pm
You obviously have not been to a tea party rally. Thank god these idiots represent only a tiny (but very vocal) minority.
Posted by Ted Markow
Oct 6 2010 - 11:05pm
George,
These "idiots" are the tip of the spear. They are the visible representation of a whole slew of very rich people and organizations working day and night (as they have for many years) to change the very foundation of this country.
I would not for a second relax into the illusion that the tea party or incidents such as the fire are isolated and represent a few idiots. If we keep seeing it this way, we're going to be standing in our own piles of rubble with our clothes burned off and our skin peeling away wondering what happened.
Imagine the ugliest thing that could happen to you and yours. It's happening!
Posted by teddy
Oct 6 2010 - 10:09pm
perhaps the time WILL come in america when some "genius" of the "market" ..will have his "consultant ideas" to some senators , etc..become "LAW"...so that one MIGHT have one's HOUSE on fire SAVED...but only in PIECES, depending on how MUCH you paid in "coverage"....
they might even have "coverage for CHILDREN"..or "dogs and pets"...
and if you're in ARREARS in your premiums...why...."sorry, ma'am...today's incident doesn't cover your 6 month old boy..only the 2 older siblings...you were a week late in sending the added-value coverage payment".
AMERICA --- it's NOT beyond imagination. if anything...it's THESE kinds of things america is SO INGENIOUS in producing with its capitalism "ideas".
Posted by Define Freedom
Oct 6 2010 - 3:11pm
This is exactly the kind of America the right wing loons want to "bring back". A pathetic, sad, collection of self-hating, asshat, losers. Take a good look you working class conservative idiots, this is the privatization end game. Don't ever get caught without money.
Pay your health protection money or die.
Pay your fire protection money or burn.
Pay your police protection money or get harrassed or worse.
Pay your snow protection money or don't drive anywhere.
Don't you dare ever become to ill to work or be dumb enough to take a job that ever has a layoff. Only lazy slobs would do such irresponsible things, right?
This is what social services are all about and were created for. Don't be afraid of the word Socialism. The people taking care of the needs of the people instead of the people taking care of the needs of the wealthy as we are suffering under now. Make no mistake, the policies of the wealthy are killing us. Which side are you on?
Posted by photons feather
Oct 6 2010 - 8:04pm
"Oh, but the Dems are no better!"
That's the cry I read again and again on this site. (If ignorance really is bliss, why do so many of these third party purists write in such angry tones?)
The noose is tightening around our necks, and they want to boycott their only chance of stopping it.
I have a German friend who says he is beginning to see how the brown shirts managed the Nazi takeover in Germany. It scares the bejeepers out of him to be watching it happen all over again. And he's astounded that Americans can be so blind to it: after all, at least we have history to guide us.
What character is the opposite of Chicken Little?
"Are there no prisons?
Are there no workhouses?"
Posted by teddy
Oct 6 2010 - 10:25pm
This is why I have long predicted, hoping that it is wrong:
WHEN AMERICA becomes a FULLFLEDGED, OPENLY fascist state...even no longer bothering to decorate it with fancy words and nomenclatures "freedom", "war on terror", etc...
it will come NOT BECAUSE of the power of the Fascist leaderships..but because the MAJORITY ALLOWED it, by tolerating its creeping, python-like embrace...step by step.
these things do not happen "overnight" .
the OVERNIGHT PART is just when things are ALREADY TOTAL. and atrocities are openly practiced with NO need for pretenses.
the attack on Iraq did not happen "overnight" -- it was PLANNED< carefully timed, executed, built up, promoted, etc....
the rise of corporatism did not happen "overnight" ..it happened over decades and generations..with popular complicity.
the exposure of TORTURE and secret renditions did not happen "overnight" it was happening in the "sidelines" and in the "dark" and "argued as to its constitutionality" here and there...until one day -- it's OFFICIAL POLICY..tolerated by americans...
same as with government and corporate spying. police brutality, etc.. etc. etc.
same with the loss of the labor power and rights. same with the diminishing of wages...same with the Bubbles that bust....
Posted by photons feather
Oct 7 2010 - 4:30pm
From what my friend has told me:
To this day, German children look to their parents, grandparents, teachers, etc., and ask essentially the same question - (which reflects your it-didn't-happen-overnight comment):
"But how could everybody have missed the danger for so long?" (Well, of course, not everybody missed it - but far too many did.)
When my friend was younger, it was often asked of parents/ grandparents, "What did you do to try to stop it?" or "Why didn't you try to stop it?"
What will this collection say to the next generations when asked a similar question?
"Well, I am very proud that I never resorted to voting for the other party, the Democrats, because they were pretty bad, too; and that would have been lesser evilism. I was counting on a third party I was sure would save us."
"A third party? I've never heard of a third party."
"Well, it's true their electoral successes never got beyond the local level - but we were hopeful. We never gave up hope!"
Yeah, thanks loads, Grandpa...
Posted by Steve Greenfield
Oct 6 2010 - 5:16pm
Keith might be turning into a cartoon on this. The fee is $75. These people can obviously afford it, but chose not to pay. But it's not that simple. It's not that somebody exchanged the local rural volunteer fire department for a subscription service. These people live in the outback and have no fire protection. A nearby city with a career department offered to provide coverage. Coverage is expensive -- it costs a few thousand dollars for a single call. There's no reason why they had to offer the coverage in the first place, but there's also no reason the city residents, who are already paying an unusually high fire tax because they have a paid department, should be picking up all the extra time, salaries, and benefits for responses in the surrounding county. If they're going to offer the service, they should charge. However, the county should not permit a subscription service. They should charge a tax to their residents and pay it to the city to provide full coverage.
