Forum Post: ayn who ?
Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 17, 2012, 8:59 p.m. EST by bensdad
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I don't care what anyone says, after a long day's work, that's some funny shit.
I bet that is the first time he finished anything under four minutes.
Edit: let alone four hours. I guess i should think before I type, then my jokes would be funny.
Lyan Ryan, Romoney, Rubio and other Ruinous, Romulan Reprobates are all Raving Randian Robots !!
e tenebris, lux ...
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You used to have some of the best cartoons here. Even ones I didn't agree with politically were still very funny.
This one belongs in the garbage.
Paul rAyn and rAynd Paul and Ayn Rand and the Randroids - "Let them eat the poor no more".
Scary is as Scary does - my own [oyn] brother is one of them Randroids. He drank from the fountainhead and shrugged off morality and the environment as impediments to the economy.
I am quite certain that the M. o. U. DO do a daily circle-jerk around life-sized Ayn Rand posters...
google: ayn rand hickman
WOW! Good insight into Ayn Rand - she was so full of hatred that she was attracted to this savage young murderer and dismemberer [herself just 23 yrs old at the time]
So, if this is the HERO of the Free Market Capitalist types perhaps "eat the poor" is not merely an analogy.
Do you agree with Rand that fascism is a very bad thing?
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I've been away for a while. While I was gone, Occupy apparently officially became a part of the Obama 2012 campaign?
according to the New York Times
who also think middle east got upset of youtube movies not US foreign policy
Where did the New York Times say that? I was talking about this site, but now I'm curious what they have to say about it.
Occupy Wall Street: A Frenzy That Fizzled
So your strategy for fighting against the establishment is to beg the establishment to adopt your slogans to get your votes so that they can stay in power and go back to ignoring you like before?
huh?
the establishment would like to ignore us
And they will go back to ignoring you right after the election, since you have no candidates.
grim
...and also foreseeable.
few here support not voting
demand elections be national and state holidays
Few here supported voting, running for office, or participating in democracy at all, back when I was trying to talk about running candidates when there was still a chance. It's a slim consolation if more people are interested now that there is an election going on and it's too late.
it's not too late
the public in general is not happy with the politics
and clearly believe the system is rigged
Well it's too late for anybody to vote for an Occupy candidate instead, because Occupy failed to field any candidates. So now you're stuck with voting for Democrats or not voting at all, which is the exact same choice that you had four years ago.
I'm voting Rocky Anderson
there are always initiatives on the CA ballot
I'm waiting for a pamphlet so I can present them here
When Tea Partiers voted for Scott Brown and Marco Rubio and Sharron Angle and Rand Paul and Nikki Haley and etc,etc, they were not making symbolic votes to express their discontent. They were actually electing candidates.
It's more like a battleground between pro and anti establishment factions. The rep trolls left a vacuum for dem trolls to take over.
ha understatement of the week
There is definitely a partisan segment here. They don't seem to understand what Occupy is about.
cause someone posted a picture?
.
building bombs 'til bunkers boil
getting paid for shell filled toil
if I am to work tomorrow
lobe the load on foreign soil
yep US only pays 41% of the total world military budget
World Military budget in Billions (percent total) by Nation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Global Arms Sales By Supplier Nations
39% United States
18% Russia
8% France
7% United Kingdom
5% Germany
3% China
3% Italy
11% Other European
5% Others
http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big-business#GlobalArmsSalesBySupplierNations
TOP 10 Arms Produces
Notes: An S denotes a subsidiary company. A dash (–) indicates that the company did not rank among the SIPRI Top 100 for 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/mar/02/arms-sales-top-100-producers
That particular picture is fairly partisan, yes. What's the point of this movement if it's just the Re-Elect Obama Club?
So if it was a picture of Obama kissing Jeremiah Wright's feet, would you consider it fair OWS speak? I bet you would.
I'm starting to believe calling one a partisan is tantamount, at least in this forum, to calling someone a socialist, racist or any other descriptor that shuts people up for having impure beliefs.
"Partisan" is failure, when you're talking about a group aimed at unity. OWS was supposed to represent the 99%, right? Or does it only represent the 50% of the 99% who are Democrats?
