Today is the day for Fox News commentator Glenn Beck to share his dream on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
King delivered his “I Have A Dream” exactly 47 years ago and will now be the scene of Beck and his followers offering their own “dream.” The article below describes supporters wearing telltale teeshirts with Palin’s name that the legend “Babies, Guns, Jesus.”
Here is another tee-shirt from the rally:
Some accounts are almost biblical of Beck’s role in reshaping America. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey explained “[w]e see Glenn Beck as a guy who is bringing revelations of understanding to the American people.”
Revelations by St. Beck will commence this afternoon.
Source: Bloomberg
There’s a solid core of bigots and haters captive to their ignorances and willful stupidities who will be represented by those who will attend Glen Beck’s self-aggrandizing fiasco at the Lincoln memorial today. Basically Beck is taking a dump on the Memorial steps and defiling the entire civil rights movement and legacy of both Lincoln and Dr King.
I think it would be instructive to see what happened if the majority of the population of Washington DC showed up at the rally to listen to Beck’s words. They would at minimum add a little color to the event. Do you think he might pick and choose different words than he has presently planned? Flash mob anyone?
I rather enjoyed Jon Stewart ripping on Glenn Beck: ‘I Have A Scheme’.
The best thing one can say about Glenn Beck is he’s demonstrably insane. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people not getting proper mental health care in this country who own televisions.
This is a moment of paradoxical feelings for me personally. As Dr. King is indeed one of my heroes, I don’t want Chuckle Head Beck to do anything to disgrace the legacy of a wise teacher. Conversely and concurrently, I’ll be watching the news coverage of this today with all the same expectations of a NASCAR fan waiting for an accident.
Check out this bit of prime theocratic lunatic raving:
“We are 12 hours away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” Beck said, according to the Post. “It has nothing to do with this city or politics. It has everything to do with God almighty.”
“This is the beginning of the great awakening of America … We must give voice to what God says we must do,” he added. “My message to you tonight is stand where He wants you to stand and trust in the Lord. If He tells you to do it, do it. If you can’t figure it out, He will. Just do it.”
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38891505/ns/politics-more_politics/
That last bit there confuses me a bit but then again Glenn seems confused to start with. That or he worships Nike.
This is only one example for me,If I didn’t know better I swear I went to bed and woke up back in the 50s and 60s:
Miss. school drops race-based rules for student elections
Under former district policy, some class positions rotated by race each year .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38880820/ns/us_news-life/
Wow. More madness from the above linked article, but from Palin.
“Palin, who is expected to speak at Saturday’s rally, had a similar message for a sell-out crowd at the annual fund-raising banquet of the Pennsylvania Family Institute Friday.
“What else do we have, at the end of the day,” beyond faith in God, Palin said, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“You’re not afraid to cling to your guns and your religion — and your Constitution,” she added, echoing remarks by President Barack Obama in 2008 during campaigning.”
One problem with that Caribou Barbie. It’s not your Constitution, it’s our Constitution and it says quite plainly that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
America was not founded for Christians only, you illiterate redneck, and that Constitution you try to hide behind prohibits your attempts at being America a theocracy. If you like theocracy so much, how about taking your smirking wink to Saudi Arabia and see how long it takes for them to beat it off your face because you’re not subservient enough and dress like high end call girl.
And beck has help,so he thinks.
How Alveda King is turning MLK’s ‘dream’ into a nightmare
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
11:57 AM on 08/27/2010
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/mlks-niece-turns-a-beautiful-dream-into-a-nightmare.php
There are plenty of candidates who want to lead the crazies … there is nothing we need to do about that except sit back, watch the show, and then replay it with appropriate commentary … over and over again.
Blouise
Exactly! This, too, shall pass.
So far, no signs – just T-shirts. And flags. Lots and lots of flags. And lots of security for Mr. Beck. When we see the pictures of those T-shirts, we will see “America’s restored honor” – whatever that means.
And Ms. Palin wasn’t there as a politician – she said so.
This rally is nothing more than a big ego feed for Beck and the lackeys that will be there speaking. I’ll be watching Rachel Zoe instead of Beck. Watching Naomi Campbell being a bitch is better…at least she’s honest about who she is.
Buckeye,
I hope this too shall pass, but I’m not so sure.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/noam_chomsky_has_never_seen_anything_like_this_20100419/
This, too, shall pass.
Think again
FFN,
The crazies, or “street republicans”, as a friend of mine calls them (he likens videos of the teabaggers to the videos of the street arabs we used to see), will always, in one form or another, be with us.
I read the link you posted and there is much therein with which I agree but I do not reach the same conclusion as Chomsky. In fact, he sounds very much like the frightened radical right in the conclusions he makes.
In Germany during the 30′s middle class citizens were actually starving as in no food to eat and no jobs to be found. Inflation was through the roof and crime was rampant. Dead bodies at the side of the road were a common sight … many having succumbed to starvation. Chomsky’s conclusion that our society is in the same dire straights as the German society during the 30′s is Beck/Hannity/Palin/Rush style fear mongering.
Here’s another video to brighten your day! I love Stephen Colbert!!!
Is there too much inbreeding in the GObP? One seems to think that 6 fingers on one hand adds up to five if you bend one down. Talking about being bend over…..
Take Rubio..and the GobP…
So it’s come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper’s supply-side tax cuts, announced that the “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.” The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply “disastrous.”
And that’s just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:
* Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
* Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
* Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
* Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Add to the Deficit
* Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
* Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
* Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
* Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
* Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
* Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/10-republican-lies-about-bush-tax-cuts
For detailed explanations of the above see the link……
Note Bdaman’s post and the “Think again” quote … it’s perfect right wing fear mongering … the crazies love this stuff and the republican party churns it out non-stop.
Chomsky would probably see Bdaman as a Goebbels wannabe hoping to gain appointment as Reich Minister of Propaganda when the teabaggers take over the country. When in actuality Bdaman is nothing more than a loyal republican doing his best to lead the crazies in the direction most advantageous to his own self interest. If they get him there he will drop them as quickly as the religious right was dropped.
It’s fun to watch the costume changes!
I am sorry, is the GObP made up of nothing but Bustards. I sometimes confuse my vowels…..
AY
And we love you for it!
Here’s a song for you:
Glenn Beck Scares Me
AY,
I echo your statements about the Republicans and their fear mongering over the end of their precious tax cuts for the wealthy. Paul Krugman’s op ed several days ago put a figure to what each millionaire would get out of extending their tax cuts. It amounted to $3 Million dollars each! I wonder how many of the tea baggers are in that category?!
Blouise
In Germany during the 30′s middle class citizens were actually starving as in no food to eat and no jobs to be found. Inflation was through the roof and crime was rampant. Dead bodies at the side of the road were a common sight … many having succumbed to starvation. Chomsky’s conclusion that our society is in the same dire straights as the German society during the 30′s is Beck/Hannity/Palin/Rush style fear mongering.
——————————————————–
Exactly right. Though the job market is poor, no one in my family has lost a job and there are about 60 of them between 20 & 45 – and they live in Michigan.
The other problems are not here, and not likely to be here. People may die from lack of health insurance, but not from starvation. Inflation is less likely than deflation.
My biggest fear is the attempted takeover of the military by theocrats. Whoever controls the military controls the way any significant political turmoil ends. This has been true from Rome through the French Revolution to the Yeltsin’s rise in the Soviet Union.
The loudest voices, Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin, Beck are all easy to see through and obvious demagogues. They are who I mean in “This, too, shall pass”. Mr. Chomsky is correct in that they always do themselves in, eventually.
More sinister are those Machiavellian characters with the money and power to really determine outcomes through propaganda and election fraud. The internet is a powerful tool to expose these characters – as long as it is not abused or bought out as some of the major news sources may have been.
People are growing weary and leary of the constant distractions of nonsense controversies like the Rev. Wright, the ground zero mosque, and Ms. Sherrod’s speech.
The best solution is a good education grounded in civic rights and duties starting in grade school. With a healthy emphasis on our country’s past demagogues, their tools, their rise and their fall. The people that think Mr. Beck is so smart and educated have obviously not had that privilege.
Elaine,
A minstrel keeps the bardic tradition alive!
Buckeye,
I agree with you completely.
I also agree with Chomsky’s opinion that we do need to beware of an honest charismatic figure taking hold of these people … and by honest I don’t think he means someone who is morally honest for that kind of an individual would not want to lead these folk, but rather a charismatic figure who doesn’t lie. If such a person appears on the scene then we have a real problem which we would not be able to simply dismiss.
Your point: “More sinister are those Machiavellian characters with the money and power to really determine outcomes through propaganda and election fraud. The internet is a powerful tool to expose these characters – as long as it is not abused or bought out as some of the major news sources may have been.” is well made.
These persons fly under the radar and are more of a threat than 100 Glen Becks. In fact, it is my opinion that much of the hype over Beck and his fellow performers is purposeful and aimed at disguising the true nature of what both parties are actually doing. Rather than railing against Beck and Palin, we should be looking behind the curtain for there is the stage upon which the real players are acting.
Excellent analysis Blouise.
P.S. it’s hats. costumes take to long.
Definitive proof there is no God – there was not a giant meteor or lightning strike the wipe this cesspool of vermin off the face of the earth.
What worries me is that the brown shirts & SA were only a small group of shitheads in a large population. They never won a single election, never had a majority of the government and never offered a real alternative to the German people. But they did enough to put the pieces in place to destroy the country and drag the world into hell.
Bdaman,
I might give you the hat correction as long as you don’t insist that one of them is a “thinking” hat or that none of them are hat-”tricks” or that wearing many hats is a political necessity.
Personally, I found the straw hat with teabag fringe to be the most alluring.
But reconsider your correction for just a moment. It is true that many hats make changing easier and luggage lighter but these persons you lead are not particularly known for their quick thinking or agile intellect … it takes them ages to go from one thought to the next … you have lots of time between sentences to do a complete costume change … probably make up and hair also. One could go from Uncle Sam yelling “No, you can’t take our guns!” to soccer mom yelling “The homos want to destroy our marriages!” to rancher Tex yelling “Protect our borders!” to Joe the Plumber yelling “No mosque at Ground Zero!” to stupid old lady yelling “Obama is a Muslim!” to …..
Well, you get the drift … they’d be wowed, over the moon … and you would be the new republican star.
I don’t know … hats just seems so … Willy Lomanish.
P.S. You’ll need an agent
Elaine M.
That video was so great I just had to pass it on. Thanks!
What a number of you are missing is that Beck represents what most legal US Citizens feel (maybe not anchor babies). We Americans have valid points of view that don’t agree with yours. Live with it. Let’s try to come to a compromise and move on with free enterprise instead of a eurosocial system that just doesn’t fit in with what has worked well.
You may disagree, you may feel that you are way smarter than the rest of us and know what is better for us. Don’t think that way. don’t be so condescending. Let’s do what’s great for fair free enterprise, keep the federal govt small, make the feds secure the borders and administer immigration law sanely (not just for votes). Let’s have work for our citizens in conventional and “green” energy development by developing our lands smartly to become energy self sufficient. More work, smaller government, less taxes, energy independent. What can be better? Come on. Let’s wise up.
“There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.
Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.
All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.
Only the fat cats change — not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government “handouts” to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly). Even the sources of their fortunes remain fairly constant. Koch Industries began with oil in the 1930s and now also spews an array of industrial products, from Dixie cups to Lycra, not unlike DuPont’s portfolio of paint and plastics. Sometimes the biological DNA persists as well. The Koch brothers’ father, Fred, was among the select group chosen to serve on the Birch Society’s top governing body. In a recorded 1963 speech that survives in a University of Michigan archive, he can be heard warning of “a takeover” of America in which Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.” That rant could be delivered as is at any Tea Party rally today.
Last week the Kochs were shoved unwillingly into the spotlight by the most comprehensive journalistic portrait of them yet, written by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. Her article caused a stir among those in Manhattan’s liberal elite who didn’t know that David Koch, widely celebrated for his cultural philanthropy, is not merely another rich conservative Republican but the founder of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which, as Mayer writes with some understatement, “has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception.” To New Yorkers who associate the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet, it’s startling to learn that the Texas branch of that foundation’s political arm, known simply as Americans for Prosperity, gave its Blogger of the Year Award to an activist who had called President Obama “cokehead in chief.”
The other major sponsor of the Tea Party movement is Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, which, like Americans for Prosperity, is promoting events in Washington this weekend. Under its original name, Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundations. Using tax records, Mayer found that Koch-controlled foundations gave out $196 million from 1998 to 2008, much of it to conservative causes and institutions. That figure doesn’t include $50 million in Koch Industries lobbying and $4.8 million in campaign contributions by its political action committee, putting it first among energy company peers like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Since tax law permits anonymous personal donations to nonprofit political groups, these figures may understate the case. The Kochs surely match the in-kind donations the Tea Party receives in free promotion 24/7 from Murdoch’s Fox News, where both Beck and Palin are on the payroll.
The New Yorker article stirred up the right, too. Some of Mayer’s blogging detractors unwittingly upheld the premise of her article (titled “Covert Operations”) by conceding that they have been Koch grantees. None of them found any factual errors in her 10,000 words. Many of them tried to change the subject to George Soros, the billionaire backer of liberal causes. But Soros is a publicity hound who is transparent about where he shovels his money. And like many liberals — selflessly or foolishly, depending on your point of view — he supports causes that are unrelated to his business interests and that, if anything, raise his taxes.
This is hardly true of the Kochs. When David Koch ran to the right of Reagan as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket (it polled 1 percent), his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools — in other words, any government enterprise that would either inhibit his business profits or increase his taxes. He hasn’t changed. As Mayer details, Koch-supported lobbyists, foundations and political operatives are at the center of climate-science denial — a cause that forestalls threats to Koch Industries’ vast fossil fuel business. While Koch foundations donate to cancer hospitals like Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Koch Industries has been lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying another product important to its bottom line, formaldehyde, as a “known carcinogen” in humans (which it is).