I don't know why the county didn't just finance and assemble a tradition volunteer department as exists in most rural areas. Olbermann has this one wrong. This isn't a redneck thing. Trust me, because I'm one of them (a firefighter, not a redneck) -- they love being firefighters, and it's the only thing they'll pay taxes for (which, by the way runs around $75 per year, same as the subscription fee in this case). There is clearly more to this story than we're getting, and the commentators at National Review were pretty stupid and elitist to think fire service should be by subscription. The experiment in subscription fire service ended in the 1800's. It doesn't work and nobody uses it for over a century now. All fire departments, either volunteer or paid, are socialist operations.
These dopes who burned down their own house were pretty stupid to not take fire coverage when it was offered. I can't believe their homeowners insurance doesn't go up way more than $75 if they don't have fire protection. On the other hand, I have never met a firefighter in my life who wouldn't go to jail (or to the hospital after the fistfight) rather than stand by and watch a structure that was extinguishable go on burning. Never. Not even if they're in the KKK and the house belongs to a black family. The whole story is bizarre. But one thing it is NOT is a chance to criticize neoconservatives or the Tea Party. I know we all want it to be, but it's not.
Posted by Georga96
Oct 6 2010 - 6:10pm
Irregardless it is abhorant that Fire Fighters and neighbors would stand by and watch this happen. It hurts my soul to think we have come to this in America of all places!
Posted by drone
Oct 6 2010 - 7:16pm
Steve, in a sense, it is perfectly reasonable to criticize the right as a social movement in this context. You have the obvious social failure on the part of the firefighting unit. But, as you rightly point out, you may have had a classic free rider in the form of Crasnick. BOTH are right wing reactions to social organization, and both made this problem what it was. Each of the parties were adherents to a selfishness that characterizes the philosophy of the right in general.
I think the best illustration of this story is as a cautionary tale to the right wing in America about being careful about what you ask for, because you might just get it. And all of a sudden, while you think you're being clever getting out of socialist taxes and such, you may find yourself surrounded by unsympathetic comrades who will watch you die because you made a faulty calculation that something bad could never happen to you.
The right needs to absorb this story in ALL of its implications.
Posted by ubrew12
Oct 6 2010 - 9:16pm
Well said. Regardless of the details of the case, what we have here, in Palin America, for all the world to see and draw conclusions from, is a group of firefighters watching a homeowners house burn down. Dress it up in whatever legal niceties you want: the world knows what is going on, and is appropriately repulsed.
Tea Party America, leading us into a new millenia, may find this understandable. But, they are surrounded by a world that, for now, doesn't find abbrogation of that very duty for which one has trained a lifetime to be leadership in the right direction, in any sense whatsoever. Homeowners make bad firefighters. As it turns out, in this case, they also make bad fire appraisers. The rest of the world understands that this is because they are homeowners, not appraisers, not firefighters. The Tea Partiers are convinced that, with enough faith in God, and enough 'personal responsibility', an Ayn Rand individual can be all of these things at once, and even more. Most folks just think this is fanciful, and I agree. The Tea Partiers have been reading too many Superman comics. Its a beautiful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. In a deeply resonant sense, this fire is telling Tea Party America that 'its time to wake up, Cinderella.'
Posted by Georga96
Oct 6 2010 - 6:08pm
Look what this nation is becomming! We do have many advantages..which increasingly, generation to generation is being taken for granted. I am 63 and I remember when we respected Our President no matter who held the highest office in this great land. Now every other word from Fox News and their anchors, contributors and even guests is filled with such venom asnd hate it is unbelieveable! Our children are forming their own set of values from what they are seeing around them. I fear what the future holds in store!
Posted by Ted Markow
Oct 6 2010 - 6:56pm
Robert Reich said it: "There is a movement for social darwinism..."
We need to be clear: This IS a movement! There is BIG money arrayed to tear down the social structure and rebuild it as a new, libertarian, dog-eat-dog, brutal form.
Ask your politician for help. G'head. Ask a new party for help. G'head. Wait for the system to help. G'head.
You'll do it without me. I'm done asking and waiting.
Posted by agelbert
Oct 6 2010 - 10:46pm
Same here.
If we have to split hairs about the 'agenda' of someone who wants you to put out a fire in their house, we can forget concern for the biosphere that is being destroyed by the oligarch egomaniacs busily pointing fingers at the bulk of humanity and humane behavior while they destroy life with chemical and nuclear pollution. These social Darwinists need to have these 'externalized costs' that they contiunally drop on society like a ton of shit returned to their portfolios with interest.
Reality is too much for empathy challenged humanity.
To other folks out there reading this:
As long as you cling to the love of things, the rich have you by the short hairs. These morally bankrupt materialistic philosophies are the ONLY thing that makes us an accessory to the continued power and crimes of the rich. Research data proves that people in the USA get physically uncomfortable when they go a day or more without hearing radio or watching tv. This is proof that 'they' have addicted us to the siren song of materialism for elite benefit.
And it is not a question of whether you 'need' tv or not; it's a question of damage to your psyche. You NEED to void the media like the plague because it is genuinely unhealthy for you and society. The media is the main weapon the rich use to screw you. You cannot 'control' the fix, so to speak. They are experts at mindf__k. They call it programming for a reason.
