Somebody get a memo to the ows crowd

[onmyknees]

As I've said previously, I have no beef with the OWS crowd.
Having said that, I'm smart enough to know there are far more G-20 type anarchists, outright socialists, petty street criminals, disturbed homeless types, and just plain malcontents in their ranks then the clueless media cares to report on, but nevertheless....as long as they're peaceful, and Michael Moore pays for the Porta-Toilets, they can stay there until hell freezes over, but at some point.....we all know this is gonna get ugly. Unlike the Tea Party who turned their discontent into a political wave of change ( sorry Trish...that's just a fact you're gonna have to deal with no matter how many pejoratives you throw their way) these OWS folks don't seem to be able to move to the next step, and I suspect it's precisely because of the reasons I outlined above. It's kinda hard to corral anarchists and homeless folks into a coherent political force. Obama, Pelosi and many other liberals have danced around the edges hoping to capture some of that anger and move it to the next step...they're playing with fire, and they're not playing with facts. Here's some facts for our friend Blue Grass Cat taken from Census Bereau data that someone really needs to share with these OWS folks . I can't count the number of times Trish and the other progressives have beat the drum about the rich getting richer under Reagan.

So their message , although muddled appears to be income equality. They're angry at big banks, Wall Street, and the Fat Cats.....the 1%ers.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama said, "The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with." Well, well.....the facts will show something different Mr. President.

Because so much of liberalism is based on emotion, and not facts what these progressives also fail to realize is that the bottom wage earner group is not static. ..it's dynamic meaning that many move out of that group, and many others ( poor uneducated immigrants) move in. So it's easy to see that we'll always have a certain group at the bottom.


So the point of all this? To the extent wage inequality is a problem, what then are the solutions? Tax policy? Not likely to work because even more money will go offshore...Raising the marginal upper tax brackets might make you feel good, but it will only provide the government with more revenue to piss away on green energy, and Fanny and Freddie bailouts.
Laws allowing CEO's to only make a certain amount? Not likely to pass, and probably unconstitutional. The point is.....The OWS protests might be pointless.










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[trish]

I'm smart enough to know..

In other words, instead of relying on evidence you're relying on your biased intuitions.

sorry Trish...that's just a fact you're gonna have to deal with no matter how many pejoratives you throw their way

Only a person who doesn't live in a fact based, evidence based world would think that people have to somehow "deal" with facts on an emotional level. The fact here is that the tea-baggers have monied backers (e.g. the Koch brothers) and a political face. Whether they're are a "wave of change" remains to be seen.

So their message , although muddled appears to be income equality. They're angry at big banks, Wall Street, and the Fat Cats.....the 1%ers.

These are of course two different things. Concern with income inequality doesn't entail being angry at the haves. Only you, OMK, respond to every problem with anger directed at one component or another. But consider this. The government is lending money to the large commercial banks at near zero percent interest. What are they charging you for your loans? If you're a student, you're paying 9% interest on your loan. That's quite a profit! If you have a credit card, you're likely paying 20%. There used to be laws against loan-sharking and usury. The GOP called those laws "unnecessary regulations obstructing the job creators." I agree, they obstructed the so called "job creators" but not from making jobs. Now please note, there is no anger or rage or hate in this post. I'm just telling it like it is.

I fail to see what's so surprising about the biggest jump in income disparity coinciding with the repeal of Glass-Steagall, or why you're surprised to see disparity rising during a period of jobless recovery. The question is "Recovery from what?" The biggest economic failure since the Great Depression brought on by the Bush policies: make war-spend-deregulate-and-cut taxes.

The OWS protests might indeed be as pointless a GOP presidential candidate debate. But that remains to be seen.

[Stavros]

OWS to the left, Tea party to the right: when did the USA have such visible and bitter divisions amongst its own people?

In my memory, it was the Vietnam War that drove a wedge between Americans, but what during the Johnson presidency was seen as an anti-American, left-of-centre, student-activist phase, turned into something more serious after Kent State and the breakfast bombings of Cambodia. By the time Nixon was re-elected I think the cleavage was broader, and with Watergate a deeper depression about governance in America set in than many historians could refer to as an example from the past: it seemed a unique moment and one that suggested the USA had lost its way for the first time since 1776.

