You have a social contract with your fellow citizens. If you were to sell state secrets to Russia back in the Cold War, you may have been executed for treason.
I propose that certain types of Americans (managers, investors, politicians) be tried for economic treason, such as outsourcing, etc.
Just like japanese kamikaze pilots during WW2, we have been socialized by the corporate to be good little cogs in the consumerist-corporatist-GNP machine that is the neoliberal nightmare.
Sounds like the parent poster "torpor" speaks from experience. He probably ratted out some white hacker kid to the cops, justifying it to himself because the kid did not spellcheck his report.
Oh, torpor, BTW, when you wrote "not one single persons problem," you should have written "not one single person's problem." You forgot the apostrophe....
You wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> There are always a few idiots that will drive at insane speeds regardless of what's posted. >>>>>>>>>>>
And they kill a few people doing that. Look, ya maroon, homo sapiens does not operate logically and reasonably on many levels. Males in particular use their vehicles as a social status devices, using them to draw attention to themselves.
So they drive dangerously. It happens a lot. We need to use technology to control homo sapiens. If you don't like it--tough. Get yer sorry ass over to Paraguay, or where ever.....
How does Australia do it? How does Norway do it? How does Sweden do it? How does Denmark do it? How does Holland do it? How does France do it? How does Canada do it?
etc etc etc.....
They do it by using a PROGRESSIVE TAX SYSTEM!
You disregard the evidence right before your face. The proof is in the pudding....
But you know nothing but what The American Propaganda Machine pours into your empty little sheeple head, do you?
Oh, all those "socialist" utopias are about to crash and burn, huh? Well, they have been doing it for decades. And they keep on doing it. Many of their govts are budgets are in better shape than ours.
And BTW, they are not socialist. They are social democracies, or quasi social democracies. You are so ignorant, you do not even know the difference, do you? FYI, that means they are capitalist, but they put the citizen first, and the citizen is treated as an owner of the country, to put it in terms you might understand better.
You say all these countries have poor health care. How about Canada? They have the "socialized" healthcare you scorn. As our english-speaking neighbors, surely they are aware of how our system works. How many of them would prefer to have our system? Polls there show that well over 90% prefer their system to ours.
The fact is that you know SHIT about what you are talking about. And fact is that I have done months of research on it.
WHy not educate your propagandized little sheeple brain before you talk. My sig URL has the knowledge you so desperately need..... read and learn.
The vast majority of them have little idea how much more relaxing it is to live in a CIVILIZED country like Australia or Sweden or Norway or France or Denamrk, etc. etc.
The citizens there do not have to worry about being bankrupted by medical problems or they or their children being homeless after a loss of a job.
You mentioned the years of unemployment available in Oz. Well, here in the USA, the amount is little usually that what you mentioned, but generally you can only draw a maximum of 6 months of unemployment. After that--nil.
Also, only families with children can get welfare (with some exceptions for food) here in the USA.
I have no idea why any American over 40 who is not rich/well off would want to stay in the USA when Australia will take anyone degreed and under 45.
You globalization lovers do tend to be a bit simpleminded, but I guess I can help you on this one: the rules for the h1b visa state that the companies may not use them to lower wages. Yet, the companies are using them to bring over foreign workers for training. Once the training is done, the foreign workers go back home to work, and you get fired. Once back home the foreign workers work for much less, and the company has lowered wages using the h1b visa, which is against the rules.
In Denmark almost everyone gets at least 5 weeks vacation, universal healthcare, tuition free education, and many other social safety net benefits.
And how did they get all that? They make the corporations and the government bend to their will by virtually shutting down the country in order to get what they want.
It is all about NEGOTIATION, people. If you walk into a car lot to buy a car, and buy that car without bargaining, you are a fool. And if you let the corporations and the govt and the media scare you into submission with so-called "free" trade without putting up a fight, then you get what you deserve.
See this URL to see how they did it in Denmark: http://www.american-pictures.com/english /racism/ar ticles/welfare.htm
Yes, Massa. You right, Massa! You da Boss. Now you go rach ahead and outsource mah job. Ah be rach here if'n youse wants ta pay me uh dollah uh day foah debugging dem dere Indian programs....
Just 80 years have passed since the culmination of the union activism, and now we have come to this. How sad. How very sad.
All I can say is that Slashdotters who want to find what the above poster and I are talking about, you can go to my sig url and follow the link about social democracies. Read....Learn...Think about it all.....