The rich can't touch you if you eschew materialism. Live simply and you destroy the elite's ability to influence you and milk you. And don't buy into this mindset that you have to constantly avoid being taken to the cleaners by someone in your neighborhood. If your neighbor needs help, then help him without demanding reciprocity. It's the only mindset that will save this country. The rich own the government and the media. They won't help you.
Posted by teddy
Oct 7 2010 - 12:21am
SAY IT LIKE IT IS, Agelbert!!
Posted by MADDY
Oct 6 2010 - 6:58pm
It's interesring that many who are for change, and to oust the government, collect social security, and at a rally in Kentucky were railing against government, praising Palin as they scoot around in Scooters provided free from medicare. The republicans are against government spending with the exception of the money spent on them.
Posted by ubrew12
Oct 6 2010 - 9:36pm
Its not just interesting, its instructive. Do you believe in wealth redistribution? I do. But most of Palin's America does not. Well, that's what they will tell you, anyway. But a casual perusal of TaxFoundation.org tells a different story. Not only has Red State America typically benefitted by wealth redistribution, i.e. by taking in more Federal Spending than they pay in taxes, but this has been going on for about 80 years. Palin's Alaska gets almost twice as much money from the Federal gov't as they give in taxes (the difference is made up in the Blue states).
The true measure of what someone believes is not in what they profess, but in what they actually do. You simply cannot be at the receiving end of government largesse for 80 years, via wealth redistribution, unless that is what you believe in. It's just not possible to be mistaken about yourself for that many years. So, when Palin and other Red-staters say they don't believe in wealth redistribution, they are lying. It is short-comfort that they are lying to themselves, and then telling us what they think is the truth. The truth is: they have been net beneficiaries of an FDR-created system of wealth redistribution for over 80 years, and their state's would look like Siberia if they hadn't taken the money and run. Its frankly disingenuous to say they never believed it was the right thing to do, but took the money anyway.
Thats just one example of a profound level of ideological forgetfulness underway in the Tea Party that needs to be confronted. Many Tea Partiers take in Social Security, and are over 50. Hence, they are of that generation that cut THEIR taxes and built up a $10 trillion debt they handed to younger Americans to pay for THEIR services, which they conveniently DIDN'T cut. (by way of full disclosure, I'm over 50 myself).
I could go on all day. Hypocracy is rife in the Tea Party movement. Its a movement that, because of its typical age, wants austerity for TODAY's wage earners: having punted on austerity for its own generation when it was younger. Its already on Social Security, but wants to raise YOUR SocSec retirement age, or trash the system altogether... for YOU, not it. That's just profoundly unethical.
The Partiers have swallowed a dram of faith, mixed it with prodigious ego, and developed a plan for destroying an entire younger generation. Young American's really need to meet this challenge: the Tea Partiers are of a generation that has been selling you out all their lives. Now, thus enriched and enabled, they are doubling down on the crazy: selling you out 'for your own good'. This is generational warfare, needs to be treated as such, and needs to be met in kind.
Posted by teddy
Oct 7 2010 - 12:20am
UBREW....that is a very probing and original observation...I was taken aback by you last paragraph on "generational" conflict...and realized that you are making a VERY , VERY important point there. it's SAD if that is indeed the case....that in some unimaginable way...the "generation that sold you out" ....really, in the end, can only claim that it CLAIMED to care about its children...but really doesn't....
and if that is so - when THIS generation that is ...let us generalize....more around their midthirties and up (maybe excluding the now dying late 80'rs or more) -- that one that has largely been "in control" over the last 40 years - when this one becomes senile and weakened and can't even sign its "investments" anymore...
the children might end up feeling JUSTIFIED in NOT CARING as much as they might otherwise would....and even make decisions, with amazing clarity and decisiveness to just GET RID of the "old one" in the cheapest possible "senility house"...
Posted by ubrew12
Oct 7 2010 - 12:45am
'Dont trust anyone over 30'
Many in rightwing America read that hippy boast as real and informed, instead of hollow and, frankly, stupid. The hippies settled down, got a job, produced a family, and grew to be over 30 themselves and, wonder of wonders, found themselves to be trustworthy. But there was another segment of society that NEVER forgot it was engaged in generational warfare, and the debts we see exploding all around us was its anally-derived form of payback. Buzz-cut, rightwing, America NEVER forgave the hippies for their 'summer of love' (and more importantly, for being right on Vietnam), and never will.
A house burned down in Tennessee and the firefighters stood around and watched. America has zero'd in on this, why? Cuz its the whole country: America is burning, and rightwing America, who lit the fire, is completely content to stand around and watch. The irony is that the 'generational warfare' that was claimed by the hippy generation in the '60s was a sham: it wasn't real. THIS generational warfare is real. Older Americans stacked up the firewood, sprinkled the fuel, lit it, and are toasting marshmallows as we speak. As an older American myself, I was amazed to watch them stack up tax-cut debt upon debt, yet act in the defence budget and other rightwing causes, like the budget had no bottom. These people aren't stupid: if they were fiscally bankrupt it was by design. They had a goal in that bankruptcy. They meant it to happen.
I've said it many times on these boards: Democrats may be fools, or complicit, but modern-day Republicans are anarchists, in the truest sense of the word. They wanted America to burn, and they got what they wanted.
Posted by carsteniq
Oct 6 2010 - 7:55pm
"It is not a sign of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti
And we are very sick society! Money = Power = Corruption
Money is false and it creates a false society.
