BillO unleashes clownish attack on SEIU
By David Neiwert Wednesday Mar 04, 2009 9:00am
Bill O'Reilly seems convinced that President Obama is doomed to failure, largely because he's surrounded by "extremists of the far left" like the SEIU, who are the cause of the continuing stock-market declines. At least, that was his theory about the continuing non-performance of Wall Street in his Talking Points Memo segment last night:
O'Reilly: The truth is that far-left extremists are unleashed, and are going for the gold. Their code words are "social justice" and "shared sacrifice." "Social justice" means empowering the government to seize the assets of affluent Americans and redistribute them to the less well off. "Shared sacrifice" means punitive taxation on high-wage earners and corporations. Now, that of course is socialism.
I don't know about you, but it sounds to me like he's describing progressive taxation as "punitive" and taxation generally as "seizing the assets of affluent Americans." It's hard to tell when he starts spinning the dials on the O'Reilly Decoder Ring.
Leading the way is the radical-left Service Employees International Union, a huge supporter of Barack Obama, and a force that represents 2 million workers in the USA and Canada. That union, allied with George Soros and Miss Pelosi, is pushing for a dramatic change in America -- a change that would badly damage our capitalistic system, which these people feel is unjust. Very quietly, the SEIU is buying a lot of airtime.
Hmmmm. Could that yet-unspoken "change" that "would badly damage our capitalistic system" be the Employee Free Choice Act? O'Reilly never says. Or is it just ... socialism? Either way, it sounds pretty durned evil.
O'Reilly: OK. Seeing the danger, the Wall Street Journal editorialized today, and I quote, "The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy."
So, now we understand what's really happening in Washington. While President Obama may well be trying to fix the economy -- he has to if he wants to get re-elected -- he's also allowing radical elements of the Democratic Party to damage the economic core of America. That's why the economic pain is getting worse. Obama's not only facing a nasty recession, he's being battered by the far left, and unless he stands up to them, he and we will face dire consequences.
Ah, that explains it. It's not the complete gutting of the global economy by conservative governance that's causing the economy to continue to tank. Indeed, we can already judge, a mere two weeks out, the effectiveness of Obama's economic strategy by the mere fact that the stock markets continue the death spiral wrought by Republican malfeasance.
Corporate Republicans have gotten so used to having their way that the very intimation of a few old-fashioned progressive institutions -- like labor unions and a decently distributed tax burden -- are sending them into conniptions. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Especially when labor unions become their big new bogeymen.
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So, corporate-loving slugs like O'Reilly are threatened by workers having a free choice in choosing whether they want to join a union, free from management propagada, manipulation and bullying.
Isn't this why Solidarity succeeded in Poland, and eventually spreading to wipe out communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR?
O'Reilly, who rails against Obama being socialist and *gasp* - a commie - turns out to be the real Red menace. Hello, Comrade Billo!
If American fat cats can't abuse American workers... the terrorist win!
Why do you hate America?
that those who ask us to tighten our belts, are the ones who wear suspenders.
For decades, the American worker has had to compromise: stagnant salaries, reduced benefits, jeopardized retirement, extended hours, increased productivity, we have been outsourced, abused, and downsized... without as much as a peep from people like Bill "my father was a blue collar too" O'reilly.
They are not called "The Ruling Class" for nothing
Bill O'Richie don't wanna pay higher taxes. Tough cookies.
What baffles me is the way that these bozos like O'Reilly and Limbaugh get away with defining terms any way they want. "Social Justice" and "Shared Sacrifice" mean nothing at all what they describe them as. They are ignorant, uneducated people. I don't care if the "fairness doctrine" is reinstated but I think they should be required to confine their drivel to words and concepts that they can define in conformity with the accepted meanings. It, at least, shoul limit the number of words they use.
"Social Justice" and "Shared Sacrifice" mean nothing at all what they describe them as. They are ignorant, uneducated people.
The speakers themselves are not necessarily as you describe them. But the intended audiences for their bilious bs are.
And they are phenomenally numerous. Go to ANY Wal-Mart and count e'm.
What I find so amusing is that the anti-fairness doctrine argument and the teaching of intelligent design argument can co-exist. But then the argument that government should legislate to change reproductive rights co-exists with the argument that government should not legislate to change tax rates.
Also, BillO, the word your're looking for is "capitalist". The "Democrat Party" and the "capitalistic system"... Sheesh, those illiterate right-wing blowhards really crack me up.
now they are rewriting history and rewriting the definition of words and terms. Code words my ass. Here's a code for you BillO, "F**k off.