Who cares what the unemployment rate is? What matters is a sustainable, high quality standard of living for as many people as possible. And clearly the data show that the social democracies provide a higher quality of life for more people than is provided here in the USA. That is now undisputable!
We aint slaves. We are the owners of our own country--America. We make whatever deal between ourselves that wish. I say to my fellow citizens that the rich people in this country have too much leverage and power, and that more of their wealth should be taxed more heavily. I say that working people should work together and get the best deal they can, for their taxes, and for themselves as citizens.
It is what you GET for your taxes that counts. Not what you pay. And the wealthy get way too much for what they pay.
You wrote: "God knows, Europe is now dealing with the massive fallout of decades of increased welfare which has made their workforces complacent and lazy."
Their "fallout" is a lot better than our mess. Do you think their deficits are substantially bigger than ours? I do not think so. Do you think they have more homeless? I know they have less.
Have you even bothered to find out anything about the social democracies, other than what the corporate media pours into your head?
You call them lazy. You mean "lazy" like the plantation owner who watches from his porch, mint julep in hand, while his slaves pick the crops?
Lazy is good--if you are an OWNER. It means you get more for less. That is a Good Thing.
But your paradigm is one inherited from the days of slavery and indentured servants and children laboring in the mills. You have accepted the propaganda poured into your empty little head, and you spew it like an automated fertilizer.
I have a different paradigm: the Third Way, one of capitalism, but where all citizens are owners, not just the wealthy and the upper class and those who slave all their lives, scrambling for every advantage, desperately seeking to place themselves above the masses, like a crab in a bucket. You have bought into the Ponzi scheme.
You can be a slave, if you want to drink the corporatist KoolAid, if you want to swallow their propaganda, if you want to buy into their hideous greedhead Ponzi scheme.
I say that I am a Business Owner, and that America is my business, and that I own it jointly and equally with all other American citizens. As an owner, I am not concerned with MY productivity, but rather with how efficiently my hired men (i.e., Bush, Cheney, my state governor, my mayor, et al.) manage MY resources. I as an owner do NOT want to "work really really hard". I just want to get as much out of my business as possible--with as little work as possible.
The way I see, the social democracies give their citizen owners MUCH more bang for the buck as compared to totally overrated America's system. My hired men should be controlling immigration and trade so as to enable ME, the business owner, to get as much money for my labor/services as possible. Instead, with "free" trade and corporate mass immigration, and a regressive tax system, the upper crust of the owners get GROSSLY disproportionate returns on their citizen-ownership, and everyone else is getting increasingly smaller pieces of the pie.
Now, you, being still under the influence of that corporatist KoolAid, may disagree, but I say to other open minded and reasonable people, please research what is going on in the social democracies, and consider joining me and other similar minded Americans, and take control of OUR country.
My sig url is a good place to start that research....
Worshipful sheeple like you, and the corrupt minions of the corporatist culture can go "somewhere else." The rest of us will build a social democracy and live a decent lifestyle.....
The reason that this is happening in America, but not much in the social democracies, is that we have a very weak welfare state here in America. The worker is at the mercy of the employers, at the mercy of the job market. And the only way to prevent this kind of employer theft from happening is if the WORKERS themselves would report it whenever it happens.
But the workers do not report it very often. Why not? Because when they try to get another job, they may not be able to. For one, the old employer may badmouth them, effectively blackballing them from the job market.
So, what makes the social democracies from America in this regard? In the social democracies, if the workers cannot get another job (especially because of being blackballed/given a bad reference), then the state will give them MONEY for YEARS. Yes, it is not uncommon for workers who cannot find work to draw welfare/unemployment for years in the social democracies. So, therefore the workers there are NOT at the mercy of the job market.
This situation is mainly true in the true social democracies, such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, etc., but also to a somewhat lesser degree in other Euro countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Switz, Italy, Luxembourg, and also Australia and even Canada (where the average able bodied young male draws an average 21 months of unemployment at a time (that is IMPOSSIBLE in the USA)).
So, this is America--a social darwinistic state, where we live shorter lives than the Europeans, where we are stunted physically compared to the citizens of the social democracies, and where we come up with way back in the pack in many areas of living standards.
Slashdot Mirror
Just to get you started on your paradigm shift, please read the highly informative reviews for these excellent books:
read this
and this....
this one, too
You have a social contract with your fellow citizens. If you were to sell state secrets to Russia back in the Cold War, you may have been executed for treason.
I propose that certain types of Americans (managers, investors, politicians) be tried for economic treason, such as outsourcing, etc.