Our entire value system has been fundamentally corrupted. This would have been impossible 4-5 decades ago.
"Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word maladjusted. And certainly we hear this word a great deal. And I’m sure all of us want to live the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But I must honestly say to you, as I’ve said before, there are some things in our nation and in our world of which I’m proud to be maladjusted, which I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted until the good societies realize." -- Martin Luther King
We are universal stupid beings. This can't continue this way.
Posted by agelbert
Oct 7 2010 - 3:10am
Well said.
As to your last comment, "This can't continue this way", I have good news.
I know the hard nosed atheists will claim it is a coincidence, but I claim it is a message from 'somewhere' that it's over for this constant mendacity and greed here.
President Obama was giving a speech and the presidential seal fell off the podium. The right wing freaks, of course, ridiculed him at Politico. What they failed to notice was that the symbol fell off the podium at exactly the moment that the president said "We cannot sustain (CLUNK-seal falls)".
I think that it is true, regardless of the rhetorical intent in the speech, that the 'message' is that this crapola we call a democracy which is in fact a corporatocracy will NOT be sustained much longer.
the speech is out there . Check it out.
Posted by carsteniq
Oct 7 2010 - 1:19pm
I will, thank you!
I personally believe and know that we never really had a democracy. I voted one time in my live and just out of curiosity when I was 18 years old. For me democracy is something active and participatory. Making a cross on a piece of paper has very little to do with being active or participate especially on real significant decisions.
Let me put is this way...
"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -- Louis Barndeis - Supreme Court Justice
As long we have a society which bases it's existents on competition rather on collaboration, there will be never democracy and there will be never real freedom.
Posted by George Markley
Oct 6 2010 - 10:13pm
All's I know is that if I had been there, I would have thrown water on the fire if I could have. No questions asked. For one thing, I love cats and dogs. We are supposed to be unique in our intelligence. Instead, we seem to have created monsters who call themselves conservatives, who are wasting the grey matter evolution gave them. Nature hates waste.
On the other hand, we have the example of firefighters and policemen who risked their lives and health and in many instances gave their lives on 9/11. And these same conservatives are trying to prevent their families from getting compensation. This country DOES need a cleansing.
Posted by agelbert
Oct 6 2010 - 11:55pm
Yep.
I hope the elite never catch on to the fact that my trained bed bug army is headed for Blankfein's and Murdoch's digs. Bed bugs have the right mindset. Let's see if the rich like their blood being sucked while the parasites (I'm referring to the bed bugs here - all these different types of parasites can be confusing) receive warmth and shelter at rich pig expense.
Bed bugs unite!
Eat the rich!
Air drops are planned for Malibu and Jupiter soon. Nature has her ways.
Posted by Mason C
Oct 7 2010 - 2:31am
Great example, Mr. Secretary: take a simple issue of social cooperation and throw in a Hamptonesque "pay for your beach sticker"? Does anyone else register this disconnect between marquee liberals and real people?
It's fair to note here that Sec. Reich was out to lunch when Clinton continued the assault on working people. I love people who wade into the fray after it's over.
40 Comments so far
Show AllCapitlalism is a ruthless economic system of exploitation, morality is not part of the equation. Most economics courses that I am aware of teach us that morals are "external" to market forces.
it's in examples like that - clear consequences of Capitalism and "free market" and "rugged individualism"...and Libertarianism....
that I am often wondering WHEN folks like RON PAUL . and his fellow "libertarians" can be made to crawl out, explain their sophisticated ideas of "libertarianism" attached to capitalism....and then explain what their moral and ethical positions are...
since they often explain their MORAL and ETHICAL positions on libertarianism and the "Free market" and capitalism with SUCH "strength" about all other things...
really/.....it would be nice of them ...
Now you know where they got the term 'capital punishment'.
But seriously this is all about time horizons for cause and effect.
The con artist mind set has gone mainstream. The con artist has a short window of opportunity to fool you and take your money. During the con, he can be such a nice, compassionate, helping, sociable human being BECAUSE he knows that you will not risk unless you trust.
Now, suppose said con artist was told that as long as he is a nice fellow, he will be fed, clothed and sheltered his entire life. Nine times out of ten, he'd go for decent behavior. The fact is, being a lying piece of shit is hard on the body, the mind, society and the biosphere. So we can deduce that a con artist is cutting off his nose to spite his face. The problem is the time horizon.
The reason that these selfish pricks that eschew socialism cannot 'get it' is that they cannot see how their positive actions in a socialist society would totally erase the need for avoiding being 'taken' at every step in a capitalist society. These morons are turning the world into the Gray Waste and think that's okay. They think they can preserve one tenth of one percent of the world real estate in a state of beauty while they trash the rest so they can be rich. Their concept of what is cost effective is an insult to natural predators everywhere. The rich are the most retrograde imbeciles humanity has ever been inflicted with. Ah, but, like their fantasy thinking, they have the media to convince us of their destructive fantasies.
Basically, the philosophy of the rich has been this way and then they are church people as well, so they have a moral excuse. There are exceptions, who no matter how comfortable do not want to see others suffer. These are the people we must empower....to find them is key...anyone with suggestions?
Evidently, you don't recall that George W. Bush "spoke with god" ... who first told him to attack Afghanistan and then told him to attack Iraq!!
What you're saying is that "All the saints are in churches and all the sinners outside of it."