There are people in OWS who think that they're fighting against the wealthy elite. There are people who think that they're fighting against the political establishment. There are people who think that they're fighting against Wall Street and corporate America. And there are people who think that they're fighting against Republicans. The result is ineffective chaos. I took a vacation from this site for months and now that I'm back I can see that I didn't miss anything.
Well, the idea that we all come together and begin singing kumbaya sounds good. But to believe that we could have come to this consensus in little over a year, is naive. Those still pushing such an idea are really not looking at the numbers. I'd say that if you take the total number of people supporting Occupy, you would not have enough people to win the presidency, especially once you consider the different perspectives and attitudes many of the members have.
Also, i don't care if you wan't to defend Conservative philosophy. I'll try to keep the name calling to a minimal as decimate your argument.
I'm not here to defend 'conservative philosophy', I'm here to talk about the corrupting influence of money over our political system. But you're right, most people here are a lot more interested in partisan squabbling than in talking about wealth inequality or government corruption.
Let's get real. What would you expect a capitalist society to value more, money or democracy? I find it funny how people differentiate capitalism from politics, when they are one in the same. A country that puts profits before people, should not be surprised when those profits are used to silence the people.
You want money out of politics?
You better be prepared to regulate the fuck out of those with money. Regulate them as fervently and relentlessly as we regulate the 99%'s social interactions. Until then capitalistic control of the political apparatus makes perfect sense. Our politics are controlled by what our nation covets the most, money.
Okay, so you've stated a policy agenda. You want to regulate the fuck out of the 1%. So what has Occupy done to advance that agenda? How are you going to regulate anybody if you can't even manage to elect candidates?
Well, it'd be easier to rally around a candidate, at least a candidate with a chance to get elected, if I was not called a partisan every time I defend the one who is in the White House. Now, I know he is not the best choice to address my grievances, but at this juncture, he is the only rational choice.
Rand Paul got elected, after masses of Tea Party protesters rallied behind him. So did Marco Rubio. So did Nikki Haley. So did Scott Walker. So did Rick Scott. It would take me an hour to list all of the names. Is Occupy not capable of doing the same?
House members, governors, and senate members compared to a President is a totally different league. Starting to elect progressives for all those posts you mentioned makes sense, and in the long run getting a president into the White House, after securing many electorate votes, does sound great, in the long run.
Voting for a bird in the ruff while throwing away the bird in the hand just seems greedy and short sighted to me. let's talk about you idea in four years; i'll probably take you up on it.
i agree with much of what you say (esp to vq - he needs help) but i think you give the masses too much credit for tea party victories. big money had much to do with winning. the initial anger at the bank bailout was co-opted by the koch brothers etc. many people from both sides saw that the government had all the money it needed for the richest crinimal banks but none for the man in the street! there are too many here who support the dems and your main point of 99% vs 50% is correct. there is much that the grassroots tea partiers and ows supporters can agree on. that is what we should focus on - i think the fallout from the romney video shows just that fact. he is attacking many people who will vote for him - both parties cater to the 1% - it so happens that the gop says it more clearly sometimes while the dems talk the talk but...........
Here is one simple issue that we all can agree on:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/common-ground-one-way-forward-there-should-be-no-c/
I'm a little concerned, though, that there are too many words in that one simple issue. A lot of people like VQ are going to glaze out while they're reading all of those words, and they're going to end up getting distracted by the bright, shiny objects in their peripheral vision. The terms "Tea Party" and "Occupy Wall Street". Those phrases make a lot of people immediately align against the 'other' tribe. It's so much easier to root for your own tribe than to work toward building consensus among different tribes. So I personally would bet on the status quo being maintained for another couple of centuries, because the system that the 1% uses to keep us all down is really effective. Pitting us against each other, at the expense of our own self interest.
did you miss this part - (and i do not mean litterally the koch bros) - are you not aware of the huge money behind what is now called the tea party? if you want to pretend that the tea party as it is now and ows have any similarity in funding then we should stop now
He likes to pretend that the teabagge(R)s aren't actually (R)epelican'ts.
It's similar to the Ron Paul arguments of yestermonth.
Okay correction: how does a conspiracy theory about anybody secretly running the Tea Party relate to anything that I said?