Tea Partiers may share the Kochs’ detestation of taxes, big government and Obama. But there’s a difference between mainstream conservatism and a fringe agenda that tilts completely toward big business, whether on Wall Street or in the Gulf of Mexico, while dismantling fundamental government safety nets designed to protect the unemployed, public health, workplace safety and the subsistence of the elderly.
Yet inexorably the Koch agenda is morphing into the G.O.P. agenda, as articulated by current Republican members of Congress, including the putative next speaker of the House, John Boehner, and Tea Party Senate candidates like Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and the new kid on the block, Alaska’s anti-Medicaid, anti-unemployment insurance Palin protégé, Joe Miller. Their program opposes a federal deficit, but has no objection to running up trillions in red ink in tax cuts to corporations and the superrich; apologizes to corporate malefactors like BP and derides money put in escrow for oil spill victims as a “slush fund”; opposes the extension of unemployment benefits; and calls for a freeze on federal regulations in an era when abuses in the oil, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries (among others) have been outrageous.”
From The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party by Frank Rich
———
“You may disagree, you may feel that you are way smarter than the rest of us and know what is better for us. Don’t think that way. don’t be so condescending.”
irony \ˈī-rə-nē also ˈī(-ə)r-nē\, n.,
1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
oxymoron \ˌäk-sē-ˈmȯr-ˌän\, n.,
: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements
moron \ˈmȯr-ˌän\, n.,
1:usually offensive : a person affected with mild mental retardation
2: a very stupid person
puppet \ˈpə-pət\, n.,
3: one whose acts are controlled by an outside force or influence (a puppet ruler)
I notice some of the news media used low shots with telephoto lenses. That technique “compresses” the crowd, making the people look as if they are closer together. Also, the low angle hides the fact there were lots of open spaces between people, many of whom had lawn chairs, blankets and picnic gear. Some bloggers have posted photos taken within the crowd and those “inside the crowd” pictures make the gathering look more like a tailgate party at a football game than anything else. Sorry Big Media, Glenbeckiscam did not draw much of a crowd, as gatherings on the Mall go. Use all the hyperbole and photo tricks you want, Big Media, but the truth will find its way out.
“Let’s do what’s great for fair free enterprise”–Geeba
Geeba
Liberals do not need, nor will we stand for, lectures from conservatives on America’s economy or it’s politics. Perhaps you’ve been asleep for the last 30 years while every concession possible has been given to promote free enterprise. Unbridled free enterprise has proven itself both not great and not fair. Pro-business, anti-citizen policies promoted, legislated and dictated since the Reagan era are the precise reason America and the world are in the financial mess it’s in. In fact, the world political scene replete with fanatic anti-American haters around the globe is directly tied to the Conservative world view of domination.
What you call “Eurosocial”, is actually the mainstream of the world. Only in America do you find decades of government policies joining with business interests to financially and socially break it’s own society. Thanks for the invitation, but we’ve already seen the self-destruction of continued support of the nobility against the people.
Glenn Beck, Geeba and all other conservatives should thank their stars they live in America. Given the damage they’ve done to America and our Constitution, they’re lucky they’re allowed to vote.
“What a number of you are missing is that Beck represents what most legal US Citizens feel (maybe not anchor babies).”
**********
I guess I’m missing that fact because some words were left out of Geeba Geeba’s statement. It should have read:
What a number of you are missing is that Beck represents what most gullible, uninformed legal US Citizens who love to watch FOX and listen to its personalities rant against Democrats and liberals and progressives–as well as listen to others like Limbaugh and Coulter and Savage who love to stir up right wingnuts–feel (maybe not anchor babies).
**********
Geeba Geeba,
A brief article about “anchor babies” for you:
From the Chicago Tribune (8/23/2010)
Terror babies, anchor babies and Beanie Babies. Oh my!
By Rex W. Huppke
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-23/news/ct-talk-terror-babies-0824-20100823_1_babies-pregnant-foreign-women-terror
Two groups of politicians have at last gathered the intestinal fortitude needed to thwart one of America’s greatest threats — babies.
The crusade began several weeks ago with the sudden rise in concern over “anchor babies,” the infant children of illegal immigrants who, by virtue of being born on U.S. soil, are automatically deemed citizens. An increasing number of politicians claim that preplanned, prenatal trickery is afoot. They believe these illegal immigrants — known as “parents” if you voted for Barack Obama or “criminals” if you didn’t — are using American-born offspring as stepping stones on the path toward U.S. citizenship.
Granted, the path is long. Children can’t sponsor their parents for citizenship until they turn 21. But what are a couple of decades to the people behind what Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham dubbed the “drop and leave” conspiracy? (“Drop and leave” is a play on the more-common “drop and stay” term embraced by all U.S. citizens who have gone through the swift and painless experience of childbirth.)
What intrigues me is why so many Americans hang on the words of a guy like Beck who has traveled a thousand miles past batshit crazy!
I get more than a little nauseated when I hear righties trying to claim they love and/or are protecting the Constitution. They want to stand on it and claim it as their own as they’ve attempted with the US flag and yet they have so little regard for it and its protections against the tyranny of the majority.
They surely didn’t have much love and respect for the Constitution when they were perfectly willing to disgard its protections against much of the Gestapo tactics of the Bush administration (wire tapping w/o warrents, suspending habeas corpus, Gitmo, etc.). They display similar disregard for the rights and freedoms it guarantees to brown-skinned American citizens and to Muslim Americans and now their target is American-born children.
Conservative hate America for its freedoms and thus deserve nothing more than our disgust and disdain.
Blouise another excellent analysis. You have hit the nail on the head twice.
For every action there is reaction and we are seeing the reaction now to the action of the media.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-Democrats-got-88-percent-of-TV-network-employee-campaign-contributions-101668063.html
The Beck Rally Is Harmless
by John Batchelor Info
John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles
X Close The Fox personality and Sarah Palin took the stage for a controversial rally on the Washington Mall today, but John Batchelor says that he is just a harmless entertainer—and his success is our failure to address real problems.
The celebrity Glenn Beck has organized a festive and apparently harmless public event for the Washington Mall that he calls “Restoring Honor.” This theme is so deeply bland that it invites us partisans to look for inner meaning, such as the fact that August 28 is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s revolutionary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, or such as Beck’s Fox News Channel seeking a low-budget reality show to sell for the dog days of summer programming.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-27/glenn-beck-restoring-honor-rally-is-harmless/?om_rid=MMAuZ5&om_mid=_BMeQrpB8UOiAQz
Bdaman,
Of course, the Washington Examiner is in no way a partisan/conservative paper…right???
I think this is fitting to the discussion and find it rather interesting.
“Well, in a way, left-handed people are smarter, and I’ll tell you why,” Dr. Oz says. “Left-handed people can deal with more incoming information that doesn’t come in an organized way.” Dr. Oz says this is because of the way the brain develops when a baby is in its mother’s womb. “The left brain normally controls your right side, which is really powerful,” he says. “[In left-handed people], it allows the other side, the right brain, to become an equal partner.”
Because left-handed people can use both sides of their brain more readily, Dr. Oz says, they can process information coming into their brain in different ways more easily. “That’s why athletes do so well when they’re left-handed. And there are a lot of presidents who have been left-handed, and there are a lot of folks who, because they can deal with a lot of complicated issues at once, work pretty effectively,” he says.
http://www.oprah.com/health/Dr-Oz-Answers-Burning-Medical-Questions/15
Ms. Elaine lets just deal with the facts.
With 88% of the contributions going democratic I would say we have a left leaning media.
“…… and by honest I don’t think he means someone who is morally honest for that kind of an individual would not want to lead these folk, but rather a charismatic figure who doesn’t lie. If such a person appears on the scene then we have a real problem which we would not be able to simply dismiss.”
============================================
Blouise, Why and how so? What kind of world do we live in where truth is such the fearfull fulcrum?
Geeba Geeba
You may disagree, you may feel that you are way smarter than the rest of us and know what is better for us. Don’t think that way. Don’t be so condescending.
A diferent view of whats going on here,in a different context:
Ron Paul to Sunshine Patriots: Stop Your Demagogy About The NYC Mosque!
By RonPaul.com on August 20, 2010
Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:
Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?
It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”
The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.
Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”
Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?
In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.
They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.
The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.
The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.
Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.
This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.
There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?
If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.
The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.
Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.
Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.
It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.
The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservatives’ aggressive wars.
The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.
This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.
We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.
Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.
Bdaman
I don’t know who Dr. Oz is or how much credence to place in his theory, or why it has any place in this discussion, but Mr. Obama is left-handed, if that helps.
Bdaman,
I don’t believe everything I read–even in liberal newspapers. I often find statistics questionable. I think one needs to learn to read “between” the lines. The contributions tracked were only made by people from three TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS)–so I wouldn’t call it an inclusive study of political contributions made by people who work in all the news media.
From the article: “The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.”
**********
Why, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. alone contributed a whopping $1,000,000,000 to the Republican Governors Association. There’s plenty of political money to spread around to both parties…doncha think?
Does anybody have a count on how many people showed up to march with Big Al?
I got in a fight one time with three guys. Every time I went to punch one the other would sucker punch me from behind. Wasn’t much of a fair fight but lucky for me the cops showed up.
Geeba Geeba,
Forced as I am to live in the real world with observable facts and documentable results it is not that I think I am smarter than you it is that the last 40 years have shown anyone willing to look some obvious truths.
We have had 4 decades of tax cuts, deregulation and enforcement neutering, What has that gotten us? A better society? More jobs? More wealth? A healthier country? NO, no, no nope no. It has gotten us to a much worse place than your assumptions for the miracle of low taxes, small government and unregulated greed would take us. These are observable facts, it does not mean I am smarter than you but ti does mean I actually pay attention to what is actually happening in the country instead of taking the word snake oil salesmen.
Ms. Elaine let us not forget the Journolist controversy.
‘An increasing number of politicians claim that preplanned, prenatal trickery is afoot. ‘http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-23/news/ct-talk-terror-babies-0824-20100823_1_babies-pregnant-foreign-women-terror
===============================================================
that line makes me laugh….that sort of behaviour is nothing new. On every level.
Methodology
astride ladders
leading nowhere
hard worn hands
in orchard trees
pick apples
pears and cherries.
lower to ground
nimble fingers
and bended knee
pluck berries
onions and lettuce fields.
upright others
calloused feet
trod acre and acre
of row upon row
culling winery vines
tomatoes and beans.
under cornucopias of uncertainty
migrant women hidden
amid their produced labor
bear anchor baby
legacies through looking
glass bottom ceilings
~E J Levin
I hope the great P’sTB aren’t helping to make the manner and kind of Country that these people, (who we depend upon to do so much for us), are fleeing. That would be a cold and cruel slap in the face wouldn’t it…..
I know Buckeye thats one of the reasons I brought that up. I know it’s talking about hands but when you read the article forget that for a moment and replace left and right hands for left and right political stances.
Obama is left handed, back handed as well in my opinion. But from the article.
“That’s why athletes do so well when they’re left-handed. And there are a lot of presidents who have been left-handed, and there are a lot of folks who, because they can deal with a lot of complicated issues at once, work pretty effectively,” he says.
So maybe this is why he plays so much hoops and swings the club so much, because he can deal with a lot of complicated issues at once and work pretty effectively by saying don’t worry about the economy I’ll deal with that later, I have to many other things on my plate.
Bdaman,
In regard to the Journolist controversy:
From the Washington Post (7/25/2010)
Journolist flap shows a destructive ‘gotcha’ mentality
By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, July 25, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072304131.html
(Note: Kathleen Parker, the author of the Post article, is a conservative.)
Excerpt:
On the question of context, I have room only for one example, but more can be found on Klein’s blog on washingtonpost.com.
One of the most widely circulated is that these lefties were conspiring to get the government to shut down Fox News. Well, one member — a UCLA law professor no one ever heard of (Jonathan Zasloff, sorry) — did write something to that effect. But it was a query about whether the Federal Communications Commission could pull the network’s broadcasting permit once it expires for, in liberals’ view, espousing a political agenda.
Whereupon, Michael Scherer of Time responded:
“You really want political parties/white houses picking and choosing which news organizations to favor?”
Even so, the headline was that liberals want to shut down Fox News, which is not precisely an accurate rendering of a non-conversation. There was no further discussion on the subject at Journolist.
Scandalous? Sure, if you want it to be. If you pull a few remarks from tens of thousands posted by 400 people over a few years, you can frame a debate any way you wish. If you pull a mean quote about Rush Limbaugh, you’ve got Limbaugh time. Throw in Karl Rove, Fox News and Sarah Palin, and you’re golden — for a little while.
But then the news cycle moves on, and maybe next week you’ll be the one being hunted.
In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves: Are we better off never having the ability to speak offhandedly among friends, to say in private what we could never say in public, to think aloud and uncensored?
You know Ms. Elaine Fox News is really not a news organization.
David Axelrod said that the Fox News Channel is “not really a news station” and that much of the programming is “not really news.”
I think the administration has made that perfectly clear.
Bdaman,
“You know Ms. Elaine Fox News is really not a news organization.”
Not unless you consider propaganda news. Fox News–aka Pravda of the US.
Actually, FOX themselves have made clear they aren’t a news organization but rather are a propaganda organization.
Fox News’ corporate parent gave Republican Governors Association $1 million
“August 16, 2010 5:52 pm ET by Matt Gertz . . .