Remember, Hitler himself was a baptized Catholic and related later that he was
only doing to the Jews what the Catholic Church had been doing for 1500 years, but that he was providing a "final solution" --- !!!
Who ever said that religion was good for mental health?
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Yes, of course...sarcasm!
The Dwight was right piece by Moore gives a nice video of Eisenhowers last speech...needs to be seen by everyone! Amazing how quickly people forget. Gore Vidal often speaks of Americans lack of memory...Ellsburg was also disappointed how Americans miss the meat of a message. The Most Dangerous Man in America is a great Docu on Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers...
It is like telling the homeless, why have you not done more for yourself? And quit bothering me. Do unto others as you would want them to do to you. Tony
Somebody please bring criminal prosecution of the firefighters who stood by and allowed 3 animals to die in that fire. Some prosecutor out there please use this angle to Fine$$$ and put these people behind bars. Would they have stood by if a child was dying in that same fire? It is a pure case of criminal negligence (and even intent).
I Absolutely agree with you whole heartedly! This is NOT the way we behave in this country!
unfortunately, if there is any country in history in which BEHAVIOR of people, the culture, and the mentality is SHAPED by the "laws" and "rules" ....IT IS AMERICA.
if in the beginning, for example:
"we DON'T BEHAVE like people who condone torture".....soon enough MORe and MORE TOLERATE IT because they have been "taught" , gradually, through exposure in news ...reports, "discussions"...."threats of terrorists"...until it becomes NORMAL and acceptable.
how did it happen? through LAWS.
it's acclimatization.
take america's WAR IDEOLOGY.
any ordinary person can say "we don't BEHAVE LIKE THAT> warlike"
BUT AMERICA IS warlike - it even has a department of defense openly declaring war everywhere while americans mostly complain about the COST to the pocket or their personal lives if it touches them...but they DON'T REALLY MIND that it is waged all over the globe....where they DON"T have to see , upfront -- what a destroyed little boy or girl looks like...and that there are THOUSANDS ....but it's only "news"...soon enough left in the clutter of the drone about "terror"....and so they are ...for all purposes WARLIKE - whether actively or not , whether out of deliberately pushing it away from consciousness or making explanations to themselves and shrugging :
"what can you do? that's the way things are"...and then go about their business...and then say
"WE DON'T BEHAVE LIKE THAT"....
but then -- you JUST DID!!
one might as well say "we are not CAPITALISTS".
actually -- yes YOU ARE. you just don't want to be associated with its evils even when you PARTICIPATE IN IT, one way or another.
americans seem to forget in all the arguments...or it is under-acknowledged:
FOR ALL the "threats to america"....
the ILLS of AMERICA ARE AMERICAN-MADE.
NO ONE "invaded" america. not the chinese communists. not the "russians are coming", not the millions of taliban or al-qaeda sympathizers all over the globe, not those "socialist french"...not the canadians....neither the 200 million mexicans...nor the venezuelans. nor the Vietcong or the congolese, or vikings....
no -- the INVASION of america that DEALS AMERICA ITS ILLS -- are ALL HOMEGROWN...
they are themselves the VERY PATRIOTIC ONES....that very ones that tell themselves and each other how great america is -- and that to stay great -- "we all better watch out" .....
and watch they DO FOR ENEMIES OUTSIDE or "aliens"
when their real enemies are THEMSELVES and THEIR PARANOIA and RACIST "america is greatest" mentality. ..and their own insecurity at losing "our Number ONE NESS"...
they keep telling themselves "we WERE attacked" as if the ENTIRE human race elsewhere is OUT "THERE" on the borders and coasts...and BEHAVE ACCORDINGLY...right down to their daily little habits and attitudes about something that has NEVER happened. and NEVER CAN ..and which the world really COULDNT" CARE LESS about fitting ITSELF in the pARANOID ideas of americans about the outside world.
in my observation below...
americans confuse the first with the latter.
1) RATHER than being "invaded" by "aliens" from OUTSIDE
2) america is UNFOLDING ITS OWN EVILS from WITHIN!!
You obviously have not been to a tea party rally. Thank god these idiots represent only a tiny (but very vocal) minority.
George,
These "idiots" are the tip of the spear. They are the visible representation of a whole slew of very rich people and organizations working day and night (as they have for many years) to change the very foundation of this country.
I would not for a second relax into the illusion that the tea party or incidents such as the fire are isolated and represent a few idiots. If we keep seeing it this way, we're going to be standing in our own piles of rubble with our clothes burned off and our skin peeling away wondering what happened.
Imagine the ugliest thing that could happen to you and yours. It's happening!
perhaps the time WILL come in america when some "genius" of the "market" ..will have his "consultant ideas" to some senators , etc..become "LAW"...so that one MIGHT have one's HOUSE on fire SAVED...but only in PIECES, depending on how MUCH you paid in "coverage"....
they might even have "coverage for CHILDREN"..or "dogs and pets"...
and if you're in ARREARS in your premiums...why...."sorry, ma'am...today's incident doesn't cover your 6 month old boy..only the 2 older siblings...you were a week late in sending the added-value coverage payment".
AMERICA --- it's NOT beyond imagination. if anything...it's THESE kinds of things america is SO INGENIOUS in producing with its capitalism "ideas".
This is exactly the kind of America the right wing loons want to "bring back". A pathetic, sad, collection of self-hating, asshat, losers. Take a good look you working class conservative idiots, this is the privatization end game. Don't ever get caught without money.
Pay your health protection money or die.
Pay your fire protection money or burn.