I'm just amused because there are a lot of people here who aren't even capable of having a conversation that involves the words "Tea Party" without starting to rave about conspiracy theories. Even when those conspiracy theories are TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the topic at hand. Very poor reading comprehension around here.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/common-ground-one-way-forward-there-should-be-no-c/
i agree with what you say and with the post but i do think the tea party is not correctly viewed here. the people who say "keep the governments hands off my medicare" tell us much about the anger at government. is is being used and misdirected by the koch brothers (and i do not mean litterally the koch bros) etc. no time for more detail but i hope you get my meaning
How does a conspiracy theory about the Koch brothers secretly running the Tea Party relate to anything that I just said?
still can't answer a question of fact i see. i don't blame you since the facts do not back up your sadly stupid opinion - socrates reborn - ha!
There was no question in the post that I replied to. I guess you're trying to get back to your conspiracy theory about the Tea Party?
i agree about too many of the "conversations" here but it is not a theory about tea party funding as far as i know. not one of the areas i have done much reading but i know what i have heard from people i think are credible. do you think it is inaccurate that they have become more of an astro turf movement - i assume you know what i mean - i am a bit short of time
Haha you don't know what I mean. Here's a hint, this is what I mean:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/common-ground-one-way-forward-there-should-be-no-c/
That has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I was talking about. I assume that you don't know what I mean.
while i agree with some of what you say i think you are demented in some way. too bad - not really sure if you have a point but you are wasting both my time and yours - keep blathering if it makes you feel better.
sorry i didn't realize your memory doesn't go beyond the last post - this was one - "do you think it is inaccurate that they have become more of an astro turf movement - i assume you know what i mean" - this was the same question but i assumed you forgot (silly me) - "astro turf or grassroots - money from the top or bottom - easy to answer - can you do it " - and this was the last one - boy you must have too many conversations going or you are stupid. maybe you are smart and realize that you cannot answer it. "maybe you lost the train of the conversation - tea party remember - astro turf funded by very rich men or a grassroots movement like ows"
I already responded that your question is irrelevant. I don't care who is really behind the Tea Party any more than I care who is really behind OWS. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about both, but none of those theories are advancing our country in any way.
Here's a conspiracy theory: If a movement were to form to unite the 99% against the 1%, then don't you think that the best way to counter that movement would be to divide it into two factions and convince them that they're each other's enemies? Do you not see that you're contributing to that, whether it's a vast conspiracy or not?
you must be that sneaky greek who lives in bali and is served by thai maids - cannot respond to a direct question without going to some conspiracy gig - astro turf or grassroots - money from the top or bottom - easy to answer - can you do it - no? go play with the maids - do you have any friends - you are not loved here - have you noticed?
Well I do live on an island in Miami Beach, but the maids here are Latina. This is at least a more interesting conversation than talking about the Koch brothers or the Illuminatus or the Rothschilds or whatever.
i knew what you mean but maybe you lost the train of the conversation - tea party remember - astro turf funded by very rich men or a grassroots movement like ows - i think maybe you are just a junkie of a different type
If you want to talk about the Tea Party being secretly orchestrated by the 1% then have fun with that, but I'm not interested in that conversation. I was talking about something else entirely. These conspiracy theories are an embarrassing distraction. All of the protesters are triggering a whole new wave of people who are Googling "Occupy Wall Street" and coming here ... and then getting turned off by conspiracy theories and partisan squabbling. This web site is more effective as anti-OWS propaganda than anything that evil henchmen of the Koch brothers could ever come up with.
You like those $35 terms.
Try this one........diametrically opposed.
For someone who claims not to be a fan of teabagge(R)s you sure do talk about them a lot.
yea, i have no idea what he just wrote to me means - i think i am done with him
...and you show up right on cue to prove my point. Brilliant.
In spite of all the Soros rumors. Occupy has no patron like the Kochs.
Please consider that all of those you mention, performed negative things.
Things that are supported by the Kochs.
Things they did for their "founders".
The Koch brothers somehow benefitted when the Tea Party managed to get trillions of dollars cut from the federal budget?
BTW, you have officially taken this conversation and elevated it to the next level: conspiracy theories.