Bloomberg News reports today (h/t Daily Kos’ KingOneEye) that News Corp. — the media giant which owns Fox News and The Wall Street Journal — has donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, the GOP organization that helps coordinate Republican gubernatorial campaigns and pays for independent ads in support of their candidates.
Media Matters has confirmed Bloomberg’s report using publicly available IRS filings. We also found no evidence of corresponding donations to the Democratic Governors Association in the current political cycle. News Corp. wants Republicans elected to office, and they’re willing to spend money to make it happen.
According to the article, News Corp. is actually the RGA’s “biggest corporate donor.” Bloomberg suggests that News Corp. has made these donations due to their opposition to “proposed federal rule changes that would weaken the position of its Fox network in negotiations with cable companies,” stating that “Governors may have a stake in the issue.”
Whether or not that is the case, this large corporate donation to the GOP underscores News Corp.’s role as an appendage of the Republican Party.
UPDATE: Politico’s Ben Smith has received the following quote from a News Corp. spokesman: “News Corporation believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy.” They’re not trying to hide it anymore. As the coverage of its media outlets indicates, News Corp. supports the Republican Party’s platform. It’s just now started putting its money where its mouth has long been.
Sixteen months ago, we drew attention to Fox News Senior Vice President Bill Shine’s characterization of his network as the “voice of the opposition.” Ever since, we’ve been demonstrating how the network has been living up to his words.”
___
propaganda \ˌprä-pə-ˈgan-də, ˌprō-\, n.,
2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect
I am not a fan of George Bush. I can promise you that. I remember hearing him say…I am a consensus builder….I can work with either party and we can do things together…..
What he forgot to tell you was….He meant I am a contentious bastard, either we do it my way or you will suffer greatly at the polls because of my connections that will finance anything I want to do, to get you out of office. What he did not count on was….losing both branches of the legislature while in office. What George has done for the party he has also done to Washington, D.C.
What everyone else seems to forget is that immigrants have a right to be here as much as we do. Just because, you were here before they were does not mean that you have a better right to be here. I can think of say…..oh…the Muslims and Spain…the Jews and Spain…The Jews and Germany….the Gypsies or the true Roma’s of the Aryan Race that Hitler was attempting to build, you see they were dark haired, maybe olive complected and brown eyes…they did not match the blond haired, blue eyed, white skinned race in the mind….damn…..this soap box is too high for me to see over…..
all news is propaganda now days. why do you think the other networks appeal to democrats? Same reason Fox news appeals to conservatives. It gives them the news colored by their philosophical and political beliefs.
Keith Olbermann is every bit the churl that Glen Beck is except he spouts left wing bullshit vs. right wing bullshit. And Rachel Maddow is not a brilliant woman any more than Bill O’Riely is a brilliant man. They are both sophists and any truly educated person could tear either one of them a new intellectual asshole.
Yeah, it’s not as if MSNBC isn’t owned by General Electric. You know GE, right? “We bring good things to light . . . so we can bomb the Hell of them.” GE is one of the biggest defense contractors in the world who doesn’t really need to use their news outlet for pro-war propaganda because they can let Rupert pick up the tab on that front. The same organization that provides that oh so necessary contrast and an “enemy” for the FAUXNews to “shoot at”.
But that’s a nice false equivalence you’ve got there, Creepers.
Be a shame if something were to happen to it.
Like if people were to read it for the Neocon spinning dog shit it is. The propaganda equivalent of “I know you are but what am I?” Of course corporate owned news is propaganda. That’s why the intellectually honest do not rely upon a single source for their news but rather synthesize their world view by getting as much information as possible from as many sources as they can before sorting the truthful wheat from the fascist chaff.
“….and work pretty effectively by saying don’t worry about the economy I’ll deal with that later…”
Well, let’s see how Mr Obama has dealt with the economic disater which is the direct and exclusive result of the last thirty years of failed Conservative policies. The Obama administration supported the states with money to allow them to continue to employ teachers, police and fire personnel saving tens of thousands of jobs; underwriting GM thus saving hundreds of thousands of jobs; provided stimulus dollars to new and emerging industies thus creating new jobs, providing employers with a $5000 tax credit for hiring people and a tax break inside the stimulus bill for everyone making under $250K, I’d say the government and the President have done quite a lot to stimulate the economy. By saving and creating those jobs fewer homes are threatened with foreclosure, local retailers continue to get revenue to keep their doors open and families stay intact.
I guess conservatives WANT the unemployment figure to be much higher than it is. What they’re telling us by their actions is that we should vote for them so we can have their desired unemployment rate of 15%-20% and then allow them to cut off benefits asap.
What has the GOP done to help? Blocked unemployment benefits which are the lifeline of the middle class until industry gets off it’s ass and supporting corporations over people once again, begged to continue the tax breaks to those who caused the economic calamity.
What has the business community done? They took millions of jobs out of the market and thus the incomes families used to spend at other businesses. Right now, corporations are cash rich and not hiring. They continue to spite the American worker by padding their bank accounts at the expense of jobs.
So, what should be done now? The government could essentially reinstste the CCC and the WPA from Roosevelt days. That would provide jobs and incomes, but would baloon the debt. Or the government can give more tax breaks to the same businesses and the same wealthy people who are hanging onto cash and not hiring workers.
It is the height of arrogance (nothing new for conservatives) to ask for more tax breaks while knowing they are a primary cause of our huge debt and while claiming companies aren’t profitable. If they’re not profittable, they don’t need breaks. If they are profittable, they should be hiring and using the tax credit already provided. Additional tax breaks would be equivilant to paying ransom to the robber barons’ demand for more special treatment at the expense of the middle class and would balloon the national debt.
The responsibility to create jobs is now up to industry.
GE is run by Jeffery Immelt a known democratic fund raiser and democratic supporter. Yep, GE sure does bring good things to light. Just like most socialists, they never miss an opportunity to start a war or fund one.
Bdaman
“there are a lot of folks who, because they can deal with a lot of complicated issues at once, work pretty effectively” If you think that pertains to “lefties” and President Obama’s abilities, I’d be inclined to agree with you. Also about the smarter part.
But maybe you can tell me the answer to something I’ve been wondering about. Mr. Bush successfully cut taxes, for the wealthy only, in 2003. The stock market, instead of bounding higher, plodded along at 2.5% per year, until 2008 when it decresed by 34%.
If tax cuts for the wealthy means they will spend on investments, why didn’t it happen? Why didn’t the stock market boom during those years? And why did it boom during the Clinton years (189% compared to Reagan’s 10when taxes were raised?
sorry, hit the submit key by mistake.
Reagan’s 103%) when taxes were raised?
I think it was because the markets saw the deficit being reduced and were willing to invest. What do you think?
“….Just like most socialists, they never miss an opportunity to start a war or fund one”.
Life must be great on your planet. Which Democrat started the war in Iraq on borrowed funds leading us directly to the huge national debt now crippling the country? Oh yeah, it was that rabid Socialist GWBush.
who bailed out wall street? if that wasnt a socialist move I dont know what was. Walks like a duck…
“But maybe you can tell me the answer to something I’ve been wondering about. Mr. Bush successfully cut taxes, for the wealthy only, in 2003. The stock market, instead of bounding higher, plodded along at 2.5% per year, until 2008 when it decresed by 34%.”
money chases profits, the feds artificially low interest rates caused money to be diverted to real estate.
I thought lefties were smarter than conservatives. I guess not.
No. We’re just smarter than trolls and can tell the difference between trickle down and being pissed on.
Mr. Beck is what is known as a “dry drunk.” He stopped drinking and drugging a few years ago, but his personality remains unchanged. He still suffers from grandiosity, complete self-absorption and terminal uniqueness. The growth of his viewer base has convinced him that he is no longer a relatively harmless cartoon character, but someone anointed by God as a figure of great prophetic power. He will eventually crash and burn, of course.
yeah, well how’s that stimulus working out for you? I like to call it socialist dribble down.
J C
So you’re saying it’s no use to continue those tax cuts because they’re not going to be invested in building the economy but will be diverted to whatever ponzi scheme produces more profit? That’s what I thought.
what you said doesn’t even make sense. do you even know what a Ponzi scheme is? Do you think about what you are writing or do you adhere to the get it on paper and worry about it later method?
Geeba Geeba, what Mr. Beck represents is the fear of demographic change. Demographic change is feared because it suggests a shifting of political power. When Beck and Palin and their minions scream about “talking back our country,” they mean the restoration of conservative Protestant rule. Of course, inherent in that desire is the recognition that the assumed prerogatives of white America are at risk. That is why that same theme characterized the Republican presidential campaign in 2008. The candidacy of Barack Obama represented more than the prospect of the first black president; it meant the possibility that minorities would be given access to power that they had never previously enjoyed. That indeed was the real threat. That it hasn’t materialized means nothing to the fearful, however. Thus the 15-20 percent of Americans who look to Mr. Beck and Ms. Palin almost as religious saviors will not be shaken in their beliefs. As they gradually die, so will the hysteria.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned.
While the system eventually will collapse under its own weight, the example of Bernard Madoff demonstrates the ability of a Ponzi scheme to delude both individual and institutional investors as well as securities authorities for long periods: Madoff’s variant of the Ponzi scheme stands as the largest financial investor fraud committed by a single person in history. Prosecutors estimate losses at Madoff’s hand totaling roughly $21 billion, as estimated by the money invested by his victims. If the promised returns are added the losses amount to $64.8 billion, but a New York court dismissed this estimation method during the Madoff trial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme#cite_note-1
I guess you should mention that it was brought to the attention of a government regulatory body during the Clinton Administration which did nothing.
So you know what a Ponzi Scheme is (I see you had to look it up), big deal. You didn’t answer my main question, I guess you don’t know what you mean. Not surprising though.
Apparently Bdaman is the only one with a brain around here based on the comments I read above.
Jeepers Creepers–
You asked who bailed out Wall Street? My answer: Both parties!
History of U.S. Gov’t Bailouts
Updated: April 15, 2009 12:02 pm EDT
http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts
- 2008 JP Morgan Chase and the federal government bailed out Bear Stearns when the financial giant neared collapse. JP Morgan purchased Bear Stearns for $236 million; the Federal Reserve provided a $30 billion credit line to ensure the sale could move forward. $30 billion
- Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac 2008 On Sep. 7, 2008, Fannie and Freddie were essentially nationalized: placed under the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Under the terms of the rescue, the Treasury has invested billions to cover the companies’ losses. Initially, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson put a ceiling of $100 billion for investments in each company. In February, Tim Geithner raised it to $200 billion. The money was authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. $400 billion
- American International Group (A.I.G.) 2008 On four separate occasions, the government has offered aid to AIG to keep it from collapsing, rising from an initial $85 billion credit line from the Federal Reserve to a combined $180 billion effort between the Treasury ($70 billion) and Fed ($110 billion). ($40 billion of the Treasury’s commitment is also included in the TARP total.) $180 billion
- Auto Industry 2008 In late September 2008, Congress approved a more than $630 billion spending bill, which included a measure for $25 billion in loans to the auto industry. These low-interest loans are intended to aid the industry in its push to build more fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly vehicles. The Detroit 3 — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler — will be the primary beneficiaries. $25 billion
- Troubled Asset Relief Program 2008 In October 2008, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which authorized the Treasury Department to spend $700 billion to combat the financial crisis. Treasury has been doling out the money via an alphabet soup of different programs. Here’s our running tally of companies getting TARP funds.
$700 billion
- Citigroup 2008 Citigroup received a $25 billion investment through the TARP in October and another $20 billion in November. (That $45 billion is also included in the TARP total.) Additional aid has come in the form of government guarantees to limit losses from a $301 billion pool of toxic assets. In addition to the Treasury’s $5 billion commitment, the FDIC has committed $10 billion and the Federal Reserve up to about $220 billion. $280 billion
- Bank of America 2009 Bank of America has received $45 billion through the TARP, which includes $10 billion originally meant for Merrill Lynch. (That $45 billion is also included in the TARP total.) In addition, the government has made guarantees to limit losses from a $118 billion pool of troubled assets. In addition to the Treasury’s $7.5 billion commitment, the FDIC has committed $2.5 billion and the Federal Reserve up to $87.2 billion. $142.2 billion
*********
Was Obama president in 2008?????
Are you suggesting that Bush and members of his administration were socialists???
Would you like to “duck” those questions???
damn right I am, GW Bush socialist nit wit and those ridiculous “neo-cons”, they used to be left wing now they are infecting the conservative movement with the nitwittery they learned at Harvard and Yale.
Personally I think Neo-Cons are just Neo-progressives all wrapped up in the same ball of neo-fascist/socialist bullshit.
So I aint duckin nutin honey.
Jeepers Creepers,
Damn right you are…what?
Can you be more specific about which of the “neocons” used to be left wing? Maybe Richard Perle? Dick Cheney? Paul Wolfowitz? Bill Kristol?
P.S. I ain’t your “honey.”
pardon me madam, I aint duckin nutin princess.
Jeepets Creepers,
I ain’t your honey–and I ain’t no princess!
That’s right, Elaine. You’re not a princess.
You’re the Queen of Zing and the High Priestess of Poetry.
And bdajeepers. Your slip is showing. False consensus is a weak trolling tactic. You’re not a good enough writer to pull it off. Especially when you try parlay it off of a known bigot and completely discredited identity like bdaman a.k.a. “Mr. Let’s Call Jews ‘Christ Killers’”. His word in these parts is as substantial as wet tissue paper. But since what you say is nothing but pure bullshit spin, I do suppose he’s about the only one you can try to hookup with until the Notsobreitbart Brigade returns. I am, however, impressed with your knowledge of dribbling. You should probably learn to wipe that junk off your face before going out in public. These stories and more on this episode of True stories of bloggers who secretly feed on partisan cash.