Just like japanese kamikaze pilots during WW2, we have been socialized by the corporate to be good little cogs in the consumerist-corporatist-GNP machine that is the neoliberal nightmare.
Sounds like the parent poster "torpor" speaks from experience. He probably ratted out some white hacker kid to the cops, justifying it to himself because the kid did not spellcheck his report.
Oh, torpor, BTW, when you wrote "not one single persons problem," you should have written "not one single person's problem." You forgot the apostrophe....
But Americans (and now even Brits) have been so propagandized, it seems most of them can even think straight when it comes to this kind of subject.
How much will the cost of rope skyrocket when the million man hanging party descends on Washington DC?
You wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
There are always a few idiots that will drive at insane speeds regardless of what's posted.
>>>>>>>>>>>
And they kill a few people doing that. Look, ya maroon, homo sapiens does not operate logically and reasonably on many levels. Males in particular use their vehicles as a social status devices, using them to draw attention to themselves.
So they drive dangerously. It happens a lot. We need to use technology to control homo sapiens. If you don't like it--tough. Get yer sorry ass over to Paraguay, or where ever.....
it is hurting our wages too much.
How does Australia do it?
How does Norway do it?
How does Sweden do it?
How does Denmark do it?
How does Holland do it?
How does France do it?
How does Canada do it?
etc etc etc.....
They do it by using a PROGRESSIVE TAX SYSTEM!
You disregard the evidence right before your face. The proof is in the pudding....
But you know nothing but what The American Propaganda Machine pours into your empty little sheeple head, do you?
Oh, all those "socialist" utopias are about to crash and burn, huh? Well, they have been doing it for decades. And they keep on doing it. Many of their govts are budgets are in better shape than ours.
And BTW, they are not socialist. They are social democracies, or quasi social democracies. You are so ignorant, you do not even know the difference, do you? FYI, that means they are capitalist, but they put the citizen first, and the citizen is treated as an owner of the country, to put it in terms you might understand better.
You say all these countries have poor health care. How about Canada? They have the "socialized" healthcare you scorn. As our english-speaking neighbors, surely they are aware of how our system works. How many of them would prefer to have our system? Polls there show that well over 90% prefer their system to ours.
The fact is that you know SHIT about what you are talking about. And fact is that I have done months of research on it.
WHy not educate your propagandized little sheeple brain before you talk. My sig URL has the knowledge you so desperately need..... read and learn.
The vast majority of them have little idea how much more relaxing it is to live in a CIVILIZED country like Australia or Sweden or Norway or France or Denamrk, etc. etc.
The citizens there do not have to worry about being bankrupted by medical problems or they or their children being homeless after a loss of a job.
You mentioned the years of unemployment available in Oz. Well, here in the USA, the amount is little usually that what you mentioned, but generally you can only draw a maximum of 6 months of unemployment. After that--nil.
Also, only families with children can get welfare (with some exceptions for food) here in the USA.
I have no idea why any American over 40 who is not rich/well off would want to stay in the USA when Australia will take anyone degreed and under 45.
You globalization lovers do tend to be a bit simpleminded, but I guess I can help you on this one: the rules for the h1b visa state that the companies may not use them to lower wages. Yet, the companies are using them to bring over foreign workers for training. Once the training is done, the foreign workers go back home to work, and you get fired. Once back home the foreign workers work for much less, and the company has lowered wages using the h1b visa, which is against the rules.
Get it?
In Denmark almost everyone gets at least 5 weeks vacation, universal healthcare, tuition free education, and many other social safety net benefits.
And how did they get all that? They make the corporations and the government bend to their will by virtually shutting down the country in order to get what they want.
It is all about NEGOTIATION, people. If you walk into a car lot to buy a car, and buy that car without bargaining, you are a fool.
And if you let the corporations and the govt and the media scare you into submission with so-called "free" trade without putting up a fight, then you get what you deserve.
See this URL to see how they did it in Denmark:
http://www.american-pictures.com/englis
Yes, Massa. You right, Massa! You da Boss. Now you go rach ahead and outsource mah job. Ah be rach here if'n youse wants ta pay me uh dollah uh day foah debugging dem dere Indian programs....
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism/ar ticles/welfare.htm
"Shut down the country" is EXACTLY what we need to do.
/ ar ticles/welfare.htm
Has it been done before? Yes, in the Scandanavian social democracies!
Here is it all is, right here. Just read it, brethren, just read it:
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism
I can see you are not familiar with the concept of a "limit".....
Do you not see that? Telling everyone to continue to compete harder and harder and harder is a Ponzi Scheme?