Pay your police protection money or get harrassed or worse.
Pay your snow protection money or don't drive anywhere.
Don't you dare ever become to ill to work or be dumb enough to take a job that ever has a layoff. Only lazy slobs would do such irresponsible things, right?
This is what social services are all about and were created for. Don't be afraid of the word Socialism. The people taking care of the needs of the people instead of the people taking care of the needs of the wealthy as we are suffering under now. Make no mistake, the policies of the wealthy are killing us. Which side are you on?
"Oh, but the Dems are no better!"
That's the cry I read again and again on this site. (If ignorance really is bliss, why do so many of these third party purists write in such angry tones?)
The noose is tightening around our necks, and they want to boycott their only chance of stopping it.
I have a German friend who says he is beginning to see how the brown shirts managed the Nazi takeover in Germany. It scares the bejeepers out of him to be watching it happen all over again. And he's astounded that Americans can be so blind to it: after all, at least we have history to guide us.
What character is the opposite of Chicken Little?
"Are there no prisons?
Are there no workhouses?"
This is why I have long predicted, hoping that it is wrong:
WHEN AMERICA becomes a FULLFLEDGED, OPENLY fascist state...even no longer bothering to decorate it with fancy words and nomenclatures "freedom", "war on terror", etc...
it will come NOT BECAUSE of the power of the Fascist leaderships..but because the MAJORITY ALLOWED it, by tolerating its creeping, python-like embrace...step by step.
these things do not happen "overnight" .
the OVERNIGHT PART is just when things are ALREADY TOTAL. and atrocities are openly practiced with NO need for pretenses.
the attack on Iraq did not happen "overnight" -- it was PLANNED< carefully timed, executed, built up, promoted, etc....
the rise of corporatism did not happen "overnight" ..it happened over decades and generations..with popular complicity.
the exposure of TORTURE and secret renditions did not happen "overnight" it was happening in the "sidelines" and in the "dark" and "argued as to its constitutionality" here and there...until one day -- it's OFFICIAL POLICY..tolerated by americans...
same as with government and corporate spying. police brutality, etc.. etc. etc.
same with the loss of the labor power and rights. same with the diminishing of wages...same with the Bubbles that bust....
From what my friend has told me:
To this day, German children look to their parents, grandparents, teachers, etc., and ask essentially the same question - (which reflects your it-didn't-happen-overnight comment):
"But how could everybody have missed the danger for so long?" (Well, of course, not everybody missed it - but far too many did.)
When my friend was younger, it was often asked of parents/ grandparents, "What did you do to try to stop it?" or "Why didn't you try to stop it?"
What will this collection say to the next generations when asked a similar question?
"Well, I am very proud that I never resorted to voting for the other party, the Democrats, because they were pretty bad, too; and that would have been lesser evilism. I was counting on a third party I was sure would save us."
"A third party? I've never heard of a third party."
"Well, it's true their electoral successes never got beyond the local level - but we were hopeful. We never gave up hope!"
Yeah, thanks loads, Grandpa...
Keith might be turning into a cartoon on this. The fee is $75. These people can obviously afford it, but chose not to pay. But it's not that simple. It's not that somebody exchanged the local rural volunteer fire department for a subscription service. These people live in the outback and have no fire protection. A nearby city with a career department offered to provide coverage. Coverage is expensive -- it costs a few thousand dollars for a single call. There's no reason why they had to offer the coverage in the first place, but there's also no reason the city residents, who are already paying an unusually high fire tax because they have a paid department, should be picking up all the extra time, salaries, and benefits for responses in the surrounding county. If they're going to offer the service, they should charge. However, the county should not permit a subscription service. They should charge a tax to their residents and pay it to the city to provide full coverage.
I don't know why the county didn't just finance and assemble a tradition volunteer department as exists in most rural areas. Olbermann has this one wrong. This isn't a redneck thing. Trust me, because I'm one of them (a firefighter, not a redneck) -- they love being firefighters, and it's the only thing they'll pay taxes for (which, by the way runs around $75 per year, same as the subscription fee in this case). There is clearly more to this story than we're getting, and the commentators at National Review were pretty stupid and elitist to think fire service should be by subscription. The experiment in subscription fire service ended in the 1800's. It doesn't work and nobody uses it for over a century now. All fire departments, either volunteer or paid, are socialist operations.
These dopes who burned down their own house were pretty stupid to not take fire coverage when it was offered. I can't believe their homeowners insurance doesn't go up way more than $75 if they don't have fire protection. On the other hand, I have never met a firefighter in my life who wouldn't go to jail (or to the hospital after the fistfight) rather than stand by and watch a structure that was extinguishable go on burning. Never. Not even if they're in the KKK and the house belongs to a black family. The whole story is bizarre. But one thing it is NOT is a chance to criticize neoconservatives or the Tea Party. I know we all want it to be, but it's not.
Irregardless it is abhorant that Fire Fighters and neighbors would stand by and watch this happen. It hurts my soul to think we have come to this in America of all places!
Steve, in a sense, it is perfectly reasonable to criticize the right as a social movement in this context. You have the obvious social failure on the part of the firefighting unit. But, as you rightly point out, you may have had a classic free rider in the form of Crasnick. BOTH are right wing reactions to social organization, and both made this problem what it was. Each of the parties were adherents to a selfishness that characterizes the philosophy of the right in general.