O'Reilly (as well as Hannity) are predictable, pathetic and boring
watching trillions of dollars vanish, corporations/small biz go out of business, people lose their homes, and unemployment go into the high teens makes me wonder what bill'o thinks an 'undamaged' capitalist system looks like.
the truth: bill'o and his knuckledragging cult-followers used the media, corporate control of govt, and fear-mongering to foist an economic system upon america that has destroyed lives, jobs, and hope for millions--yet, it funneled more and more money to the super-rich. and never be fooled, for the rightwing, any and all economic opinions are based on how best to give the super rich a slow handjob.
bill'o, the GOP, the rightwing, rush and all the other priests of poverty-as-policy (including many dems) are greatly responsible for the straits we find ourselves in.
to succeed.
He's supposed to make a good, brave try.
And then fail.
There is no way he's gonna 1) withdraw from Iraq, 2) 'succeed' in Afghanistan, 3) fix the economy, 4) repair the climate, or restructure USer health care.
His election and his administration are supposed to be illustrations--concocted by the Rulers--of the futility of 'popular' aspiration.
This is all public relations. There is ZERO likelihood of success, nor was there intended to be.
...you outlined the best-case-plan that the GOP has retreated to, because barring the usual election-theft they really lost the latest election before even John Edwards dropped out. You scenario is the meme they are selling now and that is what they are trying to engineer with their constant whining, lying, obstructionism, and undermining of Obama and the Dems (and this is only the stuff the average Joe like me can see on the SURFACE. Who knows what else these evil fucks have coookin'?). My...[sigh]....hope is now that an apparently rational person is leading the nation, we can overcome the GOP's short-sighted plans and selfish motives. The thing that bugs me is that if Pres. Obama, with our support, can even manage that (and he could fail even without the Repukes trying to trip him the entire way, such is the mess that the Bushies have left him. Maybe nobody can fix this shit. It might have to fall apart before we can build it back up again), the whining conservatives and Repugnicans will reap the benefits with the rest of us like the spoiled children they truly are.
its not a partisan issue, its a class issue.
...that the numbers of sad, depressed GOPbots who are devotedly listening to Limbaugh and O'Reilly will eventually become tired of all the negativity and "drop out" and start living their lives normally, like the rest of us.
Or the Limbaugh and O'Reilly rants eventually drive them to suicide, which will at least remove them from the rolls of Repub voters.
(just kidding...sort of)
Honestly, isn't it a downer to be as depressed and hopeless as the right-wing whiny talk show pundits like Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Hannity/Coulter/Malkin etc. apparently want their listeners to be? If anyone started out mentally unbalanced listening to these people, just think of how crazed they'll be after a year of this ranting. I just hope the FBI is beefing up its ranks, and its surveillance of the known wackos.
we can overcome the GOP's short-sighted plans and selfish motives.
the GOPukes do only what the Rulers tell them to do. Their plans are not short-sighted, if you are one of THEM. It makes perfect sense.
Bush didn't fail. He succeeded beyond his owners' wildest dreams. WHy do you think his daddy hasn't disowned him?
Obama is selected to fail. He has no chance---NO CHANCE---to overcome the array of obstacles and clusterfucks that he 'inherited.'
In 18 months, it will no longer be the Bush Depression. Mukins will have forgotten that it didn't start with him.
A nation with the attention span of a fucking canary will be told, repeatedly, and will believe, that Obama did all this, that it is all his fault.
That is what the SCUM are doing, will do whenever their owners tell 'em to.
The American people learned a great lesson for almost 50 years after the Great Depression.
Perhaps with a weakened corporate media, and a bit of suffering, people can be reminded of the dangers of trusting very rich people who only have their personal best interests in mind.
Or it will devolve into anarchy, with the poor eating the rich.
"Oh my God, Karl Rove is soylent green!!!"
Try to have a little optimism- things will get better if the people (us) work at it. Maybe not perfect, but better.
He told the whole wide world the truth, as best as he can ascertain it, about 9/11, about all the illegalities within the Bush Administration in the past 8 years etc.
I'm talking truth serum style confession here.
After that, the Pentagon would have to be TOTALLY trimmed from its current 55% to maybe 20%.
I mean, let's be clear here. Even with the Pentagon fully funded they totally failed to protect this country on 9/11. (Snark).
But, alas, we all know full well that none of this will ever happen.
Because the truth is we are living under a military dictatorship....with a civilian puppet "leader" who jumps when Gates and Co. tells him to.
We have no civilian control over the military, the MSM or the Federal Reserve.
Check out this exchange with Bernanke and Sen. Bernie Sanders from yesterday where Bernanke basically tells Sen. Sanders to go F himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyl8c91qPbw
Don't blame Obama for being a lackey of the military-industrial complex. If the majority of Americans weren't complete idiots, he could tell that 'truth' without being instantly portrayed as a looney 'traitor'.