Luckily for the USA, Jimmy Carter restored decency to American politics, and though I detested him, Reagan gave the USA the image of itself that was popular enough to get him re-elected, but it was also a conservative moment, and one that seemed to mark a radical shift in the overall balance of American politics with a shift to the right that has yet to be reversed.

And yet, and yet -though Republicans loathed Clinton, he was a popular President, but the current tone of politics in the US is the ugliest and most aggressive I have known since Nixon, possibly even more so, and because it is derived from financial horrors that have yet to be dealt with, I suppose we have to listen to you people bashing each other over the head for the next 12 months until Obama is or is not re-elected.

Maybe the American system of government no longer works, in which case elections are not going to do anything practical to deal with real issues: a future of paralysis beckons, accompanied by a raucous din of protestors refusing to go away...

[Ben]

Most people misunderstand the meaning of socialism. Because, in part, it has never been tried. So, the way we use the term socialism (&/or capitalism) isn't correct. Both entail a removal of the State.
Has this ever been tried? No. People, in a socialist society, would set up workers' councils. They'd run their own communities, their own banking institutions, they'd fully participate in the decision-making process, as it were. The Soviet Union was the exact opposite of socialism. Again, the Soviet Union wasn't socialist. Far from it. It was simply a tyrannical/dictatorial State. (We use that term socialism to demean socialism. But we need to understand that tyranny [which is was what the Soviet Union was... and is China] is the antithesis of actual socialism.
And I am not saying that this would work. I mean, we don't fully know if actual capitalism would work. Let alone socialism.)
It's interesting how power controls terminology.
One could bring out Adam Smith once again. In a capitalist society you'd have the free movement of labor. Does this happen? But, again, this is crucial if ya want capitalism.
Adam Smith gave an argument for free markets, for markets. He said that under conditions of perfect liberty you get perfect equality.
Just like America isn't and has never been a capitalist State. (Capitalism in its purest form means no State intervention. None. That's capitalism. So, no taxes. None. No bailouts for the big banks. None. No publicly funded roads, sidewalks, bridges. None.) So, what does free market capitalism further entail? Well, a completely private police force. NO minimum wage laws. And NO child labor laws.
Plus the business community want a powerful nanny State to serve their interests. And protect them from the ravages of the market system.
America and, say, England and other developed countries developed by radically VIOLATING free market principles.
So, again, the advanced economy relies very heavily on the State sector. This is not capitalism. You can call it, say, state-corporate-capitalism. More definitive --
And:
To quote Glenn Greenwald: 'Many sneer at the protest encampments because they include the homeless, the unstable, the “dirty,” the jobless, and those who are otherwise downtrodden, dispossessed and unable to live decent lives. Much of that sneering is due to the desire that these people remain hidden from sight, invisible, so that we can avoid facing the reality of what our society has produced on a large scale (having Dirty, Disobedient People be part of a movement vaguely associated with liberalism also harms the ability of progressive media stars to maintain their access to the Halls of Seriousness). But they are and should be part of that movement precisely because the disappearance of the middle class and booming wealth and income inequality produces exactly this type of human suffering. There are those who love to parade around as supporters of the marginalized and poor who prefer that they remain silent and invisible — distant abstractions — because being viscerally confronted with their human realness is unpleasant and uncomfortable.'

[BluegrassCat]

As I've said previously, I have no beef with the OWS crowd.
Having said that, I'm smart enough to know there are far more G-20 type anarchists, outright socialists, petty street criminals, disturbed homeless types, and just plain malcontents in their ranks then the clueless media cares to report on, but nevertheless....as long as they're peaceful, and Michael Moore pays for the Porta-Toilets, they can stay there until hell freezes over, but at some point.....we all know this is gonna get ugly. Unlike the Tea Party who turned their discontent into a political wave of change ( sorry Trish...that's just a fact you're gonna have to deal with no matter how many pejoratives you throw their way) these OWS folks don't seem to be able to move to the next step, and I suspect it's precisely because of the reasons I outlined above. It's kinda hard to corral anarchists and homeless folks into a coherent political force. Obama, Pelosi and many other liberals have danced around the edges hoping to capture some of that anger and move it to the next step...they're playing with fire, and they're not playing with facts. Here's some facts for our friend Blue Grass Cat taken from Census Bereau data that someone really needs to share with these OWS folks . I can't count the number of times Trish and the other progressives have beat the drum about the rich getting richer under Reagan.