I think the best illustration of this story is as a cautionary tale to the right wing in America about being careful about what you ask for, because you might just get it. And all of a sudden, while you think you're being clever getting out of socialist taxes and such, you may find yourself surrounded by unsympathetic comrades who will watch you die because you made a faulty calculation that something bad could never happen to you.
The right needs to absorb this story in ALL of its implications.
Well said. Regardless of the details of the case, what we have here, in Palin America, for all the world to see and draw conclusions from, is a group of firefighters watching a homeowners house burn down. Dress it up in whatever legal niceties you want: the world knows what is going on, and is appropriately repulsed.
Tea Party America, leading us into a new millenia, may find this understandable. But, they are surrounded by a world that, for now, doesn't find abbrogation of that very duty for which one has trained a lifetime to be leadership in the right direction, in any sense whatsoever. Homeowners make bad firefighters. As it turns out, in this case, they also make bad fire appraisers. The rest of the world understands that this is because they are homeowners, not appraisers, not firefighters. The Tea Partiers are convinced that, with enough faith in God, and enough 'personal responsibility', an Ayn Rand individual can be all of these things at once, and even more. Most folks just think this is fanciful, and I agree. The Tea Partiers have been reading too many Superman comics. Its a beautiful fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. In a deeply resonant sense, this fire is telling Tea Party America that 'its time to wake up, Cinderella.'
Look what this nation is becomming! We do have many advantages..which increasingly, generation to generation is being taken for granted. I am 63 and I remember when we respected Our President no matter who held the highest office in this great land. Now every other word from Fox News and their anchors, contributors and even guests is filled with such venom asnd hate it is unbelieveable! Our children are forming their own set of values from what they are seeing around them. I fear what the future holds in store!
Robert Reich said it: "There is a movement for social darwinism..."
We need to be clear: This IS a movement! There is BIG money arrayed to tear down the social structure and rebuild it as a new, libertarian, dog-eat-dog, brutal form.
Ask your politician for help. G'head. Ask a new party for help. G'head. Wait for the system to help. G'head.
You'll do it without me. I'm done asking and waiting.
Same here.
If we have to split hairs about the 'agenda' of someone who wants you to put out a fire in their house, we can forget concern for the biosphere that is being destroyed by the oligarch egomaniacs busily pointing fingers at the bulk of humanity and humane behavior while they destroy life with chemical and nuclear pollution. These social Darwinists need to have these 'externalized costs' that they contiunally drop on society like a ton of shit returned to their portfolios with interest.
Reality is too much for empathy challenged humanity.
To other folks out there reading this:
As long as you cling to the love of things, the rich have you by the short hairs. These morally bankrupt materialistic philosophies are the ONLY thing that makes us an accessory to the continued power and crimes of the rich. Research data proves that people in the USA get physically uncomfortable when they go a day or more without hearing radio or watching tv. This is proof that 'they' have addicted us to the siren song of materialism for elite benefit.
And it is not a question of whether you 'need' tv or not; it's a question of damage to your psyche. You NEED to void the media like the plague because it is genuinely unhealthy for you and society. The media is the main weapon the rich use to screw you. You cannot 'control' the fix, so to speak. They are experts at mindf__k. They call it programming for a reason.
The rich can't touch you if you eschew materialism. Live simply and you destroy the elite's ability to influence you and milk you. And don't buy into this mindset that you have to constantly avoid being taken to the cleaners by someone in your neighborhood. If your neighbor needs help, then help him without demanding reciprocity. It's the only mindset that will save this country. The rich own the government and the media. They won't help you.
SAY IT LIKE IT IS, Agelbert!!
It's interesring that many who are for change, and to oust the government, collect social security, and at a rally in Kentucky were railing against government, praising Palin as they scoot around in Scooters provided free from medicare. The republicans are against government spending with the exception of the money spent on them.
Its not just interesting, its instructive. Do you believe in wealth redistribution? I do. But most of Palin's America does not. Well, that's what they will tell you, anyway. But a casual perusal of TaxFoundation.org tells a different story. Not only has Red State America typically benefitted by wealth redistribution, i.e. by taking in more Federal Spending than they pay in taxes, but this has been going on for about 80 years. Palin's Alaska gets almost twice as much money from the Federal gov't as they give in taxes (the difference is made up in the Blue states).
The true measure of what someone believes is not in what they profess, but in what they actually do. You simply cannot be at the receiving end of government largesse for 80 years, via wealth redistribution, unless that is what you believe in. It's just not possible to be mistaken about yourself for that many years. So, when Palin and other Red-staters say they don't believe in wealth redistribution, they are lying. It is short-comfort that they are lying to themselves, and then telling us what they think is the truth. The truth is: they have been net beneficiaries of an FDR-created system of wealth redistribution for over 80 years, and their state's would look like Siberia if they hadn't taken the money and run. Its frankly disingenuous to say they never believed it was the right thing to do, but took the money anyway.
Thats just one example of a profound level of ideological forgetfulness underway in the Tea Party that needs to be confronted. Many Tea Partiers take in Social Security, and are over 50. Hence, they are of that generation that cut THEIR taxes and built up a $10 trillion debt they handed to younger Americans to pay for THEIR services, which they conveniently DIDN'T cut. (by way of full disclosure, I'm over 50 myself).
I could go on all day. Hypocracy is rife in the Tea Party movement. Its a movement that, because of its typical age, wants austerity for TODAY's wage earners: having punted on austerity for its own generation when it was younger. Its already on Social Security, but wants to raise YOUR SocSec retirement age, or trash the system altogether... for YOU, not it. That's just profoundly unethical.
