What are these London riots really about?

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The media and the dividedness in the US may well be connected. Starting with Fox news there have been these totally biased echo chamber television "news shows" for years now, and there is the internet to connect to websites and people supporting one ideological viewpoint only, while vilifying the other. Old school TV news (the kind of news you still get exclusively on TV in most western countries) wasn't like that. It even goes beyond that, the whole tea party pheonomenon was positively advertised from day one on Fox news.

Then there's the way money can influences politics, worse than ever, as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5kHACjrdEY&f


A failed state? Not even close. But it could come to that.

"We blew a wad ($1T+) on deficit spending to buy a couple years of a short term pop to the economy (yes the last two years have been the good years with the updraft). So now the false lift is over and we are no better off... "
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At least half of that was tax breaks. Economists overhelmingly agree that there wasn't remotely enough stimulus to help actual growth, all it did was prevent a cathastrophic downturn. Unfortunately "it would been much worse" isn't a great slogan. And after that the necessary steps weren't taken, on the contrary. And in this political climate, who would invest with confidence? The Wall Street / Main Street disconnect goes on, that's the biggest failure on Obama's part IMO, not having gone after the investment banks and setting things in order. Now they've got him by the b****.

Business/government partnership is a dangerous road to follow.
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On this I can wholeheartedly agree. Over here we're dealing with shady backroom deals from the neo-liberal years, for example leasing public infrastructure like the Berlin water supply to hedgefonds via secret contracts.
 
living sounds said:
The media and the dividedness in the US may well be connected. Starting with Fox news there have been these totally biased echo chamber television "news shows" for years now, and there is the internet to connect to websites and people supporting one ideological viewpoint only, while vilifying the other. Old school TV news (the kind of news you still get exclusively on TV in most western countries) wasn't like that. It even goes beyond that, the whole tea party pheonomenon was positively advertised from day one on Fox news.
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That is an interesting view point and almost 180' from my take. but allow me to expand.

Politics has always been divisive, it's about a simple competition with a winner and a lower. Governance OTOH is not supposed to be so confrontational. The legislature is well organized with minority and majority leadership for the formalized intercourse of doing legislative business.

The executive is nominally the leader of his party, but historically after election usually shifts to representing all of us, he is our president, not just half + who elected him. This executive has kept up a partisan demeanor while in the super majority and Rahming legislature down the minority's throat, and even recently after losing the house has remained confrontational and argumentative, not very presidential IMO. I suspect this perspective may be colored by my personal perspective somewhat but I have experienced several presidents from both sides of the aisle.  This one seemed to be far more partisan after getting into office. Now that we have cycled all the way around to another election cycle his current behavior is somewhat explainable as he appeals to his party base that are not very happy with him, despite all he has done for them.

Regarding media, I have long been a student of media since experiencing the difference between reportage and reality of anti-war rallies I attended in the '60s (yes moi). I have come to the conclusion over time that at best the media are a reflection of their audience and organizational culture or bias. I have seen changes over the decades and no doubt changed myself over the years. The most recent and startling changes appear to be in the mainstream media that turned openly supportive of their new dream candidate. While not so visible when they're pimping for your home team, those of us with a more critical eye, and rooting for the other team perceive the bias. While I don't get my news from TV, it has been dumbed down for the lowest common denominator and usually consists of the sound bite du jour from one side or the other. This is just management of the image and not the substance of political debate.

While i don't watch much Fox they do seem to lean to the right, partially to reflect the sensibility of their audience, and partially in response to the left leaning of the mainstream media.  I feel sorry for the sheeple who think they are getting the full story from one side or the other. On balance I'd say fox presents more information reflecting opposing views, while their info-tainment air talent do have and openly admit a political viewpoint. (Rating suggest they are not out of step with their viewers). 

I am disappointed  that with the power of all invasive cellphone camera phones with every political utterance recorded for posterity that we don't have more candidate X said this, and this and this,,, all in conflict. Candidates running for re-election need their feet held to the fire for their pre-election promises. But maybe that's just me.