Now answer the question about which Neocons are leftists, Rove Blossom. Be specific. We don’t grade on a curve around here.
I’d like another good laugh.
Having been out all day, I’m just getting started and going through the posts from top to bottom….
Geeba Geeba
1, August 29, 2010 at 3:03 am
What a number of you are missing is that Beck represents what most legal US Citizens feel …..
==============================================================
What most legal US Citizens feel??? GeeGee is living inside a self-induced beltway … that’s one of the funniest comments on this thread …
Bdaman
1, August 29, 2010 at 9:57 am
Blouise another excellent analysis. You have hit the nail on the head twice.
For every action there is reaction and we are seeing the reaction now to the action of the media.
===============================================================
(read the link)
Between you and me … I could do the same by dressing as a tree or a whale or a bird or a lettuce picker, or a factory worker.
We could form a partnership … use the same agent … get adjoining seats on the plane … schedule rallies in the same cities on the same days at the same time in different venues … tell the exact same jokes just changing the punch line and charge the same fee which would be a percentage of the box office. I’d make more money than you ’cause there’s more of my people but we’d both be stars! We’d just have to keep our luggage straight.
Woosty’s still a Cat
1, August 29, 2010 at 10:13 am
“…… and by honest I don’t think he means someone who is morally honest for that kind of an individual would not want to lead these folk, but rather a charismatic figure who doesn’t lie. If such a person appears on the scene then we have a real problem which we would not be able to simply dismiss.”
============================================
Blouise, Why and how so? What kind of world do we live in where truth is such the fearfull fulcrum?
================================================================
I believe Chomsky was referring to the charismatic leader that states the truth to these people about how they feel and doesn’t go into the hyperbole or lies that are now the code phrases. The style of delivery and the substance of the rhetoric, if you will. Right now we have a bunch of sensationalists that touch upon the emotions of these people but don’t actually name them. The charismatic leader who names the emotion thus giving it credence will be able to take these people anywhere he/she wishes. A good televangelist speaks truth and does it quite skillfully … he/she just doesn’t speak the whole truth. But they do not lie and therein lies the danger. A truth that is not a whole truth but also not a lie is very difficult to combat. That mode of speaking combined with charisma is the danger to which I believe Chomsky was referring. It’s calculated.
frank
1, August 29, 2010 at 10:35 am
Geeba Geeba,
Forced as I am to live in the real world with observable facts and documentable results it is not that I think I am smarter than you it is that the last 40 years have shown anyone willing to look some obvious truths.
=============================================================
Well frank may be a humble guy but I’m not … I know I’m smarter than GeeGee.
What Anonymously Yours said … louder!
Jeepers Creepers
1, August 29, 2010 at 5:37 pm
I guess you should mention that it was brought to the attention of a government regulatory body during the Clinton Administration which did nothing.
So you know what a Ponzi Scheme is (I see you had to look it up), big deal. You didn’t answer my main question, I guess you don’t know what you mean. Not surprising though.
Apparently Bdaman is the only one with a brain around here based on the comments I read above.
=============================================================
Bdaman … lookee, lookee … one of your people!
Buddha,
“You’re the Queen of Zing and the High Priestess of Poetry.”
I love being a high priestess of poetry! Maybe I should write an ode to Glenn Beck.
Elaine M.,
Are you your sure that is not a Load of Ode’s?
AY–
Here’s a quickie–a rhyming couplet:
The blather of Beck
Is nothing but drek.
Speaking of Ponzi Scheme
here’s an oldie but goodie.
http://www.youtube.com/user/fiercefreeleancer
i love it! this place is where trolls get the smack down. well done.
Error correction: In an earlier comment I wrote the following:
“Why, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. alone contributed a whopping $1,000,000,000 to the Republican Governors Association. There’s plenty of political money to spread around to both parties…doncha think?”
That number should have been $1,000,000. I doubt even Rupert Murdoch would give $1,000,000,000 to the Republican Governors Association. Then again, one never knows.
“i love it! this place is where trolls get the smack down. well done.”
yes, I think Hemingway called it “folio grandeur”. In other words in your wildest dreams.
Just like a troll to complain about getting smacked down without answering the question(s) asked.
Yes, I think psychologists called it “avoidance”.
Now answer the question about which Neocons are leftists, Rove Blossom. Show your work and supply specific examples. Again, we don’t grade on a curve around here.
From Media Matters:
The Misinformer of the Year 2009:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-glenn-beck-conspiracy.htm?PS=768%2C922%2C213%2C644%3A8
hey genius, who was for the bail-out? you go find all the guys on the right that were for it and there is your answer, I don’t have the time to do piss-ant work.
God damn do I have to hold your hand as well? It’s called putting 2 and 2 together McFly.
The people on the right cannot add like the people on the left. Some people have problem colouring within the line, figuring out what colour goes with what number on the canvas of Elvis and is it time for the medication yet. I think that the right side has this aspect down. This has to be true, because the people on the left don’t have insurance to pay for living in such largeness. Please be kind to your webbed footed friend. They really maybe somebody’s mother.
Jeepers,
“Personally I think Neo-Cons are just Neo-progressives all wrapped up in the same ball of neo-fascist/socialist bullshit.”
Do you know what those words mean or do you think you just get to add “neo” in-front of any political philosophy you want?
As an aside, I sure hope you’re not one of those revisionists who feel that fascism and socialism are synonyms.
Buddha,
“hey genius, who was for the bail-out? you go find all the guys on the right that were for it and there is your answer, I don’t have the time to do piss-ant work.”
There it is–your typical non-answer answer. Per usual, it’s short on details and facts.
Then again, followers of Beck and Palin don’t need no stinkin’ facts, do they?
Elaine,
I know that X is true, and have lots of examples to prove it easily, I just don’t have the time to list them.
Hey, I need $20 bucks for um, medicine for my poor sick kid, I promise I’ll pay you back once this guy who owes me $200 for helping him move pays me. It should be in a week or so, he’s on vacation in Switzerland, and they’ve got these weird laws that won’t let him mail me the check until he gets back.
Gynos-
neo means new if you didn’t know, it isn’t the name of the guy from the Matrix. Maybe they (neo-conservatives) are actually proto-progressives?
Jeepers,
So, you don’t know what the words mean?
I gathered as much when you said Neo-conservatism were just early 80s rock bands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-progressive_rock
Correction:
“…neo-conservatIVES were just…”
Jeepy Creepy,
Yes, I am a genius. Thanks for noticing. But enough about me, let’s talk about you.
Try to insult me all you like. I find that funny. But insulting me (or trying to anyway, emphasis on trying) won’t excuse you from backing up what you say with evidence and/or logic. Ignorance of facts is no excuse in argument and, in fact, argument from ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) is an informal logical fallacy – a form of false dilemma. Here, since it’s obvious that you’re mentally impaired, let me help you out with that.
fallacy /ˈfæləsi/, n.,
1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy.
2. a misleading or unsound argument.
3. deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness.
4. Logic. any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.
But as Elaine has pointed out, the people of Glennbeckistan aren’t known for their critical thinking skills. So let’s review your homework, shall we? Or are you a product of right wing homeschooling and incapable of critical review, i.e. grading? That’s a rhetorical question, door nob, because everyone gets graded around these parts.
You 1) made a claim in re those on the left somehow being Neo-conservatives that when challenged to prove it 2) you could not prove with either 3) fact and/or 4) logic.
That’s what’s known as a non-responsive answer. You get an F.
Yep. The evidence is clear about you, Rove Blossom.
You are going to get eaten alive around here.
Glen Beck is any media whores money. Where Glen goes so does the media. How do you stop a running toilet when Rachel’s around? You don’t she runs after it. You see Mr. Beck knows how to swoon his audience. I think he should be the next Jessie. He knows shit when he see it. He could call it the shit rainbow.
Allow me to acknowledge that I was in favor of the bailout. What I did not understand at the time was that it would involve blank checks with no strings attached and no accountability. I expected that the banks would be required to jump through all of the same sorts of hoops that the average banker demands from the guy borrowing $100,000.00 to finance inventory for his hardware store. In this instance, I anticipated that there would be interim limits imposed on executive compensation, bonuses and the payment of dividends. I expected that repayment of the monies would be secured to the extent feasible. And I could not have imagined that the bailout would be accompanied by a de facto amnesty for perpetrators of securities fraud and other financial crimes. Industries cannot be properly overseen by insiders.
I also supported the stimulus. My only objection was that it was not large enough or broad enough. All of the yelling and screaming from the right on this issue is misdirected. It’s not that the stimulus hasn’t been beneficial. It’s that it’s been too modest.
Although I’m sure there are several, the only convert from the left to neoconservatism that I’m familiar with is Irving Kristol, whose son now runs “The Weekly Standard.” Kristol began his career as a socialist. William Kristol is not in the same league with his father as an intellectual, however.
jeepers creepers ( typing that made me want to wash my hands )
folio grandeur? we speak ‘merikan round here son and no its just the simple colbert spoken truth that the facts have a liberal bias.
and you can’t handle the truth,
BTW great name and so apropos!
cheers genius and your friends secretly hate you!
pete:
if they hate me then by definition they are not my “friends”. What is it with the left? Are you projecting or just wishful thinking to make yourself feel better?
Hemingway was an American or don’t you know who he was?
“You are going to get eaten alive around here.”
I doubt it, there appears to be only small mouths here.
Maybe so, ‘lil Projector, but we compensate for it by using our larger brains and facts to build judgments instead of our genitalia and some rote taught ideology, something you on the right have yet to master.
Or you can avoid the question again.
You’re good at that.
My view of Rachel Maddow is that she is one of the finest television journalists of our time. I say this for the following reasons:
1. Her questions are well thought out, intelligent and clearly articulated.
2. She identifies the sources for all the information broadcast on her show.
3. She permits her guests to answer fully and without interruption, but does not accept formulaic pablum in response to substantive questions.
4. She delves into the ideas and philosophy underlying the views of her guests.
5. She treats her guests respectfully and does not resort to ad hominem attacks.
6. She freely invites those whom she has criticized to appear on her show for rebuttal purposes.
7. When she makes a mistake, her apology is sincerely expressed and she broadcasts the correction on her show rather than using a spokesperson for that purpose.
If there is anything more that can be asked of a responsible journalist, I’d like to know what it is.
Mike A.,
True that. As much as people have thrown about the “Murrow” label in re Olbermann, Rachel Maddow is far more deserving of the appellation regardless of the fact that Keith gives our munificent host more air time.
Olberman and Maddow, the Glen Beck and Sean Hannity of the left. Jeepers creepers.
Mike Appleton:
My view of Rachel Maddow is that she is one of the finest television journalists of our time. I say this for the following reasons: [list]
3rd that Mike, she’s the best on TV. I would add to your list that she devotes substantial time to stories of substance and often lingers over the small, human details that encourage the audience to expand or shift their point of view away from the dogmatic to the human.
That’s the best you’ve got, Rove Blossom?
Avoidance coupled with an “I know you are but what am I”?
pathetic \pə-ˈthe-tik\, adj.,
1: having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity
2: marked by sorrow or melancholy : sad
3: pitifully inferior or inadequate (the commentator’s pathetic cognitive and argumentation skills)
4: absurd, laughable (a pathetic argument)
Seriously, you’re going to need better game than that.
I am gratified by your citing of a dictionary, I was under the impression that most on the left read only tawdry romance novels, science fiction or pseudo intellectual tripe that passes for scholarship in the once hallowed halls of the academy.
Bully for you and good show, maybe someday you will actually learn the definitions and wont need to post them. It only takes a bit of ambition and hard work to overcome ignorance. I see you have taken a very big first step. Maybe someday you will actually be able to understand higher level concepts. Keep working hard.
“That’s the best you’ve got, Rove Blossom?”
apparently “it” is all I need around here.
No. Really. It’s not.
Applying my argument (and indeed insult) skills to one so under performing and substandard as yourself is a bit like using a flamethrower to light a cigarette. Until you come up with something of substance, I’m going to keep treating you like you’re a joke.
Because you are. A bad joke, but a joke nonetheless.
Enjoy being made fun of.
I know I will enjoy rubbing your face in it, troll.
if you click your heals together 3 times and say I am a joke you will be transported home from the leftward land of lunacy.
By the by old chap did you see the GDP numbers? A downward trend since 2009, those Obama lackeys sure know their economics. Maybe reality is finally biting you [pl] in the assets.
yeesh
From Mediaite (8/30/2010)
Exclusive: Glenn Beck Launches “News And Opinion” Website, The Blaze, Tonight
by Steve Krakauer
http://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-glenn-beck-launches-news-and-opinion-website-the-blaze-tonight/
Excerpt:
Having conquered TV, radio, book publishing and now live events, Glenn Beck is looking to expand his media empire into a new arena – the web (obviously GlennBeck.com is thriving too).
Mediaite has the exclusive details about a news and opinion website Beck is launching tonight. Here’s what to expect.
Beck’s new site is called TheBlaze.com, and will be edited by Scott Baker, formerly of Breitbart TV and host of “The B-Cast”. In an exclusive statement, he tells Mediaite:
Our hope is that everyone who comes to The Blaze finds original reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most. We are excited to launch and I look forward to keeping Scott and his team busy by sending countless ideas at 3am every morning.
We talked to Baker today about what readers can expect from the new site, the team behind it and more. “It’ll be news and information,” he told Mediaite. “Some commentary and opinion stories we’re interested in that are being under-covered or not covered.”