The fact is; until people have to choose between schools for their kids and troops in every damn corner of the world, they'll choose the false sense of 'safety' that the 'big stick' gives them.
A nation of fake tough guys with a maxed-out credit card is what we are.
The people that 'get it' are still in a very tiny minority.
..a Republican in the White House, we're all Bogeymen!
So when W was deconstructing the Constitution, that was what:Nation-building? BillO, could you be a bigger a-hole?
people who criticize the president are traitors?
Funny, we're still knee deep in Iraq and Afghanistan... and Bill hasn't stopped going off on Obama.
But what can you expect from a self proclaim "culture warrior" who complains about cultural wars? Other than unmitigated hypocrisy... of course.
IOKIYAR...
I don't understand what the Bill O'Reilly types get out of this kind of thinking; this kind of ranting. What does he gain? What would he lose if he didn't talk like this? What the hell is he actually AFRAID OF? Why does he hate....whatever the fuck it is that he hates? (I bet he doesn't even know, for Dog's sake)
Beyond simply pigeonholing him as a hateful, selfish, unbalanced, right-wing whackadoodle (which he is), it is otherwise often totally beyond me what ails this freak and others like him.
What a stupid little fascist Billo has become.
without ol BillO.
..all the other reich-wingnuts out there!
The media more then anything has created an illusion that we're out numbered out populated by all these frothing at the mouth types.
Even the Republicans that I know are pissed off at the banks, Wall Street, and our lack of a healthcare system.
actually still some genuine republicans out there?
"sane" and "republican" do not belong on the same sentence.
After the Bush admin, anyone who still subscribes to the GOP is a f*cking asshole. No matter how nice they pretend to be.
You can't be considered "reasonable" when you belong to a political party which is tantamount to institutionalized lunacy.
They are setting you up, man! The second you think you are having a rational conversation they will kick you in the back and call you a commie! Don't turn your back on republicans!
:)
I kid.
(sorta)
:O
. . . and I'm feeling even prouder this morning! So happy to be a part of something that ticks off the TV blow-hards.
My fellow union members are home health care workers. In Los Angeles County, we're making $9 / hour with no overtime, no vacation pay, no sick time and access only to a health clinic in downtown LA for limited health care services. The union is trying its best to give members access to on-going health care training and training in other skills so workers may move into higher paying positions.
I wish we had the time to be far-left extremists; however, I'm sure our clients need our assistance more.
Can you imagine what it would be like without Union representation? I shudder to think . . .
I know for sure O'Reilly wouldn't last a day doing any of this.
Former UFCW Local 101, at your service. But I will always support unions.
Man, the way O'Buttface and InsHannity sneeeeer their pet phrase "far left extremists" (I bet it makes them feel real smart to string words together in that way, even if they aren't really saying anything of substance) just makes me regard then as childish, churlish, cowardly little pukes. WHEN will we be free of idiots like this? I don't mind opposing view, but PLEASE, honest debate only! All else: check it at the door!
If you have a boss, you need a union...
"If it pisses republicans off, it must be a good thing for the middle class and the country in general"
So the SEIU must be doing something really good.
I am of the opinion that we need to use people like BillO as a barometer. Instead of trying to take issue with what he says, we simply use his words to figure out if we're on the right track: If he agrees, we must be doing something wrong, if he is opposed and pissed off about it... we're on the right track.
That is the best way of neutralizing the message of these GOP stooges. By using them as a barometer, we're able to frame them from what they really are (the canary in the GOP mine) and take away all the power they may wish they had.
Works much better than trying to ignore these braggadocios and burying our heads in the sand. As that gives them free range: which is a biiiiiig mistake IMHO.
Great idea! The louder they cry, the better it is for the rest of us, I love it!
Where's Lil' Bill when you need him? lol.
Mr. O'Reilly
Socialism is about equalizing the opportunity that every citizen has.
Equal opportunity for the same quality of Public Education.
Equal opportunity for the same quality of health care.
Equal rights under the law.
You and your ilk want only the best for you and yours, but nothing for anyone else.
You have had a free ride. Now there should be fairness.
Here is my last comment and links on an excellent report found at Democracy Now.
Billo says something stupid?
Who'da thunk it?
Seems to have hit the nail on the head. The issue though is that despite arguments that the repbulicans caused the problems they persist in the face of Obama's meddling. Taxes are progressive by nature even if the rate is fixed and flat. Those who make more will pay more evene if we have equal tax rates. Its simple math. Therefore changing the rate as income increases takes a system from being progressive to punitive. But lets face it, that is the point isn't it, to punish anyone doing better, working harder.