The fish rots from the head, and I believe the divisive political climate comes from out leadership and some classic chicago rulz
elliot ness said:
You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way,
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I have already suggested that I feel the class warfare and political divineness contributes to the rioting and bad street temper of citizens. To some extent this is typical political posturing to shift the blame to anybody else other than them.. When was the last time a politician stood up and said yup... I screwed the pooch and allowed the regulatory failures that caused the last meltdown..? This is always blamed on some other nameless faceless villain, and the politician is the new sheriff in town..  if you buy that I have some swampland in MS to sell you.

Then there's the way money can influences politics, worse than ever, as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5kHACjrdEY&f
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Do i have to watch that... ? I bet it isn't talking about how much money Soros has pumped into attacking Fox and conservatives
A failed state? Not even close. But it could come to that.
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Not if middle america gets a say... the silent majority is still a majority but not as silent as they always were.
"We blew a wad ($1T+) on deficit spending to buy a couple years of a short term pop to the economy (yes the last two years have been the good years with the updraft). So now the false lift is over and we are no better off... "
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At least half of that was tax breaks.
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From the first few source I checked I see about $275B in tax benefits to business and individuals
Economists overhelmingly agree that there wasn't remotely enough stimulus to help actual growth,
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Because you can't actually "grow" the economy with government spending.. it shows up in the GDP but only transiently like a shock absorber to level out small dips.

This was not a small dip in the road. And more borrow and spend will not fix anything.
all it did was prevent a cathastrophic downturn. Unfortunately "it would been much worse" isn't a great slogan. And after that the necessary steps weren't taken, on the contrary.
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Worse than not taking corrective steps the economy has been saddled with more regulation, and an ass backwards energy policy. The free trade agreements from years ago that would create American jobs and growth still sit unapproved.

The uncertainty about the future is slowly being replaced with a certainty that the future will involve slower growth and higher taxes that will make even slower growth again.
And in this political climate, who would invest with confidence? The Wall Street / Main Street disconnect goes on, that's the biggest failure on Obama's part IMO, not having gone after the investment banks and setting things in order. Now they've got him by the b****.
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Again trying to blame business. Business leaders don't win because unemployment is high and the economy stumbles... this is a simple case of a gang that doesn't have a clue in charge, and they are killing the golden goose.

They could create a boat load of jobs just by reversing their flawed energy policy.I know the gulf region where I live wouldn't mind a return to previous oil drilling levels.  They seem to be going out of their way to hurt employment while claiming they are doing every thing they can to help it... 

After the nonsense with Boeing in SC, what business is not going to consider putting their next factory expansion outside this administration's reach, in another country? Am I the only one this seems obvious to?
Business/government partnership is a dangerous road to follow.
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On this I can wholeheartedly agree. Over here we're dealing with shady backroom deals from the neo-liberal years, for example leasing public infrastructure like the Berlin water supply to hedgefonds via secret contracts.
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Speaking about the economy i am watching home prices dip below the pre bubble levels in several major markets. This is fairly normal for large dynamic systems to over shoot high on the way up and now low on the way down... if I didn't already own a home, I'd be looking to buy right now (interest rates can't get any lower)... the sheeple are still afraid of further price drops so inordinately choosing to pay more to live in rental housing than it would cost them to buy a home. This is irrational, but i understand the mentality. just like people though house prices could never go down, now they believe they will never go up again.. once again the government needs to get out of the way. the promise of more government intervention hanging over the market adds uncertainty and makes people fearful about the future.

I expect it could take a few more election cycles to get a critical mass of adults in the legislature. The white house should not be in play this time, but if they keep doing what they're doing, they're going to keep getting what they're getting.  Now we're supposed to wait for another grand plan in Sept... Anyone want to bet that it doesn't contain more borrowing and spending?  I suspect we'll gets clues from the NYT editorial page testing the water.

JR
 
Yes, the media and academia in general are more liberal than the average person. In a society with higher education availible to the general public educated people lean more to the left, it's a constant throughout history and regardless of region. But it's not been hard to be left of Congress or the Supreme Court for a long time now. There's maybe a handfull of senators with a convincing liberal record, and a few dozen congresspeople. Being a Democrat does not automatically equal a liberal voting record.