The tea party hasn't cut trillions from the budget. Sorry they have done nothing measurable. The same people in the tea party now were the ones who created 11 of the 15 trillion national debt over the last 30 years.
During the debate over the debt ceiling, the Tea Party forced the Republican Party to hold out for spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling. It seems surreal that you're not aware of that. What were you thinking was happening when all of that was going on?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20084416-503544.html
The left really could use a faction like the Tea Party for driving policy. Like Occupy could have been. But Occupy has no political power and is not a faction at all in Washington because it has no candidates.
He doesn't give clear answers.
He will drag it out until the thread ends.
That's the same thing he did all those months ago.
Listen. I don't believe you! Ok. I don't believe you voted for Pres Obama, nor that you don't support the Tea party.
That's all.
You have praised the tea parties success getting candidates elected and pushing their agenda. I disagree! My opinion is that they have failed miserably because their agenda is one of selfishness, greed and anti people. The population knows it. So they have failed.
You have repeatedly criticized OWS and claimed they haven't been successful. I disagree!. They have beenMORE successful because they have successfully challenged the 30 year old corp 1% plutocrat (TP) agenda in one year!
ONE YEAR!!
plutocrats are gettin smoked.!! LOL
You're delusional. Ows has been more successful cause they are changing the political debate and therefore the direction of the country without elected officials or money from the corp 1% billionaires.
And they did it without selling their soul to the corp 1% plutocrats. That in itself is a real measure of success.
You're really getting into left-versus-right cheerleading, which was not the point of me mentioning the Tea Party. I'm pretty sure that you still don't actually know why I brought them up because you're so busy trying to have a conversation about how much the Tea Party sucks. And that tells me a lot right there. It's been fascinating today, watching your inability to have a conversation that's not about how much conservatives suck.
It was just republican extremists who brought the country to the brink of financial collapse for a tiny amount of money.
You're delusional.
That was their GOAL. They succeeded at their goal. They did that by electing candidates who forced the issue. I'm not trying to say that what they did was right or that I personally consider that to be progress. I'm simply saying that they're in Washington advancing their agenda and OWS is not.
And $2 trillion is a tiny amount of money? That seems delusional to me.
Gosh, if only it was a theory.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Peter-Fenn/2011/02/02/tea-party-funding-koch-brothers-emerge-from-anonymity
It truly is a conspiracy.
Would you like ties to ALEC?
The John Birch Society?
CATO?
Ayn Rand?
I may not be able to do the last, but the rest are well documented.
They do however like to distribute her "works" and philosophy.
As to your first question, it would be to their benefit by making States desperate to make corporate deals to raise revenue.
Yeah. I guess so. he swears he wants to talk about one thing but is somehow forced to continue praising the tea party.
Poor thing. he's a teapartyJunkie. heh heh.
So you're saying that the Tea Party protesters didn't really care about fiscal responsibility, and the candidates who they elected who succeeded in cutting trillions of dollars from the federal budget also didn't really care about fiscal responsibility. It was all a big conspiracy theory to force state governments to buy more things from corporations? You know that there are some very similar conspiracy theories about OWS, right?
You accuse me of making this right/left when all you do is praise the ultra right wing corp 1% front.
I only put TP/Conserv down when you lift them up. You don't want me to put them down, Stop lifting them up.
Same thing with OWS. You don't me to lift them up or illustrate my opinion about how the left is succeeding with OWS concepts, then stop putting OWS down.
Simple.
You still think that I'm praising the right when I talk about the Tea Party successfully advancing their agenda? You don't actually read anything that other people post, do you? You scan for key words like "Tea Party" and "Obama" and then you post a standard kind of rant, regardless of what the other person is actually trying to say? If you think that I've been praising the Tea Party then that's simply proof that I've been having a conversation all day long with somebody who isn't reading what I'm saying. Or somebody who has incredibly poor reading comprehension.
The point of bringing up the Tea Party was to point to them as a model for the kind of political effectiveness that Occupy could have had but never accomplished. I voted for Obama and I don't support the Tea Party. I've repeated this over and over and over to you today but you just can't comprehend the idea that I'm not campaigning for Paul Ryan. I'm trying to offer constructive criticism like I always have since the beginning.