Who? Who?
Whoooo let the trolls out?
Who? Who?
Come on everybody... sing along!
You do know that this is a somewhat progressive site right?
That most here, KNOW that billo's a lying, sexually deviant, GOP/RNC propagandist, and that when you start off your post with a laughable line like, "O'Rielly seems to have hit the nail on the head." that you will not be taken seriously? EVER!
And followed by the fact, that you continue by parroting previously debunked RNC talking points, only adds to your lack of credibility.
I guess I should give up and resign myself to your beliefs. It may be a "progressive" site but where better to preach the truth than to those who are most in need. Suspect this will get deleted for flamebaiting but such is life.
That is not flame baiting and it shouldn't be deleted.
We need to have this dialogue.
If you don't make $250,000 a year what are you complaining about.
Even if you do make more than that, the rise doesn't mean much until ten million.
Ten million dollars a year and you can complain.
If that is you, welcome to
HoovervilleBushville.10% on income between $0 and $8,025
15% on the income between $8,025 and $32,550; plus $802.50
25% on the income between $32,550 and $78,850; plus $4,481.25
28% on the income between $78,850 and $164,550; plus $16,056.25
33% on the income between $164,550 and $357,700; plus $40,052.25
35% on the income over $357,700; plus $103,791.75
As you can see the highest rate starts at 357,700 not 10 million.
The coming 39.6% should not be the end of the schedule.
In my world it would be 90% at ten million.
Those people hijack the government and write the loopholes so that the effective rate is way below what you see.
People of lesser means have no such ability.
Do you make more than $350k?
I would suggest, that you don't parrot the talking points of the enemies of this country. How about, thinking for yourself, and drawing your own conclusions?
Defending propagandists will gain you no allies here.
I'm not one for proselytizing by so called holy men, or by RW propagandist robots...funny how they seem to go hand in hand.
Faux logic.
I am quite certain that the term "progressive" does not mean what the original poster thinks it means.
Show me the math that says a larger number multiplied by the same percentage does not equal a larger answer.
Your statement, I repeat was: taxes are progressive by nature even if the rate is fixed and flat.
That is pure linearity.
The definition of progressive tax: increasing as a proportion of the sum taxed as that sum increases.
Federal income taxes have been progressive since they were initiated in 1913.
Here is a table.
In 1913 they ranged from 1%-7%.
1921 4%-73% in a highly graduated schedule. Harding (Coolidge)
1934 4%-63% FDR
1959 20%-91% Eisenhower
1988 11%-38.5% Reagan
1995 15%-39.6% Clinton
2008 10%-35% these are $1.3 trillion Bushes cuts that have so increased our debt. They expire in 2010, for the Fat Cats they should expire.
2009 10%-39.6% Obama
that is not your original argument, is it?
You can't make up a tangential argument, and expect its proof to serve as a validation in any way shape or form to your original (and unrelated) statement.
But I will byte:
Assume salary X, a fixed tax rate of 25%, and purchasing power factor defined to be inversely proportional to the money you get to keep after living expenses are subtracted.
The effective tax footprint for a person making $10K a month and having to spend $5K in living expenses:
10000 * 25% * (1/10000-5000) = 0.5
If we consider a a person making $1K a month and having to spend $900 in living expenses:
1000 * 25% * (1/1000-900) = 2.5
Therefore, even though the tax rates are the same. The tax foot print is very different.
2.5 >> 0.5 (the poor person ends up paying 5x as more of its money in taxes, relatively to the rich person)
QED
Also note how the rich person has enough money after living expenses to pay his fixed tax rate ($2500) allowing them to keep $2.5K after taxes and living expenses are subtracted. Where as the poor person can't pay his taxes ($250) and his living expenses at the same time, putting them into a net $150 debt per month.
(I am not holding my breath at you being able to follow that simple math)
Very concise, clear, and jargon free. Excellent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMHO, it is also important to note that US corporations rarely PAY the % of taxes that are seemingly owed.
For example:
...275 Fortune 500 companies that made a profit each year from 2001 to 2003 and for which adequate information to draw conclusions is publicly available, only a small proportion paid federal income taxes anywhere near that statutory 35 percent tax rate. The vast majority paid considerably less.
In fact, in 2002 and 2003, the average effective tax rate for all of these 275 companies was less than half the statutory 35 percent rate. Over the 2001-2003 period, effective tax rates ranged from a low of -59.6 percent for Pepco Holdings to a high of 34.5 percent for CVS.
Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 companies dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003.