People will inevitably make the comparison to Arianna Huffington – whether Beck’s role as figurehead behind the site will make The Blaze into a conservative Huffington Post. “The one thing pretty clear around Mercury [Beck's company] is that Glenn is not short on ideas or hesitant on input,” Baker said. “His input is already evident in how the site looks, and that’s what will continue. It will be a continual flow of tips and suggestions and encouragement.”
**********
“For joy,” she said (with tongue in cheek) “Beck launches a new Internet site where we can all get ‘fair and balanced’ news!”
Here’s a video of Lewis Black on The Daily Show talking about Glenn Beck making Nazi comparisons/connections. It’s a riot!
CABLE NEWS RACE
MON. AUG 30, 2010
VIEWERS
FOXNEWS O’REILLY 3,977,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,645,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,600,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,097,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,858,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,856,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,078,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,027,000
MSNBC SHULTZ 699,000
CNN SANCHEZ 676,000
CNN KING 620,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 620,000
CNNHN GRACE 586,000
CNN COOPER 581,000
Keith Olbermann fact checks Glenn Beck’s tale about the Washington Monument that he told at his “Restoring Honor” rally:
More from Glenn “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” Beck…
From Mother Jones (9/1/2010)
Glenn Beck’s George Washington Whopper
The Fox host says he held the inaugural address of the famously truthful founding father. Yeah right, says the National Archives.
— By Stephanie Mencimer
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/glenn-beck-george-washington-restoring-honor
Excerpt:
During his much-ballyhooed “Restoring Honor” rally on Saturday, Glenn Beck told a whopper involving the founding father who was supposedly unable to tell a lie: George Washington.
Speechifying at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, the controversial Fox News host highlighted the legacy of the nation’s first president to drive home his claim that encouraging honesty and integrity was a main aim of the event. Beck even told attendees that “the next George Washington” was “in this crowd. He may be 8 years old, but this is the moment. This is the moment that he dedicates his life, that he sees giants around him. And 25 years from now, he will come not to this stair, but to those stairs. And he can proclaim, ‘I have a new dream.’”
Beck also invoked Washington while describing the inspiring experience of visiting famous tourist destinations around the nation’s capital. “I have been going to Mt. Vernon,” he explained. Holding out his hands for emphasis, he declared with emotion, “I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.”
It was an eyebrow-raising revelation and certainly an original image: Beck cradling the actual words of the first president. But would the persnickety gatekeepers of the nation’s historical legacy at the National Archives allow some talk show bombthrower to put his mitts on a rare (and fragile) artifact? The answer, it turns out, is no way. Beck was not telling the truth.
Beck did receive a special VIP tour of the archives, arranged by an as-yet unidentified member of Congress. During that tour, he did get a peek inside the “legislative vault,” which isn’t open to ordinary visitors. But Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper insists that Beck didn’t lay a finger on any precious documents, much less George Washington’s inaugural address. That would be a major violation of policy. “Those kinds of treasures are only handled by specially trained archival staff,” she explains. Cooper acknowledges that someone at the archives did show the document to Beck, but that was the extent of it. Regarding Beck’s claim that he held the document, Cooper says that seeing such documents for the first time can be a very emotional experience. “I’m certain it was a figure of speech,” she says.
Cooper is being charitable. Beck’s whopper gave his speech more heft and rhetorical flourish. It was high patriotic drama. But his fib stands in stark contrast to the point of the rally, which was all about restoring the principles of courage and honor that the nation was founded upon. In fact, one of Beck’s only prescriptions for fixing the country was to “tell the truth.”
Moreover, Beck has a history of chiding others for lying and stretching the truth to bolster his own incendiary rhetoric. In April, for instance, the Rev. Jim Wallis wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing Beck for suggesting that the term “social justice” was “code” for communism and for encouraging his radio show listeners to flee churches that promote social justice. Beck retorted by quoting the Bible to Wallis: “Thou shalt not lie.” Groups like Media Matters soon found clips from Beck’s show where he said precisely what Wallis had claimed he did.
Hi Elaine,
Mr. Keith isn’t quite right and actually Beck is not lying about the change in color and is partially correct that stoppage was due to the war. You can look on Wiki and get the story [I checked a couple of other places as well]. Mr. Keith is using the Know Nothings to slam Beck. The Know Nothings infiltrated the free masons and took control of the building but couldn’t raise any money and gave up. The cheap stone they bought was removed and the monument was finished by the Corps of Engineers after the Civil War. The color change is due to different quarries.
Hey FF LEO,
Has it been as hot out yonder as it has been asunder?
Bdaman, I enjoy seeing your frequent postings of the news channel ratings. However, since we liberals control the entire media universe other than Fox, at least according to the constant complaints conservatives make about the media, would it not be fairer to conclude that of the roughly 300 million people in this country, approximately 4 million of them rely on Fox?
as far as social justice being a euphemism for communism or statism, it is.
I think it was John Rawls who coined that phrase, he wanted to counteract the “injustice” of nature by depriving those favored by nature (the productive element of our society) and give to those less favored by nature. It seems to me that is rightly called communism or socialism.
“General Conception
All social primary goods – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored.”
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~piccard/entropy/rawls.html
Mike A:
good point. Although I think there are about 100 million conservatives based on a couple of polls I saw that said about 30% of the population describes itself as conservative.
Byron,
Although I have asserted in a number of posts, and firmly believe, that there is a new Know Nothing movement afoot in this country, Mr. Beck’s history does not suggest that he is wedded to any particular principles other than opportunism. He has finally found an approach that works for him: maudlin makes money.
Mike A I would defer to Dr.Slartibartfast for the answer to your mathematical question.
In my mind, it’s not the number of people who watch Fox, it’s the numbers of people who don’t watch the media outlets, any less and they will be void of viewership.
I don’t consider Fox a Media outlet. They are not really a news organization more of an opinionated broadcast.
Mike A.,
I don’t mean to correct you but I have heard it stated before and the source may be credible, but, isn’t it Faux News?
No it’s definitely Fox News, if you’ve never watched it they have a bunch. Well except Greta, I still like her though. Sometimes I watch Fox like Uni Vision. I don’t speak Spanish very well but who cares. Have you seen all the ones they got:)
I que wenno, mucho mujare’s ta bien, que rico sta!!!!!
Byron,
“…Beck…is partially correct that stoppage was due to the war.”
How was Beck “partially correct?” Was the building of the monument stopped because of the Civil War or not? According to the National Park Service, work on the project stopped in 1854.
**********
Text from the National Park Service
http://www.tourofdc.org/monuments/washington-monument/
On July 4, 1848, the cornerstone was laid with elaborate Masonic ceremonies. The trowel used by Washington at the laying of the cornerstone of the Capitol in 1793 was used on this occasion.
Work progressed favorably until 1854, when the building of the monument became involved in a political quarrel. Many citizens became dissatisfied with the work and the collection of funds lagged. This unfortunate affair and the growing antagonism between the North and South, which resulted in the Civil War, brought construction to a halt. For almost 25 years, the monument stood incomplete at the height of about 150 feet. Finally on August 2, 1876, President Grant approved an act which provided that the Federal Government should complete the erection of the monument. The Corps of Engineers of the War Department was placed in charge of the work.
Here’s an excerpt from an an excellent article about Glenn Beck and his “revival” last weekend written by conservative Kathleen Parker.
From the Washington Post
My name is Glenn Beck, and I need help
By Kathleen Parker
(September 1, 2010)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/31/AR2010083104879.html
Excerpt:
Despite all the words spilled in evaluating Glenn Beck’s tent-less revival last weekend, the real meaning may have been hiding in plain sight.
Beck’s “Restoring Honor” gathering on the Mall was right out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook. It was a 12-step program distilled to a few key words, all lifted from a prayer delivered from the Lincoln Memorial: healing, recovery and restoration.
Saturday’s Beckapalooza was yet another step in Beck’s own personal journey of recovery. He may as well have greeted the crowd of his fellow disaffected with:
“Hi. My name is Glenn, and I’m messed up.”
Beck’s history of alcoholism and addiction is familiar to any who follow him. He has made no secret of his past and is quick to make fun of himself. As he once said: “You can get rich making fun of me. I know. I’ve made a lot of money making fun of me.”
Self-mockery — and cash — seems to come easily to him.
Any cursory search of Beck quotes also reveals the language of the addict:
– “It is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hung-over, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America.”
– “I have not heard people in the Republican Party yet admit that they have a problem.”
– “You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one — I can’t speak for you, but I’m on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show.”
Indeed. After the hangover comes admission of the addiction, followed by surrender to a higher power and acknowledgment that one is always fallen.
These may be random quotes, but they can’t be considered isolated or out of context. For Beck, addiction has been a defining part of his life, and recovery is a process inseparable from the Glenn Beck Program. His emotional, public breakdowns are replicated in AA meetings in towns and cities every day.
{durn it…moderation hell….trying again….}
——-1———-
Social justice is the application of the concept of justice on a social scale.
~wikipedia
——–2———
Definition
Fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice. See also civil rights.
Read more:~businessdictionary
——-3———-
Social justice, sometimes called civil justice, is a concept largely based on various social contract theories. Most variations on the concept hold that as governments are instituted among populations for the benefit of members of those populations, those governments which fail to see to the welfare of their citizens are failing to uphold their part in the social contract and are, therefore, unjust.
Social justice refers to the overall fairness of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens.
~wordiq/definition/Social_justice
————4————————-
Main Entry: social justice
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society
~dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+justice
————5————————-
Social Justice [Health] An interactive process whereby members of a community are concerned for the equality and rights of all.
~websters-online-dictionary
—————-6————————–
Urban Dictionary: social justice
Common meaning for equality. Typically among the social classes. Leftist in nature.
~urbandictionary
————–7————————
Catholic Culture : Dictionary : SOCIAL JUSTICE
SOCIAL JUSTICE The virtue that inclines one to co-operate with others in order to help make the institutions of society better serve the common good.
~catholicculture…/culture/…/dictionary/index
————-8————————-
social justice The requirements of justice applied to the framework of social existence. The term has been attacked as involving redundancy, since justice is necessarily a social or interpersonal concern.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics
Dictionary definition: social justice
Article from:
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics
——————————————–
well, no wonder there’s such a debate going on.
can we elevate the understanding and apply it to a larger scale with fewer definitions….a working definition is one that is understood concretely by all involved…you’d be surprised how the conflict is diminished in that venue…
Elaine M.,
Don’t let fact and logic dissuade you from dealing with supporters of beck. If it doesn’t fit the paradigm they have attempted to build with words, what will justify there action?
Ah ha, facts did not annoy the building blocks of the Third Reich either, which I understand was based on the 10th Century Holy Roman Empire… Didn’t they dislike the Weimar “Liberals” and booted him out for a much more likable guy and then based the sole autocratic democracy in the hands of a master puppeteer Gobbels……
“The above was based upon history as I understand it and could or not be correct as it is based upon numerous influences, but it what I understood at the time to be correct.”
Notice I did not say Hitler once in the above….
Byron,
I did a little more checking on the story of the Washington Monument.
**********
From the National Park Service Washington Monument webpage
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/washington_monument.html
In 1855, the small anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant American, or “Know-Nothing” Party seized control of the Washington National Monument Society through an illegal election, following a dispute over a memorial stone donated by Pope Pius IX. The Know-Nothings retained control of the society until 1858. While in control, the Know-Nothings added just a few courses of masonry to the monument using inferior marble, which were later removed. Construction halted in 1858 when the monument was at a height of 156 feet and the money ran out. It did not resume until after the Civil War. The monument remained unfinished for more than 20 years. Today a distinct color difference is still visible near the level at which construction temporarily stopped in the 1850s.
Byron,
P.S.
I wrote in an earlier comment: How was Beck “partially correct?” Was the building of the monument stopped because of the Civil War or not? According to the National Park Service, work on the project stopped in 1854.
Correction: Evidently, the building of the monument was stopped in 1858–according to the NPS webpage about the Washington Monument.
Byron,
I strongly disagree with your view that “social justice” is a code phrase for communism or socialism. Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” in the early 1890s, in which he urged recognition of the rights of workers in response to the intolerable conditions imposed on the working class by industrialization. In the 1960s Pope John XXIII issued “Mater et Magistra” and “Pacem in Terris,” which expanded on many of the principles laid out by Leo XIII. Consider the following from paragraph 74 of “Mater et Magistra”: “…[T]he economic prosperity of a nation is not so much its total assets in terms of wealth and property, as the equitable division and distribution of this wealth.” While Catholic teaching on social justice condemns communism and socialism (i.e., in their materialistic forms), it recognizes that productivity is a function of capital and labor acting collaboratively. Thus the importance of labor unions lies in their ability through collective bargaining to equalize the division of wealth produced through that collaborative process.
“Liberation theology,” another body of work concerning which Glenn Beck and his allies are completely clueless, was an effort to apply Catholic teaching on social justice to the plight of peasant classes in Central and South America, where governments and economies have traditionally been controlled by a handful of families. This effort was initiated largely by clergy working among desperately poor people in rural areas. The reaction was frequently vicious and deadly, and very little has changed.
John Rawls is in my view one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. My view is no doubt skewered by the fact that Mr. Rawls was one of my professors in college. But despite his brilliance, he did not “invent” the concept of social justice. What he did do was attempt to develop the idea that a justice must be ameliorative as well as distributive.
At the bottom of all of these writings is the simple principle that in a just society, sole control of capital should not translate into sole ownership of what is produced. That is to say, those who argue that the providers of capital constitute the “productive element of society” are merely eliminating half of the productivity equation. They are arrogant and they are wrong.
Byron,
Who is “more partially correct”–Keith or Beck???
Mike Appleton,
John Rawls was a very good friend of my father and I spent many an evening, as a teenager, sitting on the peripherals of the adult circle absorbing the ideas discussed. The impact of those discussions on my adult views were major, to say the least.