So their message , although muddled appears to be income equality. They're angry at big banks, Wall Street, and the Fat Cats.....the 1%ers.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama said, "The project of the next president is figuring out how do you create bottom-up economic growth, as opposed to the trickle-down economic growth that George Bush has been so enamored with." Well, well.....the facts will show something different Mr. President.

Because so much of liberalism is based on emotion, and not facts what these progressives also fail to realize is that the bottom wage earner group is not static. ..it's dynamic meaning that many move out of that group, and many others ( poor uneducated immigrants) move in. So it's easy to see that we'll always have a certain group at the bottom.


So the point of all this? To the extent wage inequality is a problem, what then are the solutions? Tax policy? Not likely to work because even more money will go offshore...Raising the marginal upper tax brackets might make you feel good, but it will only provide the government with more revenue to piss away on green energy, and Fanny and Freddie bailouts.
Laws allowing CEO's to only make a certain amount? Not likely to pass, and probably unconstitutional. The point is.....The OWS protests might be pointless.










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Most of your post is just ideological hackery but you present some numbers which, while extremely disingenuous, do deserve comment.

If you're trying to sell the idea that income inequality didn't increase under Dubya, you're full of shit. His regressive tax cuts directly exacerbated the inequality. Thanks to the jobless recovery provided by intransigent Republicans inequality continues to worsen during Obama's administration. Inequality also got worse under Clinton but at least the middle class saw some growth, but the fact remains that since 1980 the very wealthy have been steadily pulling even farther away from the rest of us.

Here are some graphs that illuminate more than they obfuscate.



And since when do conservatives even care about income inequality? You rejoice in gross inequality of the new Gilded Age. But you happened to notice that you won't win any elections letting your 1% boners show so you're pretending to care and now you're pretending to analyze its causes. But as usual another mendacious offering from an unserious person.

[Ben]

Just an addendum to what I previously wrote... and quoting Michael Parenti: "The terms left and right are frequently bandied about but seldom specifically defined by policymakers or media commentators -- and with good reason. The power of a label is in its being left undefined, allowing it to have an abstracted built-in demonizing impact that precludes rational examination of its political content."
What Parenti points out is true: Terms like socialism and communism -- and even capitalism -- are never clearly defined. Thus rational and sensible discussion -- and probing -- are marginalized....

[hippifried]

Just an addendum to what I previously wrote... and quoting Michael Parenti: "The terms left and right are frequently bandied about but seldom specifically defined by policymakers or media commentators -- and with good reason. The power of a label is in its being left undefined, allowing it to have an abstracted built-in demonizing impact that precludes rational examination of its political content."
What Parenti points out is true: Terms like socialism and communism -- and even capitalism -- are never clearly defined. Thus rational and sensible discussion -- and probing -- are marginalized....

Well gee whiz. Somebody else who has a problem with the linear political descriptives. It's a false dichotomy. It doesn't work anymore, if it ever really did. It's way past time for a rethink.

[beandip]

Most people misunderstand the meaning of socialism. Because, in part, it has never been tried.......

Take a look across the big pond. Watch carefully how socialism unravels in the next few months.

It's a failed experiment.

[hippifried]

Most people misMost people misunderstand the meaning of socialism. Because, in part, it has never been tried.......

Yeah, & your point?

This is a universal excuse for the failure of trying to implement philosophies in reality. None of it works because there's always some who search for tyhe workaround. None of it's ever been tried. So what? All this theoretical nonsense is from the 18th & 19th centuries. Socieries are fluid, & we don't live back then anymore. All the terminology has become synonyms for "evil" in the current hyperbolic festival of ignorance.

It's way past time for a total rethink.

[Stavros]

Take a look across the big pond. Watch carefully how socialism unravels in the next few months.

It's a failed experiment.

I don't understand this, are you in the USA looking at Europe? Socialism hasn't existed in Europe in any form for so long noone can remember much about it, and what little they do remember is negative. We have been dominated by Thatcher, Sons of Thatcher, Kohli's, and so on since the 1970s-even Mitterand in the 1980s was more effective at diminishing the power of the French state that the men who preceded him (Giscard, for example).