/snip
In 2003 alone, 46 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes. These 46 companies told their shareholders they earned U.S. pretax profits in 2003 of $42.6 billion, yet they received tax rebates totaling $5.4 billion. Almost as many companies, 42, paid no tax in 2002, reporting $43.5 billion in pretax profits, yet receiving $4.9 billion in tax rebates. From 2001 to 2003, the number of no-tax companies jumped from 33 to 46, an increase of 40 percent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I realize that these figures are a few years old, but I cannot imagine that things are much better today. So if profitable companies paid their fair share, everybody would be better off.
We ain't gotta prove jack shit to to the likes of you!
Your conservative ideology FAILED, EPICALLY! We won the election. Remember that one?
It's time for progressive ideology, not rehashing the failed policies of the last 8 years.
NEXT!
Lower income people are impacted more by sales and FICA tax, both which are flat, and therefore by definition regressive.
In addition, the Fat Cats derive much and in certain cases, all of their income from investments. Gains on investments are taxed as capital gains, currently at 15%.
The stated intention of taxing hedge fund managers at regular income rates rather than capital gains rates is long overdue.
Corporations and Fat Cats have been stealing their way to their perverse luxury since the beginning.
The fact that our government has been hijacked by them is a source of great discontent.
Here is report that talks about how they have done it.
But the taxes that are being changed do not address those issues.
...spending or hoarding all that excess is "conspicuous consumption" or being miserly. When someone makes $25 million gross a year as personal income, what are they going to do with it? Buy an 8th house? Permanently cruise around the world?
Sure, someone should be rewarded with a humongous salary for having a brilliant idea, or starting up one's own company and running it in the black for a number of years.
But, for the privilege of being able to do that in a capitalist society, there is a price. That's taxes. And if they take their business elsewhere, chances are the taxes are higher, or the foreign government will seize the business and then they have nothing.
So, you can think of taxes as "punishment", or the levy for the privilege of being master of your own destiny.
that whole philosophy of why there has to be a price to sucess. I is like saying that because I keep the best lawn in the neighborhood everyone should be able to come along and take a square foot of my grass. It does not hold up.
n/t
everybody in the neighborhood contributed substantially to the creation and maintenance of your lawn? "Poor" people are the ones who do the actual work that creates real wealth. Now one would ever get rich without their hard work and low pay. So stop squealing if you have to pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes to "help" the people who made your rich. In the long run, you benefit from their public education, public roads & infrastructure, public water, and YES Public MEDICAL.
It's more like this...if you have a pantry full of food, and your neighbor has none, you feed the fucking neighbor.
You don't give him shit about being lazy and shiftless if he's starving.
Typical GOP attitude..."I got mine, fuck you!"
I agree that altruism is a good reason to help others and share, but setting up a system where those persons would not have to rely "on the kindness of strangers" is good sense, and will work better in the long turn.
I think that's what we all want, is a system where no one is left wanting.
Oh. and FYI my "Bad Analogy" post was directed at Silent Majority, not at you.
You are an idiot. If you think this is all about "punishing" the successful and hardworking, well then punishment it is. Go on, convince yourself that you're being "punished". Go sit in the corner and think about it for a while. In fact, why don't you flaggelate yourself while you're at it, since you rightwingers seem to know all about punishment.
the rightwing never fails to inject subtle insults and sleights, all the while pretending to take the high ground.
case in point: those who have more money work harder than everyone else. this is another one of those rightwing myths, along with their purposefully deceptive claim to want a "free" market.
the ruling class, of which the rightwing sucks up to, has gamed the system through legislation, certain regulations and certain deregulations, and challenge to this system that favors the few is immediately decried as being unfair. phppt.
Just as much as the Republicans.
no doubt
Those who make more earn more in interest.
that you're wrong. Unless you're arguing that people are born rich or poor and stay that way because of God, or poor breeding or whatever...
A tax rate is progressive because people tend to earn and invest much more money in the second half of their lives than in the first. A person raising a family needs all the breaks they can get. Then once the kids move out and they get that promotion, they can pay off the 'debit' they've accumulated on the government till.
The problem is, Repukes don't ever want to pay. Ever.
And most of the extremely rich are now born that way. They start out in the top bracket and will die there. Not all, but most.
Also, debating income taxes is bullshit while the majority of people still pay so many regressive taxes. Poor working people in my state pay as much as 38 percent of what they earn in taxes and fees, while the people who fall into the 'top bracket' pay around 26 percent.
That's regressive, not progressive, and it's what we really have in this country.
If the super-rich don't fucking like it, they can get the fuck out and live in fucking Dubai with Michael Jackson. Their anti-social behavior is only slightly less disgusting than his.