Blouise,
I’m sure I would have enjoyed those sessions, especially since there were no tests at the end. I didn’t know Prof. Rawls outside of the classroom (I pretty much spent my college years in a state of perpetual inadequacy), but I found him to be not only a profound thinker, but a kind and gentle man with a tremendous grasp of human nature.
Mike A,
As a youngster I was not as appreciative of the adults in my father’s circle of friends as I am now, 40 to 50 years later. However, I used to listen intently to all the debates and find myself even now, upon hearing a certain phrase or turn of phrase, saying to myself … I knew that. Upon further reflection I remember that I first heard the idea from the adults gathered around our dining room table all those years ago. I enjoyed a rather spectacular childhood … which at the time seemed perfectly normal. (It was my job to pour the Port)
Mike A:
At the bottom of what you said is share and share alike. Certainly if it is voluntarily it is equitable, if it is forced it is not.
Central and South America are/were feudalistic societies as you say run by a small minority of people. I imagine though if you trace the history of those families there was one poor bastard that worked his ass off and started it all. He had the same opportunities as any of his peers in whatever era he worked.
Much like Milton Hershey or Andrew Carnegie, both started from nothing and achieved great wealth and made many people wealthy. The unfortunate part is that not all people are capable of achieving great wealth, granted it takes workers to help do it but most work for a company because they have neither the ability nor the desire to expend the effort required. A man like Milton Hershey could have made a very fine living selling candy out of one store and doing most of the work himself.
A transference or distribution of wealth is not social justice it is theft. A rich man, at least in America, is not rich because he took from the workers. He created value where none existed. I fundamentally disagree with Dr. Rawls and say social justice is at the expense of the individual which is the reason our nation was founded. Therefore social justice is antithetical to our founding principles. Social justice implies the right to happiness whereas the founders merely allowed for it’s pursuit and guaranteed it for no one.
As Jefferson said, you cannot build-up one man by tearing another down. Social justice comes at someones expense, it is anti-individual.
As an aside a person has a right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining.
“A rich man, at least in America, is not rich because he took from the workers. He created value where none existed.”
Interesting myth you’ve got there Byron.
This would only be a true statement if people like Carnagie did all the work themselves. In fact, what he did was exploit the value creation of workers by disproportionately reaping the rewards of their efforts. That’s not a value adding relationship. It’s a parasitic relationship.
Social justice is not antithetical to the founding principles of this country, especially if one is using the Declaration as a guide to those principles. What social justice is antithetical to is your version of unrestrained capitalism which by its very nature is exploitative.
Elaine:
The information I read was similar to what you posted. The No Nothings tried to build it and could not raise money so they had to abandon it. By the time the Free Masons took back control it was the late 1850′s and it was stopped by the political upheaval of the day.
So both Olbermann and Beck are somewhat right. Olbermann is the Glen Beck of the left. Depending on your political persuasion one or the other is the anti-Christ.
Olbermann had an axe to grind and so did not exactly give the facts and neither did Beck. I think Beck is a little goofy and I am not one of the 2,000,000 plus who watches him. I don’t care for Olbermann and do not watch him either.
Byron,
You said: “A transference or distribution of wealth is not social justice it is theft. A rich man, at least in America, is not rich because he took from the workers. He created value where none existed.”
Some rich people earn their wealth. There are other wealthy people who get it through devious means–folks like Joe Cassano and some others who worked for Goldman Sachs and other banks and Wall Street firms who didn’t produce ANYTHING of value–but blew a hole in our country’s and other countries’ economies, lost working people’s pensions–all because of greed. There have been heads of corporations who are incompetent–but they get millions of dollars in golden parachute deals when they get fired.
Ken Lay? Great role model. So too Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken–and too many others to name.
I’d say that in recent years it’s been more of a redistribution of the wealth from the middle and working classes to the wealthy.
There are a lot of working poor, working class, and middle class folks who are far more productive than many of our richest Americans.
Byron,
Here is a little more on Carnegie:
However, a belief in political egalitarianism was another ambition Carnegie inherited from his family. Andrew’s father, his grandfather Tom Morrison and his uncle Tom Jr. were all Scottish radicals who fought to do away with inherited privilege and to bring about the rights of common workers. …..
Fond of saying that “the man who dies rich dies disgraced,” Carnegie then turned his attention to giving away his fortune. He abhorred charity, and instead put his money to use helping others help themselves. That was the reason he spent much of his collected fortune on establishing over 2,500 public libraries as well as supporting institutions of higher learning. By the time Carnegie’s life was over, he gave away 350 million dollars.” (American Experience)
I’m going to respectfully suggest that both Milton Hershey and Andrew Carnegie would have been more in agreement with Rawls’ views than with yours.
Byron,
Olbermann is not the Glenn Beck of the left. Give me a break!
I watched the Olbermann clip again. What did he say that twisted the facts? He provided listeners with information that is available at the National Park Service’s Washington Monument webpage. Glenn Beck lied or was ignorant of the facts when he said that the building of the monument was stopped because of the Civil War.
… I forgot the first set of quotation marks … it should read:
Here is a little more on Carnegie:
“However ………….
Byron,
‘A transference or distribution of wealth is not social justice it is theft. A rich man, at least in America, is not rich because he took from the workers. He created value where none existed. ‘
I agree, and it sounds great….but then how do you ascribe the anti-competitive realities into that statement? What about the market that caters to only those who are already wealthy? Corporations that actually work to HALT that dynamic of creating substantial value for society? [electric car.....], it sounds good on paper….it isn’t real and it leads people astray…
and I agree w/Elaine M. on the transfer of wealth issue….it’s been less than forthright in the translation…
Elaine:
I am talking about people who earn their money legally and ethically. But I disagree about the cause of the financial crisis. Interest rates are controlled by the Federal Reserve not Wall St.
Elaine:
The working class/middle class is paying way too much in taxes. I don’t think anywhere have I ever said that loss should be socialized, they should have gone out of business and paid the piper.
Blouise:
he was free to do whatever he wanted with his money. That is the point. Your money is your money, you earn it. It is part of your life to which no other man has a right.
Woosty:
A corporation that prevents an idea coming to market by illegal means should be sanctioned/penalized.
Byron
1, September 1, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Blouise:
he was free to do whatever he wanted with his money. That is the point. Your money is your money, you earn it. It is part of your life to which no other man has a right.
==============================================================
I’m sorry for not making my point clearer. I was not talking about the money itself but rather one’s view towards money.
Carnegie’s view, “the man who dies rich dies disgraced,” is far more radical than Rawls’ view.
Hershey was not a philosopher. He never wrote and seldom talked about his beliefs but followed a set of principles consistently in that wealth should be used for the benefit of others. He was quite famous for “making work” and could honestly boast that no one was laid off in Hershey during the Depression years.
From these examples I suggest that Carnegie and Hershey would have disagreed with your fundamental disagreement with Dr. Rawls and would not have viewed social justice as theft.
Byron,
I wasn’t talking about interest rates. I was talking about Credit Default Swaps and Collateralized Debt Obligations and cutting up and bundling good mortgages and bad mortgages together and selling them as securities. Goldman Sachs helped to bring the economy of Greece to the brink of disaster.
Here’s are links to two of Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone articles that you might find interesting reading.
The Great American Bubble Machine: From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression — and they’re about to do it again
(July 9-23, 2009)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64796
Looting Main Street: How the nation’s biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece
(April 15, 2010)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64833
Matt Taibbi with Ed Schultz
Sounds like you’re boxed in there, B.
Or to put it in terms of late 20th Century comic books, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Carnagie knew this.
He paid for his exploitation with the way he decided to dispose of his wealth (his great power).
Those venal assholes at AIG and GoldmanSachs can’t even spell “responsibility”.
But they can sure spell CEO bonuses.
There is a huge difference to take and then give back and to take and keep. Both of which are possible legally. Therein lies the problem. Equity and social justice are inexorably intertwined. Equity is the prime value of our Founding Fathers (“We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal. . .”). But Equity is contrary to your version of free market capitalism. Your version is social Darwinism – the strong take and screw the rest. Our Founding Fathers knew the inherent folly of this position as they saw it come to fruition in their lifetime as they watched the inequities of the French aristocracy toward the French people bring an end to Louis XVI in 1793. They knew the inequities of a royal class as they themselves had been subject to the whims of King George II, driven mad by porphyria.
Elaine:
all of that stuff was a result of the low interest rates. People who should not have gotten mortgages got them and these bad loans were bundled with good ones. The low interest rates were because of the Federal Reserve. The idea that people who cannot afford a house should have one has been promoted since at least Jimmy Carter. I guess you could call it “social justice”.
It was a bad thing to do and both republicans and democrats were front and center in this. And yes I blame lenders as well. Some took advantage of people but some did not. I believe BBT bank behaved honorably during that entire debacle, they even tried to refuse the bail out money but were made to take it by Henry Paulson (aka POS Paulson) POS = piece of shit. If I could have my way, I would put his back to a wall for what he did.
Byron,
You’ve got tunnel vision on this issue. You’re only looking at a part of what caused our financial disaster. Subprime mortgages were a part of it…sure. A lot of people also got balloon mortagages. A big part of the problem was unregulated derivatives–and unscrupulous and greedy people!
Matt Taibbi and The Looting of Main Street (April 2010)
Blouise:
again my point is that both he and Milton Hershey did it voluntarily. You cannot institute “social justice” by way of force. If you have great wealth it is yours, it does not belong to society unless you choose to give it. Whether you choose to do so is your decision.
If I were worth hundreds of millions of dollars I would spread some out to my workers in the form of large incentive bonuses and would want all of my workers to have health care, etc. But that is my choice, the government should have no part in any of it. From what I can see the only way to have “social justice” throughout all of society is for the government to do it by force. I have not read any works by Mr. Rawls so I do not know if he is a proponent of government sponsored “social justice”. If he is, I fundamentally disagree.
Might I add to Elaine’s comment, “[U]nscrupulous and greedy people . . . who used their money and magical powers of graft to make any regulatory and/or criminal legal restraints vanish in the years leading up to the Crash.”
“again my point is that both he and Milton Hershey did it voluntarily. You cannot institute “social justice” by way of force. If you have great wealth it is yours, it does not belong to society unless you choose to give it. Whether you choose to do so is your decision.”
Myth again.
Taxation is perfectly legal under the Constitution. Taxes are the means by which government finances social justice and social utility through infrastructure.
And I don’t really have to tell you that criminal laws and regulations are legal now, do I? Because if I do, your myopia may have grown to intractable proportions.
Bryon,
In the real perfect world, the FRB sets the interest rates. However, WallStreet has perfected the supply side imbalance that
anymore the interest rates are set to balance the inequities created by the corporate banking greed. Its called the lending ratio….whatever they have on the books at the end of the day better equal what the FRB says they can lend.
Higher interest rate to borrow less money to lend.
Let’s look at another component of your assertion, B.
“You cannot institute “social justice” by way of force.”
Yes, we can. It is socially unjust to commit murder and we use institutional force against murderers all the time in the form of arrest, trial, conviction, incarceration and/or execution.
You can do the same thing to wealth by limiting inheritance and taxing the Hell out of it.
Social justice is not just inexorably tied to equity, it’s tied to the basest concept of justice itself. And one of the prime functions of government is to ensure justice (social and otherwise) to keep people from seeking it through self-help, a state which bears a striking resemblance to anarchy.
Elaine:
did you hear what he is saying? It sounds like it was corrupt politicians that caused the problem. It sounds like everyone was screwing the tax payer. I am sorry it sounds like it goes back to government malfeasance.
Why is it the bankers that are the problem? It sounds like the local government caused the problem. It sounds like a good number of people in government have no idea about finance. It makes government and politicians look like fools.
It is a terrible failure of government. I am horrified by the politicians behaviour with public money. They refinanced 23 times. It sounds like people should be voting for people who can balance their checkbook and have some money in the bank.
How can you blame the banks? Except for the bribes, the rest is squarely at the feet of the local politicians.
Buddha:
to prevent murder is the proper use of government force because the murderer is using force against an individual. The 2 concepts are not equivalent.
Byron,
They are exactly equivalent.
We also put tax evaders in prison. Ask Al Capone and Wesley Snipes. Thieves too. Steal with a gun, steal with a pen, it’s still stealing. But the graft driven inequities are such now that stealing with a pen means you get a bonus and a huge bailout when you lose a bunch of other people’s money at the Wall St. Casino and Whorehouse.
“How can you blame the banks? Except for the bribes, the rest is squarely at the feet of the local politicians.”
The bribes tendered by banks. So yeah, you want to hold one side accountable but not the other.
Bullshit, Byron.
And that’s always been the problem with your stance on graft.
Offer and acceptance are required for agreements, even illegal ones. Pols wouldn’t be able to accept bribes (campaign contributions or otherwise) if businessmen didn’t offer them.
“Except for the bribes”
I really can’t believe you wrote something that manifestly stupid.
“Other than than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”
“Other than the Manson Family showing up, how was the party, Ms. Tate?”
“Other than the desert, how was that Last Supper, Jesus?”
pardon, “dessert”
other than:
Bob,
Now would be a good time for our resident Kant expert to chime in on how all logical operators within the propositions are equivalent to the moments of the understanding within judgments.
Buddha:
put the bankers in jail for the bribes, they should be. But that video Elaine posted was more an indictment of government than bankers. Hell bankers look like a sweet little puppy when compared to those politicians.
I could say it is manifestly stupid to think that those politicians are little innocent angles being taken advantage of by big bad bankers.
In the totality of what went wrong 3 million in bribes was chump change, that cost the bank 671 million in fines. I think that ledger was balanced. It sounds like a couple of bankers out to be doing a little time but this is an example of out of control government.