Whenever I'm in any way critical of Occupy, there are certain people who go nuts with flaming me and trying to draw me into partisan squabbling. People who can't comprehend any kind of conversation about politics or the economy that isn't all about partisan squabbling. It's really incredibly sad.
2 trillion? nah. under $1 trillion over 10 years. thats all. insignificant.
They could've gotten $4trillion, but they FAILED!
The bill directly specified $917 billion in cuts over 10 years, maybe that's what you're thinking of. That meant $21 billion cut from the 2012 budget. Then the failure of the super-committee triggered an additional $1.2 trillion in cuts.
A group aimed at cutting the federal budget managed to get over two trillion dollars cut from the budget and you're calling that failure? By your standards Occupy is not just a failure, it's an abysmal joke of a failure that never even got started. I mean, if cutting trillions is "failure" when that's your goal, then what do you call accomplishing nothing at all?
That wacko Rand Paul was elected in Kentucky. this is an accomplishment? Angle LOST! Haley is repub fr S Carolina,
How is this a big deal?
Tea party is hurting the country and the Repub party.. Their election succeses are only ever in conjunction with huge anonymous political donations from koch heads and corp 1% plutocrats.
It was an accomplishment for them. I keep explaining the same thing over and over to you. I don't have to support the Tea Party to point to them as an organization that has been effective at advancing their agenda.
More insults. No I'm not dumb. I don't agree with you that the Tea party was successful. I disagree that OWS is unsuccessful.
It's not a matter of intelligence, It is a matter of opinion and perspective.
I value the dialogue and mood of the country that OWS has captured. You think electing candidates and pushing a bad agenda is successful.
Please refrain from insulting me.
Just don't respond. We don't need to discuss it any further.
You want to pretend I am making it about reaganomics, Bush, Ryan. but I ain't mentioned these things.
I simply disagree with you on whether the tea party or OWS is successful.
And further I do not believe you when you say you don;t support the tea party. I believe you do.
That's all. Does that help you understand a little better.?
Picking up on some new lingo huh? lol
Well then you have full proven something about your intelligence to me because whether or not I support the Tea Party (I don't) is irrelevant to what I was trying to say. You spent all day talking to me but you still have no idea what I was trying to say because you're so intent on pigeonholing me as a Tea Partier instead of participating in the conversation. Every time you reply you just seem dumber because you still don't get that.
"shiny things"? you startin with insults? Slurs about my intelligence.
I've given you solid logic as to why I disagree with you on the success of the tea party. Same thing with OWS.
We disagree. Stop trying to convince me I'm wrong. Doyou think if you say the same thing over & over I will miraculously change my mind?
Do you think if you insult me I will change my mind?
I won't. I know I'm right. Tea party= failure, OWS = success.
Let's agree to disagree.
Peace.
Good luck in all your good efforts.
If I were to openly insult you right now, I doubt that you would even understand me. I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't even read it. I would bet on you replying with something about how wrong the Tea Party is. GOP. Paul Ryan. Ayn Rand. George W Bush. Reaganomics.
I ain't mentioned the election. YOU have mentioned how successful TP has been getting their guys ELECTED. & how great they have done in congress.
I'm saying OWS has had more success w/o politics. So YOU are talkin more about elections than me.
So don't talk I don't care. But I ain't saying vote , or elections. You are.
You've been telling me all day that the Tea Party is wrong, to the point of not comprehending anything that I was trying to say. You're so preoccupied with partisan squabbling, which I can only assume is because of the election, that you're not even capable of having a conversation about anything else. It's been interesting but think about how fatiguing it is to repeat the same thing over and over in different ways to somebody and have them ignore it all day because they're distracted by a shiny object in their peripheral vision.
OWS is accomplishing more with less. The right wing effort has been going on for 30 years. OWS started 1 year ago and is a real challenge to the corp 1% agenda.
Don't you get it? We've already won without even trying. Wait until we are trying. Then your tea party will be toast (no jam) LOL
The phrase "your tea party" proves to me that you're not even reading what I post, so I don't see any point in continuing to talk to you about it. You're fundamentally not capable of comprehending that I don't support the Tea Party and that I'm pointing to them as an example of what Occupy could have been. You've got your Election 2012 boxing gloves on and that's all that you can understand.