Or maybe the same.
Or worse.
Ah, fuck 'em.
"Shared sacrifice" means punitive taxation on high-wage earners and corporations.
Wah wah wah. These rich whining fucks get so pissed off when anyone even threatens to make them pay their fair share.
Fair share of what? Why is anyone other than the person earning the money entitled to some of it. This is the flaw with "liberalism". You have no right to my money and I have no right to yours. We suceed or fail based on our own efforts. That is the basis of conservatism. Equal opportunity not equal results.
Equal opportunity but there is no guarantee of equal results.
That is the basis of socialism.
Having a Country costs money.
Schools and roads cost money.
If you have factory you have increased demand on public services. You must pay for it.
The military industrial complex costs money. Lots of money, too much money.
It exists to project and protect the Fat Cats private empires.
Not for the security of the country. That is another story in itself.
do you deserve to "earn" more money than, say, your secretary, or the janitor at your business? Do you work that much harder? Is your expertise so astoundingly unique that it is worth 10, 50, 100 times the pay for their abilities? Did you got to private school, private college to learn your skill, or was your schooling paid for by TAXES? Do you drive on your own personal road (built & paid for by you)to your job? You use Public utilities and services paid for with TAXES to get your higher wages, but you don't want to contribute a certain percentage more?
Before Ronald "McDonald" Reagan, the average CEO made something like 40x a low-level worker. More recently, it is about 400x.
In Europe, it is still around 40x. Europeans just believe it is statistically impossible for one worker to add 400 times the value per minute of another employee. Maybe 2x. Maybe 8x. Maybe 20x. Maybe even 50x! But 400x?! Impossible.
In fact, the compensation the CEO of GM gets to take home every year... is similar in value to the compensation the whole board of Toyota receives for the same period of time.
I find it hard to believe, reviewing the recent performance of GM vs. Toyota's... that the CEO of GM performs that much better than all the top exec's at the company that beat his combined.
Is that the majority of wealthy Americans pay LESS in taxes than folks like me.
If you pay less in taxes, then logically you should have LESS say in how tax money is spent. Right? Now, we all know that's not how it works...
Conservatives...all for equal opportunity on paper, not in practice.
Biggest bunch of greedy hypocrites EVER!
less in Income Tax, and that's because their income is low. They pay the same tax rate for everything else. Remember, you made your money off those "undeserving poor".
I meant INCOME taxes of course...thanks KWillow!
Yes...I made my tens of dollars off the back of the wretched, unwashed hordes!
OK seriously though...just one back, wretched, and occasionally washed...my own.
Of course you have a right to 'my money' just as much as I have a right to 'yours'.
Are you suggesting that we each fund our own army to defend the nation?
Oh, I get it, that's different. /snark
You'll decide what's 'necessary' for our common welfare.
And in about five minutes you'll be arguing that a High School education isn't really needed for the 'average' slobs, because they don't need one in order to be worker bees. If they want more, let them pay for it out of their own money.
Sorry for the insult, but you're a simple fool.
O'Lielly, the perverted stalker and the Lard-Ass, Limp-Dick, the Boy chaser and leader of the GOP, are just wetting their pink panties because they are going to finally pay some taxes.
...and it will still merely SOME taxes. But even a little more is too much for these grabby, greedy ideologues. One of their many neuroses is that they hate feeling wrong, being corrected or having to admit that someone might have a better idea. They are just so afraid...of everything, apparently! Bedwetters, all of them!
i can't help but chuckle when i hear the rightwing blather and blabber on about 'asset redistribution'
for the majority of americans, we have been forced to redistribute our assets to the ruling class for decades (see, neoliberalism/reagansim). to which bill'o and the rest of the rightwing cheered on.
equality and fairness scare the shit out of the rightwing
They only know how to operate via projection (blaming others of your own faults), or intellectual dishonesty (doing exactly the opposite of what you claim to be or support).
Their behavior is also fully explained if you study it under game theory concepts: their decisions and actions have a single goal... to maximize their short term benefits. (btw, other organisms that follow the same behavioral motifs are viruses and some parasites).
There is nothing else, nothing at all in the repertoire of what passes now for the common conservative in this country.
In other words, they are nothing more than your common asshole.
Instead of addressing the issues the resort to argumentum ad hominem.
Instead of addressing the issues they resort to non issues.
[This is the last time I'm going to ask you to stop it, woody. From the C&L commenting policy, the definition of a chatterer:
Thank you. Site Monitor}
but he's the one that's fulla shit...
so what's the harm?
...You jest?
Here's one:
Republicans and conservatives accuse their perceived enemies of the foibles and sins of which they are most guilty, perhaps in some weird attempt to obfuscate exactly those things before they come to the surface.