And what has Obama actually accomplished for liberals? Close Guantanamo and give every prisoner a fair trial? End at least one war and reduce military spending? Close down the casino and put an end to destructive speculation? Single payer health care? Reform electoral law? Raise taxes on rich people, corporations, prevent tax evasion (or at the very least end Bush tax cuts)? Impliment effective and comprehensive consumer protection? No more drilling in sensitive ecosystems and all-in efforts to support development and use of alternative energy, especially battle climate change? Put suspected war criminals in the previous administration on trial? Give everyone the opportunity to go to college without going into massive debt? End the counterproductive "war on drugs"? Bust to-big-to-fail financial institutions?

These are the things his base really wanted I could think of right now, and they haven't happened. A few things, like ending DADT, have been done, but all the really important stuff didn't happen. The rest is watered-down or ineffective and poisoned by special interest like the health care reform. Some is simply being blocked by Republicans like a lot of the most important provisions of the already weak Frank-Dodd bill.

Now some of it has to do with the idiotic filibuster rule. That's where the government can actually be called broken. But a lot is down to lack of 'audacity' IMO. And trying to appease the other side, even though it was clear from the get-go that they'd give him nothing.

But in the end Obama has the unthankfull job of dealing with a giant, historic mess others before him created. Again, the roots of this go back several decades. Huge public and private debt, bad infrastructure, the trade gap, enormous military undertakings were just the backdrop to the crisis. Many previously availible options have long been exausted, the normal way of stimulating via monetary policy cannot work in these conditions. Add the structural problems of an aging workforce and the situation with overseas manufacturing already mentioned somewhere above. It's really not pretty.


Fox follows a pre-determined narrative on every single issue. The recent scandals have again shone some light on the corrupted nature of Murdoch's empire. I'm so glad he was never able to suceed here, especially given the watered-down state media concentration law here is at now.

Class warfare has been waged for 30 years on the middle class, the numbers don't lie. And it gets worse thanks to Citizens United. One of the statistics in the video is that corporations spent more in the last midterm (2010) than in all midterms before from 1990 on combined. 300 million Dollars. I don't see how anyone with a concience can not find this extremely worrying. Obviously super-rich investors like Soros shouldn't even exist in the first place (and only do thanks to bad decisions in the 70s and 80s), but he's a very small fish compared to the awesome financial firepower that is corporate America.

BTW, it looks like a new bubble may be forming around Silicon Valley. Or it might be actual, sustainable growth. Certainly a lot seems to be going on there lately.
 
living sounds said:
Yes, the media and academia in general are more liberal than the average person. In a society with higher education availible to the general public educated people lean more to the left, it's a constant throughout history and regardless of region. But it's not been hard to be left of Congress or the Supreme Court for a long time now. There's maybe a handfull of senators with a convincing liberal record, and a few dozen congresspeople. Being a Democrat does not automatically equal a liberal voting record.
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Wow, that's a remarkable claim... I should introduce you to my brother with a PhD from MIT, he's to the right of me. Your comment would be insulting if not so laughable.

There are other theories about the liberal nature of academics based on their insulation from reality and having never dealt with the real world. There is an old saying, "Those who can do, those who can't teach"... Working engineers have long looked down upon college professors as not being fully capable of delivering the real thing, while I have known quite a few engineering academics who were Ok.

College campuses are bastions of liberal through because it's where people stay in lieu of growing up and getting a real job.

Media is a different story, but again not strongly based in dealing with reality, though they see the darker side of it. People often get into journalism hoping to change the world, so progressive activism is attractive to that mind set. i recall when newspeople bent over backwards to present the news fairly but then was then and now is not then.     
And what has Obama actually accomplished for liberals? Close Guantanamo and give every prisoner a fair trial? End at least one war and reduce military spending? Close down the casino and put an end to destructive speculation? Single payer health care? Reform electoral law? Raise taxes on rich people, corporations, prevent tax evasion (or at the very least end Bush tax cuts)? Impliment effective and comprehensive consumer protection? No more drilling in sensitive ecosystems and all-in efforts to support development and use of alternative energy, especially battle climate change? Put suspected war criminals in the previous administration on trial? Give everyone the opportunity to go to college without going into massive debt? End the counterproductive "war on drugs"? Bust to-big-to-fail financial institutions?