I ain't trying to turn it into anything. It IS the right wing 1% corp plutocrats who created the tea party to cover their anti people agenda.
And it IS the left wing that has embraced the rhetoric of OWS whether Occupy likes it or not.
It IS what it is. It ain't about me makin it anything. It's maybe about some who pretend it is not Left & Right.
Does your delusion go that far? You don't acknowledge the political spectrum.? You can't recognize which groups are controlled by which party or which ideology embraces which movement?
Let go your doubt and open your mind. Much can be accomplished if you can see the truth of how the people are challenged by the corps.
Fascinating. Truly fascinating. You take every single post and turn it into a left-versus-right thing. You and shooz. Both of you really have a talent for looking at the world through Republicans-all-suck lenses.
One of the things that I tried to point out to you today is that Occupy is never going to achieve big goals like getting the money out of politics if it can't transcend that false dichotomy. I'm 100% sure that you didn't understand and that you're going to respond with something about how the right is wrong.
the corp 1% repubs are not advancing their agenda. They failed at stopping the establishment of healthcare as a right. They failed to stop the progressive efforts against coal. Or new fin regs. They may have watered down or slowed these actions. But they haven't stopped them. So they have been utter failures.
MoooHa ha ha ha ha!
You're trying really hard to turn this into a left-versus-right argument, when I'm trying to talk about something else entirely. That's pretty much what I expect to happen on this site so I guess that's no surprise.
Less than a trillion over 10 years is nothing! That is ridiculous. That is what they accomplished?. What a joke! they could've gotten 4 trillion but they wouldn't raise the 1% taxes. So THAT is the failure.
Understand?
No I'm sorry but I don't understand how that absolves Occupy of the need to actually accomplish things. You've got a lot of nasty things to say about the Tea Party and I agree with a lot of them. But the fact remains that they're in Washington advancing their agenda and Occupy is not. Whether the Tea Partiers are all scumbags or not is irrelevant.
They haven't cut any measurable money from the budget. You are making things up in your feeble attempt to assign success to the corp 1% repub party.
Bush left us $1.4 trillion annual deficit, Pres Obama cut it to $ 1.2 trillion, before the tea party ever existed.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 cut $917 billion in discretionary spending and capped it for the next 10 years, so that Congress can't spend more without a super-majority vote. The super-committee failed, which triggers another $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. The spending cuts are greater than the amount that the debt ceiling was increased.
You don't consider that a success, for a group aimed at lowering federal spending?
You are mistaken. they have gotten repubs who support their corp agenda, but it ain't the tea party accomplishment. It is the corp 1% accomplishment who have created and used the tea party to do it.
Get it? The tea party is just a fake grass roots movement that was created by the corp 1% plutocrats to give them cover.
People do not take to corp agenda if it is honestly presented. OWS is uncovering the fallacy that the corp agenda is somehow a grass roots people centric agenda.
OWS has pulled away the curtain from the corp 1% fake grass roots tea party and said the 1% are screwing the 99%.
Tea party is failing because OWS has made it possible to say out loud the corps have taken over and we must fight back.
Trillions of dollar in federal budget cuts for a group that set out to make the federal budget smaller is not what I would call "failing". If you'd like to stick your head in the sand and pretend that your political opponents are not succeeding when they actually are then that's your prerogative. But your conspiracy theories aren't going to undo the budget cuts that they achieved.
Making weapons and using them are 2 totally different things. Those companies you listed employ a ton of Americans, and they are often very good jobs. A strong military for defense is great for the economy. Using your military for offensive measures, as we do far too frequently, is where the problem is.
If we drastically cut military spending what would you say to the hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of people who would lose their jobs?
put them to work teaching or building
I am sure that would go over well with the millions of people who's lives and jobs would be up ended.
Fortunately for them, whether Obama or Romney wins, they will still have 4 more years of solid work ahead of them because they will both continue America's aggression overseas.
We need a change in foreign policy, not in military spending. Two completely different things.
There's a difference between enough military spending to keep us safe and the bloated budget we supply to the MID.
yea ben you need to decide for everyone what they should do.........all hail bens idea of what we shold all do......