A government out of control because of what, Byron?
Deregulation purchased by industry through graft.
That’s the one and only answer.
You can’t cure the illness without stamping out both infection vectors.
You want to paint government the villain when there is plenty of villainy to go around, including in the private sector. Your assumption about angelic behavior is simply the inverse of what you accuse of coming from Elaine’s post. You assume businessmen are all (or at least mostly) good actors.
Utter nonsense.
And the only way to ensure they do behave is the same way to ensure pols behave: regulations and harsh criminal sanctions for malfeasance and graft be it for the accepting or the offering party. Less regulation, as you constantly call for, only throws gas on the fire.
Byron,
“How can you blame the banks? Except for the bribes, the rest is squarely at the feet of the local politicians.”
I wasn’t trying to prove innocence on the part of politicians. If those unscrupulous, greedy bankers hadn’t tempted and bribed the local politicians do you think that financial problem in Alabama would have happened??? It wasn’t the lit match and gasoline that started the fire–there hadn’t been any rain for weeks.
I’m puzzled by your logic.
“You can do the same thing to wealth by limiting inheritance and taxing the Hell out of it.”
Is the 16th amendment following the constitution?
“No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”
Article 1 Section 9
POLLOCK V. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U. S. 429 (1895)
http://supreme.justia.com/us/157/429/case.html
Elaine:
It sounds like the pols screwed up and approached the bankers to bail them out. Typically public works of that kind are financed through a local bond or a local tax increase. You don’t need to go to Wall St. to raise property taxes a couple of cents per hundred for a few years to pay for something like that.
Elaine:
I am just as puzzled by yours.
Pollock goes more to income earned from trusts, not inheritance taxes.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p950.pdf
Or here’s a non-legal breakdown of inheritance taxes.
http://www.money-zine.com/Financial-Planning/Tax-Shelter/Federal-Inheritance-Tax/
Really, B., you’ll lose this argument. Stay on focus.
Byron,
I’m willing to blame politicians and bankers and businesses for local and national financial problems. You seem to think that businessmen and women have mostly pure motives–while most politicians are corrupt. And I’d ask who corrupts the politicians? What came first–the chicken or the egg?
Byron,
I wonder how you think that wealth is protected?
Byron,
I’m puzzled by your lack of logic. Plain and simple. You want to ignore punishing the crime because one side represents private capitalist business interests.
Your solution to graft is what then?
Keep in mind your proposal must punish both parties, the offeror and the acceptor, and it must do so equitably.
If you can pull this rabbit out of the hat without resorting to regulation and/or criminal sanction (both of which are functions of government, including enforcement), I’ll buy you a beer.
Byron,
You are truly an idealist. I don’t say that mockingly; it is a very desirable trait. And I have no doubt that anyone dealing with you can feel confident of fair and honorable treatment. If those virtues attended all transactions between human beings, there would be no need of unions or other institutions to strengthen bargaining positions.
However, the concept of a level playing field is also an ideal. It is seldom found in nature. Unregulated capitalism operates amorally under that old perversion of the Golden Rule: “Those who have the gold make the rules.” When this view of capital merges with the structure of corporations and the statutory obligations imposed upon officers and directors, the result is oppression. In order to “level the playing field,” unions were developed. If I do not have the capital to match yours in negotiations, I may be able to amass enough bodies (labor)to offset the advantage of your capital, thereby permitting negotiations to proceed on a much more equitable basis. This idea was successful enough to produce a juggernaut manufacturing sector in this country and a middle class to share in the benefits.
But the middle class is undeniably shrinking. When competitive pressures compel manufacturers to cut costs, the most effective way to do so is to increase productivity and cut labor costs, which translates into fewer workers producing more and being paid less. This was a wonderful idea for southern states with high unemployment, low wage bases and a disdain for unions (hence the euphemistically named “right-to-work” laws prominent in the south). So manufacturing plants sprouted up in a lot of fallow cotton fields. Although it is fashionable to blame union greed for this state of affairs, that is grossly unfair. Products are going to be made where they can be made most cheaply, which ultimately means somewhere other than this country. In the meantime, we can expect the further decline of the unions and increasing downward pressure on wages. But the shareholders won’t be complaining.
With regard to your comments on the home mortgage fiasco, you are correct that blame can be spread around. However, there is much too much emphasis on blaming wannabe homeowners for making stupid loans. I have never been a part of what is known as “big law.” Although I have represented large banks and other institutions from time to time, for the most part my clients have been individuals and small business owners. I have had occasion to meet with many couples over the past few years who have been caught up in the mortgage mess. Some of them have made foolish decisions, but, in my experience, most of them have simply been hosed. It should be remembered that most homebuyers have little, if any, direct contact with lenders. They deal with mortgage brokers, that large class of folks who made money on both ends of the deals for years before quietly slipping into obscurity when everything collapsed. Much of what they said and did was pure hucksterism. Moreover, the typical mortgage documentation is Greek to most lawyers, let alone lay persons, especially those buying homes for the first time. Let me give you a sampling of what clients have been told by mortgage brokers:
1. You don’t need a lawyer. The title company will take care of everything.
2. Go ahead and sign this. I’ll fill it in later. The bank just needs it for its file.
3. Don’t worry about these numbers. We’ll be able to lock in a lower rate before closing.
4. Yes, it is an adjustable rate, but we’ll be able to refinance it for you before the adjustment kicks in.
The law is not intended to protect people from the effects of bad bargains or foolish decisions. However, it does attempt to protect people from the effects of deception. It’s just that most of the deceivers have gotten their money and disappeared. And the banks, which were undoubtedly aware of much of the shenanigans in the underwriting business, saw no evil while the record profits were pouring in.
I know I’ve probably gotten off track, but the point is that a lack of regulation and effective remedies breeds both social inequity and distrust of the law. Capitalism as you would prefer to see it practiced produces social and economic disparity. What we see now is the product of the erosion of regulation and the destruction of the union movement. Why do you think the Koch brothers and their friends are so readily willing to part with their millions to impact election results?
ON second thought (since I’d rather have a conversation than join in the dog-pile):
Here’s a thought that may turn on a light: “Social justice” programs prove to be much more efficient way of protecting private property (which I think you would agree is at least one of the roles of government) than force alone.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-68273649/inequality-and-crime-united.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-3T3SKRG-H&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F01%2F1998&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1447956445&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e78bac4ba1797f31dd984e8af965b595&searchtype=a
Gyges,
I don’t consider myself joining in a dogpile when I express my opinion and provide answers to people who question my knowledge/beliefs on particular issues.
Gyges,
Interesting article on social capital. This helps to explain the ubiquity of gated subdivisions.
Byron,
Rawls was a philosopher … a teacher … not a political movement. If you were his student and studied his philosophy and then went on to make a pile of money, hopefully your view towards that money would include some of the philosophy he taught you.
Here’s a teaser from Rawls: “They must be able to do this as free and equal, and not as dominated or manipulated, or under the pressure of an inferior political or social position …”
And here’s a link so that when you have some free time you may read. I think you will find that you agree with his philosophy more than believe possible right now.
http://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/ethics/matrawls.htm
Elaine,
Four on one may or may not be a dog-pile, but five on one is.
Byron,
What Mike A. said.
You are indeed an idealist. They are just slightly askew ideals when the vagaries of human nature are factored into the equation. In an ideal world, we would not be having this discussion.
Elaine,
I don’t think Gyges comment was meant to be disparaging. I took it as more of a constructive twist in trying to convince Byron. This may have been before your time, but when Byron initially started posting here (under a different name), he was a full hair on fire troll with no other agenda than to “piss off some liberals”. He and I had a few arguments that you could strip paint with as did he and mespo. After getting many rocks dropped on him and quite a few constructive twists to his perceptions, he calmed down and realized liberals were not exactly what he had thought before coming here. He went on to become the constructive if sometimes obtuse contributor he is today after a mishap of his own doing earned him a brief exile to which the Prof. relented after mespo, myself and a couple of others vouched for his (mostly
)reformed nature provided he adopt a new identity and thus Byron became a regular.
He can be obstinate but he is capable of changing his mind. It’s just sometimes a lot of hammering and twisting to get him to the “ah ha” moment. Ergo, I did not see Gyges as making a derisive remark but rather simply plying a simply different tool to the task of opening Byron to the fact there may be something wrong with his logic.
On this particular issue, it has been an ongoing battle. Due in large part to what Mike A. said about Byron’s idealism. Over time, it has become apparent he thinks most businessmen are good actors because he himself is a good actor. Because he is a good actor, he sometimes fails to see the necessities that bad actors require to protect society as a whole.
So in summary, not dogpile as dismissive (although if I’m wrong I know Gyges will say so, he has in the past without hesitation), but rather a shift in tack.
Elaine,
Never mind.
Gyges,
Your own sense of social justice perhaps?
Woof on you (in the key of E-flat for the emotions)
Byron hopefully you have stocked up on a few provisions as a precautionary measure. Hope all goes well next 24-36.
Any deviation to the West and you could experience Tropical Storm Conditions. VA. Beach and the OBX are sitting on pins and needles.
Large ocean swells effecting our beaches now with offshore winds forecasted late tommorrow into Friday. Check out 911Surfreport.com
over the next two days for pics of some classic surf.
The butterflies have been flying since early this morning.
Bdaman,
Please stay safe … I don’t want to have to say “Where’s Bdaman?”
To all my progressive friends:
I do not think business people are without fault, some are ruthless pricks who need to spend a few years in jail. Just as not all politicians are noble selfless creatures.
I come at this from a purely individual liberty stand point, hopefully in step with Locke, Jefferson and others who are committed to freedom. If I err it is with the best of intentions. For example I think Ken Lay was a very bad man. I think Henry Paulson should be in jail for what he did. I think business should rise and fall on their own merits, no subsidies, I think lobbying should be expunged from the national and local stage. But then I also think that taxation and regulation curtail wealth creation and keep us from having a prosperous happy country.
Is there a golden mean? Undoubtedly but where is it? It certainly isn’t at a tax rate of 50-60% (all taxes) and it isn’t at 0%. Should the bankers on Elaines video be in Jail? Most definitely but for how long? 90 days isn’t long enough but 10 years is too long. Should they have their credentials pulled? Maybe. Should the local pols be able to run for office again? I don’t know.
Blouise:
If you look to a previous post, I think you will find my philosophy of business/wealth in line with Prof. Rawls. But it must be voluntary without coercion of any kind.
Thanks Blouise I’ll keep it in mind while trying to paddle through mass amounts of water coming at me 10 feet high.
Byron,
You, my dear, are a formidable opponent … and I only quote Colbert to someone who is worthy.
Buddha,
My background is different from yours. I spent my early years in an era when women were supposed to keep quiet and let the men do the talking. I could only be silenced for so many years. If I have something that I feel needs to be said–I’m going to say it.
I’ve had plenty of discussions with Byron. We rarely agree with each other–but I respect him because he doesn’t get nasty and insulting. That said, I’m going to respond to comments he makes that I feel need a response. Too many conservatives/right-wingers have tried to put the entire blame for the near collapse of our financial system on the poor and minorities who got home loans they didn’t qualify for. There was a lot more to the story than that!
P.S. My husband is a good businessman too. He doesn’t, however, view all businessman through rose-colored glasses. In fact, he’s informed me over the years about all the “pirates” he’s met over the years in the course of conducting business. I should note, too, that he’s also met many business people who are honest and trustworthy.
Buddha:
the function of government is to try and make the field level and protect from the initiation of force on the individual. It should be an impartial referee and the rule book should be the Constitution properly interpreted without either side trying to impose their will.
Byron,
Please read the link I sent you (when things have settled down) … there is so much more to the concept than just wealth.
If you are in the weather as Bdaman seems to be … please take care.
Byron,
“[T]axation and regulation curtail wealth creation and keep us from having a prosperous happy country” but they do so because they are also necessary provide required infrastructure for our country to remain competitive (like highways and – yes – eventually socialized medicine like the rest of the world enjoys), to create justice (in all forms), and, last but most certainly not least, to deter crime as a component of encouraging justice.
necessary to provide required
pardon, fried catfish verb interference
that’s my story and I’m sticking to it
Elaine M.,
No more white gloves in church for us!!!
From the New York Times (8/20/2010)
The Charitable-Giving Divide
By JUDITH WARNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html
Excerpt:
With the battle over whether to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy shaping up as the major political event of the fall, opponents of repeal were handed a bounteous gift this summer when Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and 38 others announced that they formed a pact to give at least half their wealth to charity. After all, what better illustration could there be of the great social good that wealthy people can do when the government lets them keep their hard-earned dollars to spend as they please?
The problem is that the exceptional philanthropy of the superwealthy few doesn’t apply to the many more people defined as rich in the current debate over the Bush tax cuts — individuals earning over $200,000 and couples with revenues over $250,000. For decades, surveys have shown that upper-income Americans don’t give away as much of their money as they might and are particularly undistinguished as givers when compared with the poor, who are strikingly generous. A number of other studies have shown that lower-income Americans give proportionally more of their incomes to charity than do upper-income Americans. In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.
This situation is perplexing if you think of it in terms of dollars and cents: the poor, you would assume, don’t have resources to spare, and the personal sacrifice of giving is disproportionately large. The rich do have money to spend. Those who itemize receive a hefty tax break to make charitable donations, a deduction that grows more valuable the higher they are on the income scale. And the well-off are presumed to have at least a certain sense of noblesse oblige. Americans pride themselves on their philanthropic tradition, and on the role of private charity, which is much more developed here than it is in Europe, where the expectation is that the government will care for the poor.