These are the things his base really wanted I could think of right now, and they haven't happened.
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You list reveals a lot about your sense of reality. It's easy to make sweeping campaign promises when you are hoping to get elected, not so easy to deliver, even after you have one of the most powerful offices in the world with house and senate majorities.
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If you wish to accept the GITMO detainees in Germany, we'll provide the plane fare.. Nobody wants this here, but nobody wants it anywhere else either.. it's not like the good old days when Europe could send their unwanted to the Americas. it would have been far easier for us to just shoot them and let the 99 virgins sort it out, but we are better than that. but this is instructive as many liberal wish list items,,, just do it, what's the problem?

End a war... ?? The troop reductions in Iraq were already negotiated before he was elected. Iraq is still in the news with insurgents blowing up churches because the new government is having public debates about when they will ask us to leave. Another difficult question, since there are still powerful influences in the region that don't want a new democracy in their midst... it sets a bad example for their people who didn't know there was another way. Why do you think the Arab spring is happening, because obama gave a speech in Cairo? Think again... I wish he'd throw Assad under the bus like he did Mubarak, what's his game? 

The surge in afghanistan seems like a bad copy of the surge in Iraq, that worked there because the Iraqi nationals finally stood up and fought against the real enemy. In afghanistan, we are just the most recent imperialist force who has come and gone there for the last several generations. they never knew peace or anything else. In hindsight the former administrations low key presence in Afghanistan cost us a lot less money and less lives, while keeping al keaida (SP?)  in check. This mission creep to remove the taliban and stand up a government, while telegraphing that we pulling out by such and such a date, is a recipe for failure. Once again I wish I was wrong... 

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Your entire list is equally flawed, but I don't have the time to finish a point by point and you don't want to hear my views anyhow

A few things, like ending DADT, have been done, but all the really important stuff didn't happen. The rest is watered-down or ineffective and poisoned by special interest like the health care reform. Some is simply being blocked by Republicans like a lot of the most important provisions of the already weak Frank-Dodd bill.
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I had to google DADT to see what you were talking about... when I served in the army we had a gay supply sergeant but i sure didn't ask and he didn't tell.. but I'll bet.

if you think health care reform was water down and dodd-frank was gutted, we once again disagree... i am slightly optimistic because the health care mandate has been declared unconstitutional while this won't really be settled until it gets before the supreme court. Even if key elements of it are knocked down a huge amount of damage has been done... and several more years will have been wasted without true reform. Dodd-Frank is already having a negative effect on banking. At least Dodd had the courtesy to retire from congress after screwing us.
Now some of it has to do with the idiotic filibuster rule. That's where the government can actually be called broken. But a lot is down to lack of 'audacity' IMO. And trying to appease the other side, even though it was clear from the get-go that they'd give him nothing.
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Lack of audacity... how about a return to common sense?
But in the end Obama has the unthankfull job of dealing with a giant, historic mess others before him created. Again, the roots of this go back several decades. Huge public and private debt, bad infrastructure, the trade gap, enormous military undertakings were just the backdrop to the crisis. Many previously availible options have long been exausted, the normal way of stimulating via monetary policy cannot work in these conditions. Add the structural problems of an aging workforce and the situation with overseas manufacturing already mentioned somewhere above. It's really not pretty.
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I knew it would come around to Bush's fault.. not sure that will play in 2012 but your welcome to keep trying.
Fox follows a pre-determined narrative on every single issue. The recent scandals have again shone some light on the corrupted nature of Murdoch's empire. I'm so glad he was never able to suceed here, especially given the watered-down state media concentration law here is at now.
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I would advise someone with your sensibility to not watch Fox.  The excesses of the UK tabloid press have always been a distant amusement to us, but it sounds like they have crossed some lines. if Rupert's lads were on the wrong side of the law and they need to get spanked. plain and simple 
Class warfare has been waged for 30 years on the middle class, the numbers don't lie. And it gets worse thanks to Citizens United. One of the statistics in the video is that corporations spent more in the last midterm (2010) than in all midterms before from 1990 on combined. 300 million Dollars. I don't see how anyone with a concience can not find this extremely worrying. Obviously super-rich investors like Soros shouldn't even exist in the first place (and only do thanks to bad decisions in the 70s and 80s), but he's a very small fish compared to the awesome financial firepower that is corporate America.