The Partiers have swallowed a dram of faith, mixed it with prodigious ego, and developed a plan for destroying an entire younger generation. Young American's really need to meet this challenge: the Tea Partiers are of a generation that has been selling you out all their lives. Now, thus enriched and enabled, they are doubling down on the crazy: selling you out 'for your own good'. This is generational warfare, needs to be treated as such, and needs to be met in kind.
UBREW....that is a very probing and original observation...I was taken aback by you last paragraph on "generational" conflict...and realized that you are making a VERY , VERY important point there. it's SAD if that is indeed the case....that in some unimaginable way...the "generation that sold you out" ....really, in the end, can only claim that it CLAIMED to care about its children...but really doesn't....
and if that is so - when THIS generation that is ...let us generalize....more around their midthirties and up (maybe excluding the now dying late 80'rs or more) -- that one that has largely been "in control" over the last 40 years - when this one becomes senile and weakened and can't even sign its "investments" anymore...
the children might end up feeling JUSTIFIED in NOT CARING as much as they might otherwise would....and even make decisions, with amazing clarity and decisiveness to just GET RID of the "old one" in the cheapest possible "senility house"...
'Dont trust anyone over 30'
Many in rightwing America read that hippy boast as real and informed, instead of hollow and, frankly, stupid. The hippies settled down, got a job, produced a family, and grew to be over 30 themselves and, wonder of wonders, found themselves to be trustworthy. But there was another segment of society that NEVER forgot it was engaged in generational warfare, and the debts we see exploding all around us was its anally-derived form of payback. Buzz-cut, rightwing, America NEVER forgave the hippies for their 'summer of love' (and more importantly, for being right on Vietnam), and never will.
A house burned down in Tennessee and the firefighters stood around and watched. America has zero'd in on this, why? Cuz its the whole country: America is burning, and rightwing America, who lit the fire, is completely content to stand around and watch. The irony is that the 'generational warfare' that was claimed by the hippy generation in the '60s was a sham: it wasn't real. THIS generational warfare is real. Older Americans stacked up the firewood, sprinkled the fuel, lit it, and are toasting marshmallows as we speak. As an older American myself, I was amazed to watch them stack up tax-cut debt upon debt, yet act in the defence budget and other rightwing causes, like the budget had no bottom. These people aren't stupid: if they were fiscally bankrupt it was by design. They had a goal in that bankruptcy. They meant it to happen.
I've said it many times on these boards: Democrats may be fools, or complicit, but modern-day Republicans are anarchists, in the truest sense of the word. They wanted America to burn, and they got what they wanted.
"It is not a sign of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti
And we are very sick society! Money = Power = Corruption
Money is false and it creates a false society.
Our entire value system has been fundamentally corrupted. This would have been impossible 4-5 decades ago.
"Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word maladjusted. And certainly we hear this word a great deal. And I’m sure all of us want to live the well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But I must honestly say to you, as I’ve said before, there are some things in our nation and in our world of which I’m proud to be maladjusted, which I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted until the good societies realize." -- Martin Luther King
We are universal stupid beings. This can't continue this way.
Well said.
As to your last comment, "This can't continue this way", I have good news.
I know the hard nosed atheists will claim it is a coincidence, but I claim it is a message from 'somewhere' that it's over for this constant mendacity and greed here.
President Obama was giving a speech and the presidential seal fell off the podium. The right wing freaks, of course, ridiculed him at Politico. What they failed to notice was that the symbol fell off the podium at exactly the moment that the president said "We cannot sustain (CLUNK-seal falls)".
I think that it is true, regardless of the rhetorical intent in the speech, that the 'message' is that this crapola we call a democracy which is in fact a corporatocracy will NOT be sustained much longer.
the speech is out there . Check it out.
I will, thank you!
I personally believe and know that we never really had a democracy. I voted one time in my live and just out of curiosity when I was 18 years old. For me democracy is something active and participatory. Making a cross on a piece of paper has very little to do with being active or participate especially on real significant decisions.
Let me put is this way...
"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -- Louis Barndeis - Supreme Court Justice
As long we have a society which bases it's existents on competition rather on collaboration, there will be never democracy and there will be never real freedom.
All's I know is that if I had been there, I would have thrown water on the fire if I could have. No questions asked. For one thing, I love cats and dogs. We are supposed to be unique in our intelligence. Instead, we seem to have created monsters who call themselves conservatives, who are wasting the grey matter evolution gave them. Nature hates waste.
On the other hand, we have the example of firefighters and policemen who risked their lives and health and in many instances gave their lives on 9/11. And these same conservatives are trying to prevent their families from getting compensation. This country DOES need a cleansing.
Yep.
I hope the elite never catch on to the fact that my trained bed bug army is headed for Blankfein's and Murdoch's digs. Bed bugs have the right mindset. Let's see if the rich like their blood being sucked while the parasites (I'm referring to the bed bugs here - all these different types of parasites can be confusing) receive warmth and shelter at rich pig expense.
Bed bugs unite!
Eat the rich!
Air drops are planned for Malibu and Jupiter soon. Nature has her ways.
Great example, Mr. Secretary: take a simple issue of social cooperation and throw in a Hamptonesque "pay for your beach sticker"? Does anyone else register this disconnect between marquee liberals and real people?
It's fair to note here that Sec. Reich was out to lunch when Clinton continued the assault on working people. I love people who wade into the fray after it's over.