And..way to add NOTHING to the thread.
btw,
your buddies are nothing but silent, bloviating, bedwetting, obstructionist crybabies and are sinking into the minority.
think you are being witty when you reply to my comments, but all you do is actually prove the point I was making in the comment.
I don't know if I should laugh at you, or thank you.
BTW, ad hominem does not mean what you think it means. LOL.
I was so busy making fun of his intellectual dishonesty, that I missed his misuse of the term. Nice one, TD.
Polishing brass on the Titanic, we are.
Instead of coming up with your own ideas, you repeat the talking points of your master Limbaugh...he is full of it, therefore, you are too.
Republicans (the elite-class) falsely claim they are free market capitalists.
Elite-class Republicans deny American workers the right to collectively bargain with corporations to sell their labor. Elite-class Republicans fight unionization, effectively taking an unfair amount of value of worker's labor, always wanting a bigger share for the elite's capital investment and a smaller share for the worker's labor.
When it comes to paying for the services and functions of a government, they call any attempt to tax them "thievery."
Elite-class Republicans would rather workers go along with them and keep believing in the American dream - that someday the worker will also be rich and thus protections in place for the elite class' wealth is actually there for the workers as well.
That's why they hold up Joe the Plumber. They want you to believe that Joe the Plumber is an eventual John Thain or Angelo Mozilo in waiting and so are you!
But as George Carlin so eloquently put it, the problem with the American Dream is, you have to be asleep to believe it.
We on the far-left are not giving O'Reilly a fair shake. I feel sorry for him. I think I'm going to apologize to him.
...for the apology. In the meantime, I will rub his feet and coo songs of sweet tax cuts in his ear.
Or a sick one, lol!
I love how BillO claims to have a lock on the "truth".
Rightwingers seem to know "truth" when they see it. THEY'RE truth, which is, of course, a perversion of the real truth. Of course, when you drink the Republican KoolAid, "truth" becomes whatever you want it to be.
One of these days these guys will know real truth. Of course they'll be rotting in Hell when that happens!
Conservatives are good at one thing and that is causing fatique in everyone else. Why do I even click on the O'Reilly video links anymore on Crooks and Liars?!
Nothing new here. Move along.
In attempt to show their party is young, hip, and fresh- the GOP brain storm and come up with this …right in time for St. Paddies day…
Can you spot -The Grand Pooba , supreme leader -El Rushbo?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDPFU_ybVU&fe...
Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence nor in the US Constitution is it stipulated that the US economy should be Capitalist.
In fact, the "unalienable rights - Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" (with which each of us is endowed) would better be served by a Socialist economy, and a Democratic Socialist government.
I'm all for it and not ashamed to say so.
Marx predicted that Capitalism would eventually naturally evolve into Socialism. No doubt in my mind he was correct, despite the kicking and screaming tantrums the American Fascists are throwing now.
The model that works well is a mix of socialism, capitalism, and obviously democracy, similar to what exists and works in many European countries today (the U.K. excluded. The U.K. is the 51st state of the U.S.).
The problem is extremism.
Capitalism, when taken to an extreme is a Mad Max, every man for himself, guns and gold, black market world.
Socialism (I consider myself a socialist), when taken to an extreme becomes communism.
As always, balance is what works, extremism is what doesn't.
I've been saying darn near the same thing myself for years!
Here is my comment that differentiates the Socialist norm from the Communists.
The Communist's brand of Socialism attempts to guarantee the results of everyone's efforts or lack thereof in this life. That presents problems.
just how awesome you are today?
If they did it could only be because they were too easily impressed.
It would be like claiming that socialism is an extreme version of capitalism.
In its purely (academic) form, communism is the evolution of socialism.
The idea (whether right or wrong) was to see the following succession:
1. Capitalism: allows the development of technology and takes away the power of the old oligarchies based on anti democratic monarchical/religious power structures.
2. Socialism: starts to direct technology into the right direction (towards meeting all human needs) and starts filling the void left from the destruction of the traditional oligarchies. By allowing the commoners access and control their very own governments, production, and distribution facilities. This is we start to see true democracies taking place.
3. Communism: once technology is able to meet all human needs. Humans are free to pursue other goals/tasks, in this system where needs are always met the old power structures/social stratus no longer made any sense. And thus different political/power organizations will arise. These political/social organizations may have little resemblance to our current hierarchies. Which are mostly evolved from feudal and capital-based systems. For example, when there are no human needs left unmet... concepts like wealth have a very different meaning, context, or even measure.
This succession was supposed to take a looong time, not being an overnight type of approach.