BTW, it looks like a new bubble may be forming around Silicon Valley. Or it might be actual, sustainable growth. Certainly a lot seems to be going on there lately.
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No the current bubble is commodities due to the fed leaning on money and credit supply to prevent deflation.

Silicon valley being located in CA has a strike against it with that states spending and lack of fiscal constraint. I suspect the bubble you are thinking about is the astronomical valuations around some social media IPOs and still privately held. The IPO market has been distorted lately with offerings selling a smaller number of shares than normal. This creates a perceived scarcity that tends to inflate share prices and make them hard to short, since you have to borrow shares to sell them short and when the float is small it's hard to borrow and short...  I would stay away from the high flyers, more likely to be a bubble...  But you seem to know everything else, and I'm a dumb conservative... so go ahead and buy.  I bough stock last week when everybody was running for the exits, and i'd invest in a house now, before some social fad.


of course i could be wrong.

JR
 
Wow, I wasn't trying to be insulting here, sorry if it sounded that way.

Not everyone in academia has left-leaning views, but statistically it's a fact that people there generally hold much more liberal views than the general population. Overwhelmingly in many areas. At least that's what the data Michael Shermer, skeptic and also a libertarian, cites in his latest book.

I would even agree that there's a disconnect to reality with many of these people. But then the same can be said about the other side, as evidenced (in the US) by the psychotic ramblings of Glenn Beck or the popularity of the absurd birther thing...

I would also readily concede that I've got cognitive biasis and misconceptions, everyone has. But I don't see much need to question my "sense of reality", thank you very much. My views on economic policy are based on mainstream theories...

Now, the list with the liberal policy objectives are pretty much what the base wanted from Obama. At the very least they expected him to put up a fight on their behalf. But he tends to start from a compromised position and then compromises again. Some of these objectives have a majority of Americans behind them. But the political system doesn't allow for the will of the people to be implimented. In western Europe most of this is pretty much mainstream, but again, political realities often make it hard to impliment them. For instance, to tax financial transactions you've got to do it for a big portion of the market at the same time, not just in a single country. That's hard to achieve.

The Arab spring was (indirectly) sparked by the recession. Temporary food shortages combined with the restrictions on peoples freedom started it in Tunesia.

On the war issue - I myself don't know what's best at this point. This can only be decided by those who have all the facts. The fallacy to avoid however is to stay there merely due to everything that was invested prior (a cognitive bias called Irrational escalation) disregarding future risks.

I agree as far as Assad is concerned.


There's a good rundown of the health care reform and how it interacts with arcane laws protecting insurance companies in Matt Taibi's book "Griftopia". It's a bad bill written by and for the insurance lobby, and not at all what liberals wanted (which would have been single payer).

A recent survey:

"Who do you think is mostly to blame for most of the current federal budget deficit: the Bush administration, the Obama administration, Congress, or someone else?"

    Bush
admin. Obama
admin. Congress Someone
else All/Combo.
(vol.)/Unsure
    % % % % %
 

8/2-3/11
44 15 15 10 16
           

I read the Silicon Valley stuff in the economic section of one of the best and most respected news magazines. Don't have any information beyond that though.
 
I didn't take it as a personal insult as much as an implied broad derogation but I pretty much responded in kind... funny how that works.

I don't cite other people's opinions or polls or well respected news magazines. I have been paying attention for a long time, so I'm loaded with my own thoughts. Some people say I'm full of it. 

it's OK that we disagree, at least its Ok with me. I disagree with almost everything but where you agreed with me, and the occasional factoid. I guess we'll have to wait for the historians to write the history.