" A strong military for defense is great for the economy."
Huh!?!
How is wasting hundreds of billion of dollars every year on producing weapons - something nobody has any interest in consuming - good for the economy?
Employing people to produce something nobody wants to consume is pointless. Using your logic, employing people in high paying jobs to dig holes and then to fill those holes in would be good for the economy.
All those workers in defense should be employed producing something we actually want to consume like homes, electronics, infrastructure, etc.
hospitals, lightrail and power pants could employ those people
So COULD a thousand other professions. Is that really what you would tell these people who have good secure jobs in a time when such a thing is becoming so rare? That they are going to go to a hospital and wipe someone's ass or push around a gurney? You can't just take a couple million people working in one industry and throw them in another industry and expect them all to get jobs.
We don't need a big change in our military spending, we need a change in our foreign policy.
Well, we've actually witnessed these things many times in the past; defense cuts have put hundreds of thousands out of work nationwide. On Long Island, for example, in the early 1990s, we lost 100,000 defense jobs - those jobs could not be replaced because they involve specific skills. One either takes lesser employment or relocates to find similar employment but very few ever recover financially. Assets are impacted, too - housing markets are flooded, employee investment plans tank, etc.
And yet the military budget is much larger since the '90's. They employ much more than they did when they cut grumman on LI.
How do you explain that. Could it be that the MIC has been transfering jobs to red states to placate the repub support for the war machine?
NY is solid Dem blue. MIC will not help our state. If you live in NY and you are repub you are in a state that repubs and the MIC hate!
Good luck in all your good efforts.
Peace!
Uhh, yes and no - when Reagan was president, he wanted those jobs in CA; Bush and Cheney wanted them in red states and that's exactly where they went.
Our military science and tech is incredible today... as America's access to world resources continues to dwindle, more and more will eventually be employed by the defense and related industries. But putting them on a temporary unemployment line while dismantling manufacturing and engineering ability is not a good thing.
I'm for cutting the Military budget but would cut the jobs last. How we do that, I'm not sure. But an effort must be made to minimize job cuts while cutting the budget.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/September/Pages/BudgetControlActof2011ForcesRealCutstoDefense,andDifficultChoices.aspx
Thanks. Interesting article. I think national security can take the big cuts that will help cut the deficit. & the deficit/debt is a national security issue right? So it makes sense to cut military spending for the sake of security, right?
Time to draw down. Is that you point in sending this article?
You sounded exactly like a Tea Partier just now. MR VQKAG2, ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, A MEMBER OF THE TEA PARTY?!?
I posted that for you to show you that the defense cuts that you're proposing have already been enacted, after the debt ceiling debate last year, due to the budget control act. Since it became clear yesterday that you were unaware of all of that happening.
So you support defense cuts or not?
If I say yes then are you going to go back to accusing me of being a tea bagger?
You really made my morning with that last post BTW. After a day of accusing me of being a tea bagger for typing the words "Tea Party", you end up spouting Tea Party slogans about the debt being a national security issue, and cuts being necessary for national security. WHICH IS THE TEA PARTY PLATFORM. So funny.
So do you support cutting defense or not?
I understand that we're ridiculously over extended, yea. This is partly the result of the advance of our tech which requires us to continuously explore each and every new possibility that presents itself as the result of that tech; we're trying to maintain our edge over others.
This is what happens when you seek prosperity; this is what happens when you become a military power; this is what happens when you don't want the British Empire to eat you alive. It's an incremental thing.
Maybe. I don't think I would argue with that, I think also though that we are now the preeminent power on the planet, We don't need all that we have militarily.
We need to draw down. We should also find a way to eliminate all Nuclear weapons. Just dangerous and expensive door stops for the last 60 years.
I think if we're to sneak into Iran, Korea, Taiwan, under cover of radar... and be successful in these places, we're going to very much need our tech.
We can very easily eliminate all nuclear weapons - simply create a better option - but this will require our defense industries, our science, and our tech.