Some societies in the industrialized world have started to transition from Capitalism towards Socialism.
The US, IMHO, is stuck in a decaying capitalistic system and we as a society seem unable to fathom other alternatives. It is clear that the engine of growth in such system, capital/credit, is unsutainable (as it expects infinite growth under a reality of finite resources). Which is a pity since the normal approach, would be to start contemplating the transition towards a more resource-oriented system... which is less prone to the problems displayed by capital-based systems.
Capitalism main goal was to develop the technolgy and means of production to start meeting people's needs. However, we're using that technoogy to keep the unsustainable motor for capitalism (credit) running. That is why instead of using technology to meet our needs, we're using it to develop more technology for the sake of... developing more technology.
It seems to me, that somehow, we got stuck in a feedback circle from hell with no clear endgoal... and it is fairly destructive IMHO.
In other words, nobody thought it was kind of ironic that we invented machines to make lighten our workloads, but instead we got stuck working harder and harder to develop such machines...
Your discussion is far more elaborate than mine.
Chomsky described our system as State Capitalism as opposed to that envisioned by Adam Smith. Falling well short of an ideal.
He described the Soviets as State Socialism, also falling well short of an ideal.
For my thinking, human nature inevitably undermines the ideal.
Life is a struggle, it will remain a struggle.
I do not see the prospect for a Utopia.
All I can hope to do in my own small way is to inform some of the people of their error when, against their own interests, they support policies that favor the greedy. Including if the greedy be they.
there is no question that capital-based systems are not sustainable. Period.
Life is a struggle, no doubt. It is just that when you use a ruse as the basis for human existence, it just adds unnecessary difficulty to an already complex proposition. And let's not kid ourselves, capital... by its very definition is a ruse.
Right now, all I see is human working themselves to death in order to further the "privilege" of working themselves to death. It makes absolutely no sense to me... but then again, maybe humans need more time to evolve. I just wish we don't get invaded by aliens any time soon. I would be so embarrassed having to explain to them our current system and organization.
If we were visited by Aliens they would be beings that have far transcended our woeful state.
They might set us straight on how not to ruin a planet before you learn to get very far off of it.
As for our condition.
John Kenneth Galbraith whose wit and intellect I admired and whose son is a every bit a chip off the old block (I am readin Predator State presently) said this:
Remember, he lived in and through the cold war, the great propaganda tool of the MIC enablers.
Michael Parenti who I also admire had an apropos essay recently here.
Here again is Parenti to ask if there were so many political prisoners why didn't they come pouring out of the gulags when Boris Yeltsin took over. The answer is, there were not vast legions in the gulags, it was more propaganda.
Parenti on the poor. How and why the uber rich need them, here.
even Jos. Schumpeter, one of kapital's foremost acolytes, admitted as much.
Eventually, a kind of socialism, some version or another, will be the order. What matters is what kind it is: benign, as in Sweden, etc, or totalitarian, as in China.
But it will come...Gay-ron-TEED...
I was looking for that Bush speech where he was saying it will be a long hard road and we will all need to sacrifice...unable to locate in a timely manor..... I wanted to remind Dill'do'riely.... I think he needs to brace up, shape up or ship out, Bill. I wish he could stop his whining already.
Oh the humanity! Those poor upper class folks! How tragic to be able to afford health care, an education, a house or two, and know where their next meal is coming from and be expected to carry their own weight! Why are we so mean to them?! *cries into Kleenex*
that's why they have to hire illegal immigrants to come in and clean their houses and mow their lawns. Who could expect them to pay a fair, living wage with all the taxes the Socialists are forcing them to pay!
Ah the longing for the days of slavery and mint juleps... (big sarcism for those who don't get it)...
Seriously, the current generation of Americans have no idea what high taxes are.
Oh dear, how will they manage without someone to do their basic housework for them? :P
But yes, indeed, they have no clue.
[Deleted. Spam-Sitemonitor]
I take it BillO doesn't care to accept the consequences for his and the Republicans free market (anything goes) actions.
Shared sacrifice? You mean what the military trains and teaches? What corporations teach and promote under the guise of "Team Consept"?
It is a fact that the top has held back any trickle down or crumbs while the middle class has had to perform longer hours and accept extra work to just keep what they had. But, add in spiking oil prices, interest rates and principle for loans from China to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy during a time of war.
Because the wealthy are spending money hand over fist on union busters, lobbyists, poiticians, and high priced advertising on Rush Limbaugh's show and FOX. Funding Heritage Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, Asso. of Business and all the other Corporate unions.
So they have nothing left for the working because what is left goes to their newest yaght and the trip around the world with the U.S. Navy to protect them from pirates.
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