But in the larger context of “the psychological culture of wealth versus poverty,” says Paul K. Piff, a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, the paradox makes sense. Piff has made a specialty of studying those cultures in his lab at the Institute of Personality and Social Research, most recently in a series of experiments that tested “lower class” and “upper class” subjects (with earnings ranging from around $15,000 to more than $150,000 a year) to see what kind of psychological factors motivated the well-known differences in their giving behaviors. His study, written with Michael W. Kraus and published online last month by The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism.
“Upper class” people, on the other hand, clung to values that “prioritized their own need.” And, he told me this week, “wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others.” Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum.
Regardless who’s at fault, government with C.R.A. banks or shoddy people. They all suffering now and as a result “We the People” are.
I hear countless stories in my community of people just deciding to quit paying their mortgages. A friend told me yesterday his neighbors had not made a payment on a house that sold for 750k three years ago for a little over a year. The bank finally settled and said if there was anyway they could make one payment, they would forgive the last twelve and reduce the interest by half.
Stop paying your mortgage, that will teach’em.
Byron,
A government cannot function in the justice capacity without enforcing the will of the people. Unfortunately, our government now bows to We the Corporate instead of We the People. Herein lies the rub that will eventually create enough social friction to start a fire.
Blouise,
LOL!
Actually–no more white gloves OR church for me!
For example: do not most murderers wish to go free? If they did not, there would not be so many unsolved cases as the majority of the criminals would have turned themselves in. It is through fact finding and the imposition of the rule of law that they are brought to justice. That is why having the rule of law as it is now – simply disregarded and severely skewed where taken seriously – is so damaging to society. Damaging in a way that leads to critical social instability if the course continues as plotted.
From the Institute for Policy Studies
CEO Pay and the Great Recession
September 1, 2010 • By Kevin Shih
At a time when we’re experiencing the worst economic crisis in the past 80 years, CEOs who slash jobs should have to tighten their own belts.
http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/ceo_pay_and_the_great_recession
Over 15 million workers were fired from their jobs from January 2007 through December 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Keep that in mind while looking at these numbers from IPS’s just-released 17th annual Executive Excess Report, CEO Pay and the Great Recession:
• Fred Hassan, the ex-CEO of Schering-Plough, received a $33 million golden parachute when his firm merged with Merck in late 2009. The merger led to 16,000 workers being fired.
• William Weldon of Johnson & Johnson took home $25.6 million, more than three times as much as the S&P 500 CEO average, at a time when his firm slashed 9,000 jobs and while the company was facing a massive drug recall scandal.
• Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard, currently famous for failing to cover up a relationship with a contractor/erotic film star, has been awarded $24.2 million for laying off 6,400 workers. On top of that, he received an additional $28 million in severance.
These two sets of data illustrate a pretty dire picture, especially at a time when we are experiencing record unemployment. Both the government and the private sector are unwilling to take sufficient measures to put Americans back to work. The federal government is moving away from job-creating stimulus to supposedly austere measures, like cutting much needed social safety net programs (see here for an obvious example). The private sector, on the other hand, is making record short-term profits by eliminating jobs—furthering the income gap between the rich and the poor, while also significantly decreasing the consumption and taxpaying power of regular workers.
CEO Pay and the Great Recession is a report we released today that illustrates this irresponsible behavior in the corporate sector. According to the report, the 50 top CEOs that have laid off the most workers in 2009 received $12 million on average, while the S&P 500 companies have earned around $8.5 million on average.
Some additional key findings:
• Five of the 50 top layoff leaders were recipients of major financial bailouts. Of these, American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault took home the highest 2009 pay, $16.8 million, including a $5 million cash bonus. American Express has laid off 4,000 employees since receiving $3.4 billion in taxpayer bailout funds.
• The $598 million combined compensation of the top 50 CEO layoff leaders could provide average unemployment benefits to 37,759 workers for an entire year — or nearly a month of benefits for each of the 531,363 workers their companies laid off.
At a time when we’re experiencing the worst economic crisis in the past 80 years, CEOs who slash jobs should have to tighten their own belts, not just so they’re in line with today’s S&P norm, but moving towards CEO pay levels in previous decades when the U.S. economy was more stable. This is a move that is necessary to establish robust sustainable economic growth. It would also help prevent future economic crises like the one we are experiencing today.
Bdaman,
I have heard of people doing that but I thought it was … you know … urban legend
Elaine,
Sick toddlers make me less diplomatic. I think Byron can handle himself admirably, but at some point there just becomes to many different posts for him to respond to.
Elaine M.,
Same here … Sundays are totally free and easy now.
I have a question for you on this little side subject. I was raised in an upper neighborhood and attended a Congregational Church … ok … that’s background to my question. Did you have to wear a dress all day on Sunday as I did?
Gyges,
I still remember sick toddler times. I hope your young one is on the mend.
Mike A:
as always you are thoughtful.
I agree that unions have the right to engage in collective bargaining to hash out the best deal for their constituents. I don’t like business going offshore anymore than you do, but as Mr. Bastiat says that is the seen. I am a small business (very small) and what you don’t see is this-I do engineering for small projects such as pools and additions, what they call grading plans to make sure water flows properly and grass is replanted. I am able to have some of that work done in India and so I can reduce my price to the consumer, they may save $500-2000 on any given project above what a larger local firm or even small local firm would charge. That extra money can be used to buy a better floor or a fountain for their pool or it can be put in the bank and saved thus allowing for economic expansion. Is it bad for me to use Indians for some of my work? I am actually promoting an improved economic situation by allowing more money to be spread around.
As far as mortgages go, you don’t need to be a lawyer or a financial genius you just need to follow the principle of no free lunches. A reasonable fixed rate loan is the only way to go unless you are Donald Trump. No one is smart enough to time markets correctly and entering into a variable rate or a balloon payment is shear folly. Some mortgage brokers are nothing but licensed con-men, but as they say you cannot cheat an honest man.
Sick toddlers, inclement weather, and now . . . questionable catfish.
Who will rid this blog of such ill fortune!
These are dark days indeed.
This must be Wayne’s doing. He always claimed to have an “in” with Dog, er, God.
May the childrens get better and the engineers stay dry.
Elaine M.,
The dynamics of giving is indeed interesting. One of the most disturbing aspects of televangelism is that it preys on the poor and ignorant. An elderly person donating 10% of his or her social security check each month to one of those scoundrels it truly making a sacrifice. Most donations from wealthy individuals come from surplus dollars and have no effect on lifestyles or buying habits.
I think everyone should have to wear a dress all day on Sunday.
If it’s good enough for J. Edgar Hoover, then it’s good enough for . . . oh, never mind.
Buddha,
Sshh … there’s a brown recluse hiding on thread #3
Buddha,
eavesdropper!
Byron,
“As far as mortgages go, you don’t need to be a lawyer or a financial genius you just need to follow the principle of no free lunches. A reasonable fixed rate loan is the only way to go unless you are Donald Trump. No one is smart enough to time markets correctly and entering into a variable rate or a balloon payment is shear folly. Some mortgage brokers are nothing but licensed con-men, but as they say you cannot cheat an honest man.”
I have no issue with this except for the last sentence. You can cheat an honest man if you are smarter than he is at obscuring your crime. As to the rest of it, the first time I heard of a variable rate loan, my initial reaction was “Are you kidding me?” It’s basic economics that fixed expenses are more desirable than variable expense.
Blousie,
I came from a working class/immigrant family. I attended parochial (Roman Catholic) schools from first grade through high school. In grades 1-8, we students were required to sit with our nuns and classmates in the basement of the church for Sunday Mass. I don’t recall being required to wear a dress all day on Sundays. It could be I erased that fact from my long term memory.
There was a positive side to attending those repressive Catholic schools. That’s where I met my husband and many of my closest friends–some of whom I’ve known for more than fifty years.
Blouise aren’t you in South Florida or is that Wootsy. Tropical Depression 9 formed today and may be a threat to the Florida Coast in about 7 days.
http://shrimpcreole.com/
Blouise,
moi?
Only for the sake of humor.
This is what it could potentially look like tomorrow and Friday for North Florida.
http://shrimpcreole.com/shrimp_creole/ads/2010/rt/condo/s1.jpg
Click Image for larger view of the tropics.
http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goescolor/goeseast/overview2/color_lrg/latestfull.jpg
Elaine:
Charitable giving is now done through taxation, that is why most people don’t do it anymore. You lower taxes and giving will increase.
Buddha,
“I think everyone should have to wear a dress all day on Sunday.”
I always say–don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! Remember, Scotsmen wear skirts, don’t they? There’s nothing like hiking through the highlands in a tartan on a breezy day to refresh oneself–or so I’ve been told.
Bdaman,
Hell no! Forgive the expletive but I really don’t like Florida. I live up on Lake Erie … we have smelly fish …
Elaine,
I was not suggesting you “be seen and not heard”. We’ve spoken enough for me to know not to pick that fight.
I am brazen, not foolhardy.
Elaine M.,
You have probably repressed the memory and I see no benefit to bringing all that to the surface.
Next week I’m having dinner with 2 friends that I met in 4th grade.
We get together at least once a month and have been doing so ever since we finished college. The bond is very strong and I appreciate them more as each year passes.
Bdaman
1, September 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Click Image for larger view of the tropics.
==================================================================
Scary!!!
Byron
1, September 1, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Elaine:
Charitable giving is now done through taxation, that is why most people don’t do it anymore. You lower taxes and giving will increase.
==========================================================
Then I’m all for raising taxes! (That’s a semi-joke, Bryon … don’t get upset)
Buddha Is Laughing
1, September 1, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Blouise,
Only for the sake of humor.
============================================================
vous!
Blouise,
Coupable. Je suis un bouffon, mais humbles.
Buddha,
Humble servant, my arse! … fermez la bouche … which, other than lyrics to a bunch of art songs, is the only french I know.
http://mydd.com/2010/9/1/joseph-stiglitz-trickle-up-economics-to-blame-for-crisis-2 Good explanation of the economic crisis. I went to catholic school for 12 years and church on Sunday’s,and you had to wear a dress or skirt to mass for an hour but not all day. In the seventies they started the folk mass and the wearing of jeans to church.
Mike A.,
“One of the most disturbing aspects of televangelism is that it preys on the poor and ignorant.”
How true!
Another one of the disturbing aspects of televangelism is guys with bouffant “Benny Hinn” hairstyles, $500 suits, and jewelry. Of course, they aren’t in it for the money–they’re men of God!
Well … I had to wear a dress all damn day and so did all my friends … protestants, catholics, and the two jewish girls who lived across the street … in fact all the females in our northern ohio village wore dresses on sunday
I can’t remember when it changed but I can remember still doing it in high school … I was born in 1945.
Blouise,
I’m from Massachusetts. We may have been a tad more liberal about our Sunday apparel. I was born in 1946.
I was not allowed to wear pants, however, when I was in college. I was studying to be a teacher, you see. Wearing pants was viewed as inappropriate.
You are a bit older than I am but not that much, and I never had to wear the dress all day. We changed after church. I grew up in Illinois.
Swarthmore mom & Elaine M.,
Well my little village must have been particularly repressed. If either of you have watched MAD Men … I swear that was my neighborhood in the late 50′s and early 60′s. In fact, come to think of it … females did not wear pants to high school either and I graduated in ’63.
My freshman year at university was when all hell broke loose. The Beatles were shocking the adults and JFK was assassinated. After that it was sex, drugs, and rock’n roll. Not for me, of course ….
Blouise I do watch Mad Men.
… and yes, my husband and I were at Woodstock but … and this is very important … I was working and he was carrying the music … a lot happened between graduating high school in June of ’63 and the big party in Aug of ’69 … including Nam!
Swarthmore mom,
I have the last three episodes recorded but haven’t had the time to watch them. Have to get that done before I meet with my buds.
Blouise and Elaine M.,
I well remember the dress rules for parochial school. Boys had to wear khaki pants, short sleeve white shirts and blue bow ties. My sisters wore blue skirts over white blouses. An acceptable skirt length meant that when a girl knelt, her skirt hem touched the floor. If it did not, she was sent home.
Mike A.
In grades 1-8, we wore dark green serge jumpers and white blouses with short, puffy sleeves and Peter Pan collars. In high school, we were even required to wear uniform shoes! They were not very comfortable.
I hope you weren’t one of those naughty boys who stared at girls patent leather shoes in hopes of seeing a reflection of something.
My best friend growing up (and now, as an adult)lived down the street and attended the Catholic School and I attended the Village School (both were K-8). She spent her entire 7th grade year begging her parents to let her go to the Village School for 8th grade. They finally relented and to this day she remembers that first day at the Village School (and the new wardrobe)as one of the happiest days of her life.
In thinking back to those days I remember that she and I did everything together, as best friends do. We ate dinner at each other’s home at least twice a week. We went on vacation with each other’s family. We had slumber parties, boy-girl parties and every other kind of kid’s party together. But come Sunday morning, she was never allowed to go to church with me and I was never allowed to go to church with her. Strange.
Blouise,
Most Catholics probably do not remember the rationale, but we were forbidden from attending non-Catholic church services because that would be perceived as endorsing the idea that all religions are equal before God. That is known as the sin of “indifferentism.”
Elaine,
You refreshed my recollection. The girls did indeed wear jumpers rather than just skirts, but Peter Pan collars on the blouses were not mandatory. Nor were patent leather shoes, which likely assisted me in avoiding a number of near occasions of sin.
I was an altar boy, however, in the days when people knelt and leaned forward with their heads turned upward to receive communion. I must candidly confess that I occasionally bumped a comely chin with the paten I was holding; to a twelve-year old looking down, even the slightest hint of decolletage can be a significant distraction.
A movie we may all want to see when it comes out this fall…