America is a great place, but its not perfect.
LOL... I was about to post that last quote from the video when I saw the le of this thread.
What collapsing empire looks like
By Glenn Greenwald
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As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay. But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make. This is a sampling of what one finds:
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further -- it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.
There are some lovely photos accompanying the article, including one showing what a darkened street in Colorado looks like as a result of not being able to afford street lights. Read the article to revel in the details of this widespread misery. Meanwhile, the tiniest sliver of the wealthiest -- the ones who caused these problems in the first place -- continues to thrive. Let's recall what former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson said last year in The Atlantic about what happens in under-developed and developing countries when an elite-caused financial crises ensues:
Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or -- here's a classic Kremlin bailout technique -- the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large.
The real question is whether the American public is too apathetic and trained into submission for that to ever happen.
UPDATE: It's probably also worth noting this Wall St. Journal article from last month -- with a subheadline warning: "Back to Stone Age" -- which describes how "paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue." Utah is seriously considering eliminating the 12th grade, or making it optional. And it was announced this week that "Camden [New Jersey] is preparing to permanently shut its library system by the end of the year, potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the United States unable to borrow a library book free."
Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability? Anyway, I just wanted to leave everyone with some light and cheerful thoughts as we head into the weekend.
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America is ed, and un able.
The Repugs and conservatives enabled the victory of the wealthy class over the non-wealthy, as Warren Buffet admitted.
The wealthy own DC, and they own the lying, supine media that need the wealthy's advertising, so there is no way to deconcentrate the wealth sucked out of the lower 95%.
The govt is nothing but a hired, d proxy acting on the behalf of the wealthy to amass further wealth and power.
Sure, though the one party ing is a bit tired as a meme. It's bipartisan all the way.
A wiser man than I, I can't remember who and don't care, once said:
"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt too."
Or something similar. Which is cliche and holds true and needs to be considered and appreciated in these obviously afflicted times. Especially in the aftermath of George W. Bush.
I philosophically agree and don't think the problem lies with political parties. Rather, humans.
But you play the hand you're dealt.
Last edited by balli; 08-07-2010 at 10:35 PM.
Democrats and Republicans are Crips and Bloods in suits and smiles. Two sides of the same coin.
"the one party ing is a bit tired as a meme. It's bipartisan all the way"
I'm not absolving the Dems. They are guilty of passively acquiescing to the conservative/Repug VRWC and of being bought out of the way of the VRWC campaign.
Tell us which Dems initiated rampant deregulation,
which Dems have constantly attacked EPA and OSHA
which Dems repeatedly cut taxes for the rich until the rich pay a lower %age, eg Bufftet paying 17% tax, than the lower 95%?
etc, etc.
All of them. I know, your Dems are the party standing up to the evil rich, or whatever.
Yep.
He perfectly describes the friends of Obama, Kerry, and others. Just look at how many people George Soros buys alone.
head, he's talking about your party too.
The only defense the right-wingers have for Repugs is that they are no worse than the Dems, that the Dems are just as bad.
It's part of the total lie of Repug politics. "We're , but the Dems are , too".
It simply ain't true. Make list of all the incredible the Repugs and their hate-media have been throwing. You simply can't make a similar list for the Dems.
Show me anywhere that the Repugs have even the slightest interest in advancing ALL of America, have any interest in actually governing, aren't totally white and racist and exclusionary. You can't. There is no such evidence.
It's pretty simple.
Reps will screw over everything for the greenbacks, but they couldn't care less about you also getting the greenbacks in the process - i.e., every man for himself.
Dems want a government class and everyone else underneath them in a controllable herd. They too will screw over everything for the greenbacks while also screwing you out of any opportunity to gain wealth as well.
Carlin basically says life is hard, it. I guess we should all turn to alcohol and drugs like Aristotle up there huh? Just study history to realize how good we all have it. American Dream is a dream, lmao. I've seen people achieve it irl all around me. Carlin is one of the best (RIP), but cry me a ing river brah.
Mouse wheel American Dream still beats being a slave or dying of the plague.
So Boutons..we get that you hate the USA. it's clear in every post you vomit.The only defense the right-wingers have for Repugs is that they are no worse than the Dems, that the Dems are just as bad.
It's part of the total lie of Repug politics. "We're , but the Dems are , too".
It simply ain't true. Make list of all the incredible the Repugs and their hate-media have been throwing. You simply can't make a similar list for the Dems.
Show me anywhere that the Repugs have even the slightest interest in advancing ALL of America, have any interest in actually governing, aren't totally white and racist and exclusionary. You can't. There is no such evidence.
So, of the 192 member nations of the UN, which one do you actually approve of?
You're the head.
I don't belong to a party.
"Dems want government class and everyone else underneath them in a controllable herd. They too will screw over everything for the greenbacks while also screwing you out of any opportunity to gain wealth as well."
Bull , the typical false equivalence used by right-wing dumb s to try to put the extremist nutcase Repugs on the same level as Dems. Absolute bull .
"Carlin basically says life is hard"
Carlin says the obvious. The America is rigged, America was bought, sold, delivered, owned. Democracy is total fraud.
Obvious? Maybe. Perceptions, absolutly!
I think George is great. Been a fan of his comedy for decades. But is is a comedian. That doesn't make things so, and he may not even believe the words himself.
"we get that you hate the USA"
And you're wrong, as always. Do you right-wing ers EVER get anything right?
The way the wealthy class has ed America is to be hated. The myth of America was a great idea, but even the FFs knew the capitalists, bankers, corporations were and would always be serious threat. The threat is now realized and there's no way of stopping the oligarchs now.
The only defense against oligarchic takeover was the govt, but the oligarchs, the VRWC, faked out a good percentage of ignorant Americans that the the oligarchs' enemy, the govt, is really the enemy, when the real enemy is the oligarchs.
So where in the world would you like to live since the USA got it so terribly wrong?
You're as textbook a Republican as there is.
War monger? Check
Racist who wants to shoot Mexicans at the border and who doesn't want a black doctor? Check
Hypocrite who says he supports the cons ution but has no respect for individual liberties? Check
Partisan who blames every problem in the country on the Democrats? Check
Person in delusion who thinks the idiot Palin s gold bricks and is the savior of our nation? Check
Last edited by baseline bum; 08-08-2010 at 03:21 PM.
WC is RICO, Repug In Checklist Only
As Shakespeare said, a turd is a turd is aturd, by any name would smell the same.
you are a dumbass.....both parties do one job really well....they get each other elected.
if the DNC and GOP were corporations...they would be in violation of every anti-trust law on the books...
and what happens when only a few companies corner a market??????
COLLUSION
you ers better start thinking with a clear mind.....lets not get duped anymore.
You act as if I am oblivious to this. I am not. So tell me, what is your plan of reversing it?
Speak for yourself. I'm not being duped. I just have no power to change it. Do you?COLLUSION
you ers better start thinking with a clear mind.....lets not get duped anymore.
Just for the record, you're conflating Shakespeare with Gertrude Stein
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