It's even Ok that you're unhappy with Obama... I guess he won't get another Nobel peace prize this next time around. He did make peace with the Cambridge police dept and disarm Taiwan**. 

JR

** We just announced we are not selling advanced fighter jets to Taiwan just before Biden's visit. Must keep our bankers happy and China doesn't want Taiwan making trouble with ?.
 
living sounds said:
I agree as far as Assad is concerned.
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I think he heard us, or maybe he heard you...  ;D

http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2011/08/18/us-allies-urge-syrias-assad-to-leave-power/

better than the recent previous statements but I won't harp on that...  This is a positive step.

JR
 
Good call. It's hard to imagine what people in countries like these have to go through every day.

But as long China and Russia still support Assad... The latter country seemed to be on a good way for some time, now it's hardly a democracy. Our former chancellor Schröder is best buddys with Putin and now more or less works for him. That's an area where I definitely prefer Merkel...
 
It might be good to point out that most political squabbling is like brothers and sisters fighting, it pales in significance compared to the real bad guys and injustices out there in the world.
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IMO China is not supporting bad actors for any philosophical reason as much as serving their own self interest, mostly to buy cheap energy and sell their trinkets, the soviets are weaker than at the height of their empire, but still powerful and dangerous. I expect they hold a grudge too. Helping Iran with a nuclear reactor and to acquire fissile material seems crazy... to me, but I can imagine a calculation that might not look so bad to them.. but I'd rather not speculate about motives more than I already have. No doubt they like the money and oil Iran is paying them, for it.

JR 
 
I'm sorry is that not the politically correct term?  :-[

After the USSR I don't follow closely what they call themselves, but then again they're not my next door neighbor either.

How about Ruskys?  I sure wouldn't want to offend anybody.  :p

JR
 
Rather than start a new thread since the protests seem to be perpetual around the world, what do people here think the recent US demonstrations are actually about?

it is interesting to watch as sundry interest groups try to identify with, or not to the apparent press attention.

I haven't seen a clear picture emerge, suggesting there may not be a coherent common theme other than unhappiness with the current economic malaise. Blaming Wall Street for the current situation is the kind of simple answer to a complex problem that politicians routinely eschew. IMO words have consequences, so the years of class warfare may have contributed to making wall street a/the target. A deeper inspection of the issue (IMO) requires far more fingers, and lots of blame to be shared by many, including supposed victims.


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recent tidbits that seem true.

Warren Buffet while apparently endorsing raising taxes on the wealthy, disclosed his recent tax return. He paid $7M on $63M of reported income, that seems low for even long term capital gains, so I want to meet his accountant. While he clearly paid a lower rate than his secretary, I doubt she paid $7M in taxes.  Even Warren in followup comments has qualified his personal opinion is to raise taxes only on the very wealthy, not the ever expanding downward definition of "millionaires" coming from K street.  Note: A linearly progressive tax rate, results in an exponentially progressive tax amount. A simple flat tax that raises the same total amount would likely charge Warren more and his secretary less than they pay now. Caveat: without looking at the details of Warren's tax return this is my speculation from a distance.

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In a WSJ article about Rahm trying to clean up Chicago's budget problems, they reported that union rules require 3 workers to change a (street) light bulb. If true this is obscene. Garbage collection seems gerrymandered by some form of local ward politicians power base, making collection (even more) inefficient.  Union truck drivers can only drive, making any job involving a truck a 2 man job, with only one man ever working at a time..maybe they should split one paycheck, based on how much each is working.  ;D. A common theme here is paying people for not working or creating any value commensurate with their income. While opinions vary. Note: I concede there are some jobs where a dedicated truck driver makes sense, but only some.

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Congress (finally) passed the free trade bills w/ S Korea, Columbia, and Panama. The Korea trade will make a noticeable difference in our exports and hopefully jobs, and stop the advantage others were gaining with trade to countries by negotiating deals while we sat on this for 5-6 years.  This is exactly the kind of thing that government can do to create jobs, all the rest is arm waving and wasting our tax dollars.  So good job, for a change.