Well, I think we will always be the leader in military tech. No one is really close. No one has anything like our remote drones, & we're working on naval drones, ground drones...... etc
Let me stop droning on. LoL
Regarding the stuff below about cyber warfare, are you aware that Russia paralyzed the entire country of Estonia for days with a cyber attack? Bank cards, mobile phones, media, all of it was totally shut down for days. We only know that the Russians did it because they admitted it. And you heard about what they did to Georgia?
Have you ever heard of Titan Rain? The largest cyber attack in history was not launched by the US. We were the target. The Chinese were probably the attackers, but we'll never know for sure.
The problem with cyber warfare is that attacking is really easy but defending is nearly impossible. You say that nobody does tech better than the US, but the problem is that nobody anywhere knows how to defend a wired country like the US against a state-sponsored cyber attack. Which is why the entire concept of cyber warfare is much more dangerous to the US than to our potential opponents who are less vulnerable.
Oooooo! I'm scared. Whatever shall we do?
In my post below I wasn't talking about a US cyber attack. I was talking about US defense against a cyber attack. The thing about cyber warfare is that attacking is really easy, defending is very difficult, figuring out who attacked you is nearly impossible, and the US is the most vulnerable target in the world.
The risk is that we get attacked and we misidentify the attacker. A Russian or Iranian cyber attack might be disguised to look like it came from China. If our policy is to respond to cyber attacks with kinetic attacks, and if we can't be sure who is attacking us, then that creates a very real risk of a global, three-way kinetic-and-cyber war. That would be WWIII.
FYI: One of the Obama Administration's key military policy decisions was that the US does reserve the right to respond to a cyber attack with a kinetic attack. This was above the strenuous objections of cyber war policy experts like Richard Clarke, on the grounds that it increases the risk of WWIII.
Oh and footnote: I would place the Russians above the US in terms of cyber warfare capability. They have already shut down entire countries to practice their abilities. We haven't ever done anything like that.
You're mistaken about the Russians cyber superiority. Sorry. No one does tech better than the US.
But I guess we can't agree on everything.
You're assuming that our military will always be playing the same game against the same opponents. The Chinese military is working at least as hard as our military on the problems of the next century. Cyber warfare, satellite-killing missiles, and that kind of thing.
WWIII will probably not involve drones, it will probably involve a false-flag cyber attack against the US that will provoke a kinetic response against the wrong opponent.
No one is better at cyber attacks than us. TheChinese just bought a used naval vessal from an old soviet republic.
Are you really worried about China's military?
What we're really working on is artificial intelligence.
I think our current military intelligence is kinda artificial. But I hear ya'. You're right, we are.
building bombs 'til bunkers boil
getting paid for shell filled toil
if I am to work tomorrow
lobe the load on foreign soil
wow you can copy/paste......
yes, poetry I wrote
.
Widow Winchester's riffle wealth warped her house.
Stairs to ceilings. Windows to walls.
Always slept in a new room,
hiding from shot souls
http://allpoetry.com/poem/9979527-Widow_Winchesters_riffle_wealth_warped_her_house._-by-Matt_Holck
Why post that to a thread that started out so partiean? Remember when Obama was the anti-war candidate? Before he killed all of those people with robot drones, kept the war in Afghanistan alive, and decided to keep Guantanamo open?
no I only remember he came from nowhere
no one had heard of him
and suddenly comes this great "hope"
he was dressed like a puppet from the start
Obama seems to give the free stuff to people and this redistribution strategy fits with the majority of OWS. This idea sure beats working for a living. Does the OWS website come from the Dem server?
They've been part of it from the beginning.
It's my first time back here in months and I'd say that they own it now.
You are being weird TJ, all this based on your idea that the picture is partisan?? OWS is NOT "just Obama" - see the thread on Rocky
I'm still pondering the phrase "your idea that the picture is partisan". I'm trying to come up with a possible non-partisan interpretation of a picture of Paul Ryan masturbating to a picture of Ayn Rand. I'm wondering about the motivations and credibility of a person who would refute the "partisan" label for something like that.
After some reflection... you appear to be proving my point.
Well gee, ya, its safe to say we are NOT Republican supporters, but you proposed that "Occupy apparently officially became a part of the Obama 2012 campaign?" Not necessarily, maybe Rocky, maybe Independants... but ya, ok, the picture refers to Republicans
ryan ?
yes, hello, who is there?