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As NCLB (No child left behind) approaches the 2012 deadline for having raised the bulk of our children to perform at their grade level, with no chance of passing that test, a democratic senator has submitted a bill to unwind NCLB completely, and remove the extra accountability imposed by NCLB. Like I told the local politician running for school superintendent in my area, teach the kids the material, and NCLB will not bother you.  I am no fan of Federal intervention at state level, but they are already in the middle of it, and this is too important to fail our children, by not equipping them with the tools to be effective in a modern world.

For a little ironic counter point on the subject of education, in So Korea, the government is working to prevent too much tutoring, as parents are so concerned about their children's ability to compete in a technological society, that they routinely send them to after school tutoring mills.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/s-korea-tries-to-wrest-control-from-booming-private-tutoring-industry/2011/01/12/AFNXQfXC_story.html

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Speaking of unions, where's my NBA season? I hear Kobe was offered $600k per game to play in italy (he lived there as a kid). If they want to strike let them... If they miss an entire season they may not kill the golden goose that is paying them way too much to play children's games, but they will make the pot of gold smaller that they are arguing about how to divide, but that's their right. 

JR
 
VanGenz said:
Margaret Thatcher said in 1987: "there is no such thing as society"........
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Ahh, the old chestnut of the the left. Perhaps you should quote the speech in full to give it context.
The words are then read in a different light. Selective editing, 2/10 for effort.


Frank B.
 
Even I understand that this is not what Maggie ment....But I think this interpretation is just as good when you see whats happening today.
 
JohnRoberts said:
Rather than start a new thread since the protests seem to be perpetual around the world, what do people here think the recent US demonstrations are actually about?
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Well, Van Jones has had some free time having not gotten that Red Jobs Czar gig.  Take a look at the bottom of his site's page for a partial list of the ship of fools. 

Mike
 
I guess we could kill the top 1%, but then somebody else would be the top 1%. I guess we could keep killing them until we don't have any very wealthy people...  I'm not sure that would be better world.

Note: I don't mean to literally kill them, but figuratively if we kill their wealth.

I doubt the solution is to let the unions force Chicago to hire a 4th worker to change light bulbs, on top of the current three.. while I guess that would reduce unemployment, how can those workers have any self respect?

I still don't know what the protesters want,, I hear a few want their college loans forgiven.

I'm not smart enough to know what they all want, but it appears many want something, provided by the government some how at no cost to them (magic?).

We'll see.. in 12 months we can throw the current bums out and elect some  new bums..

JR

 
I am right-leaning. Some people would say a right-winger, I'd say more libertarian. Anyway, everyone is slowly starting to see that the left/right division is the biggest scam...

John, and Living Sounds, you guys hit the nail on the head.

OBAMA AND BUSH have done the SAME thing. The SAME puppetmasters are at play.

It is so easy to see this when you get outside the box.

Bush (illegally?) made the USA a member of the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Canada and Mexico. Closed meetings, no congressional approval. EVEN THOUGH many liberals may *like* the notion of the SPP (much like the basis for establishing the EU), they should be SCARED of what the governments are doing. They are operating below the radar of the everyday Joe out there.

Obama has given "more of the same". Forget EVERY WORD Obama or Bush has said and look at their actions. I never believed that there was a globalist New World Order until during the Obama campaign. This is when I woke up to the fact that GWB was a part of it.

THIS VIDEO is short and tells it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIPik872K64

Obama and Hillary Clinton, during his presidential campaign, attended a Bildeberg Group meeting in North Carolina. They would not say what meeting they were leaving for. The press corps boarded a plane, thinking the then-candidate Obama would be joining them to fly to Chicago. In every other election they were with the candidate 24/7! However, this time, Obama never boarded the plane, and his press secratary, Robert Gibbs, tried to cover for him. The went to Chicago without Obama and were never told where he was.

For years I was told I was crazy. That the Bildeberg group did not exist, etc... Well, last year they put up a website after PRESSURE from those seeking the truth.

From that point on I've been skeptical of a lot of what we are told is important news and have been digging for nuggets when I have the time.
 

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