What is EVERYONE works as hard as they possibly can? The bottom half stills gets cut off. That is a game that has no winners, in the end.
I would wager you are in your twenties.
Let me tell you something--you don't know SHIT! No offense, but live and learn a little.
You hit nailed it, baby. You nailed it.
Just 80 years have passed since the culmination of the union activism, and now we have come to this. How sad. How very sad.
All I can say is that Slashdotters who want to find what the above poster and I are talking about, you can go to my sig url and follow the link about social democracies. Read....Learn...Think about it all.....
Who cares what the unemployment rate is? What matters is a sustainable, high quality standard of living for as many people as possible. And clearly the data show that the social democracies provide a higher quality of life for more people than is provided here in the USA. That is now undisputable!
We aint slaves. We are the owners of our own country--America. We make whatever deal between ourselves that wish. I say to my fellow citizens that the rich people in this country have too much leverage and power, and that more of their wealth should be taxed more heavily. I say that working people should work together and get the best deal they can, for their taxes, and for themselves as citizens.
It is what you GET for your taxes that counts. Not what you pay. And the wealthy get way too much for what they pay.
You wrote:
"God knows, Europe is now dealing with the massive fallout of decades of increased welfare which has made their workforces complacent and lazy."
Their "fallout" is a lot better than our mess. Do you think their deficits are substantially bigger than ours? I do not think so. Do you think they have more homeless? I know they have less.
Have you even bothered to find out anything about the social democracies, other than what the corporate media pours into your head?
You call them lazy. You mean "lazy" like the plantation owner who watches from his porch, mint julep in hand, while his slaves pick the crops?
Lazy is good--if you are an OWNER. It means you get more for less. That is a Good Thing.
But your paradigm is one inherited from the days of slavery and indentured servants and children laboring in the mills. You have accepted the propaganda poured into your empty little head, and you spew it like an automated fertilizer.
I have a different paradigm: the Third Way, one of capitalism, but where all citizens are owners, not just the wealthy and the upper class and those who slave all their lives, scrambling for every advantage, desperately seeking to place themselves above the masses, like a crab in a bucket. You have bought into the Ponzi scheme.
I am gonna screw every goddamn sleazy boss and manager and business owner to the wall....and I am gonna enjoy the hell out of it.
You can be a slave, if you want to drink the corporatist KoolAid, if you want to swallow their propaganda, if you want to buy into their hideous greedhead Ponzi scheme.
I say that I am a Business Owner, and that America is my business, and that I own it jointly and equally with all other American citizens. As an owner, I am not concerned with MY productivity, but rather with how efficiently my hired men (i.e., Bush, Cheney, my state governor, my mayor, et al.) manage MY resources. I as an owner do NOT want to "work really really hard". I just want to get as much out of my business as possible--with as little work as possible.
The way I see, the social democracies give their citizen owners MUCH more bang for the buck as compared to totally overrated America's system. My hired men should be controlling immigration and trade so as to enable ME, the business owner, to get as much money for my labor/services as possible. Instead, with "free" trade and corporate mass immigration, and a regressive tax system, the upper crust of the owners get GROSSLY disproportionate returns on their citizen-ownership, and everyone else is getting increasingly smaller pieces of the pie.
Now, you, being still under the influence of that corporatist KoolAid, may disagree, but I say to other open minded and reasonable people, please research what is going on in the social democracies, and consider joining me and other similar minded Americans, and take control of OUR country.
My sig url is a good place to start that research....
Worshipful sheeple like you, and the corrupt minions of the corporatist culture can go "somewhere else." The rest of us will build a social democracy and live a decent lifestyle.....
The reason that this is happening in America, but not much in the social democracies, is that we have a very weak welfare state here in America. The worker is at the mercy of the employers, at the mercy of the job market. And the only way to prevent this kind of employer theft from happening is if the WORKERS themselves would report it whenever it happens.
But the workers do not report it very often. Why not? Because when they try to get another job, they may not be able to. For one, the old employer may badmouth them, effectively blackballing them from the job market.
So, what makes the social democracies from America in this regard? In the social democracies, if the workers cannot get another job (especially because of being blackballed/given a bad reference), then the state will give them MONEY for YEARS. Yes, it is not uncommon for workers who cannot find work to draw welfare/unemployment for years in the social democracies. So, therefore the workers there are NOT at the mercy of the job market.
This situation is mainly true in the true social democracies, such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, etc., but also to a somewhat lesser degree in other Euro countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Switz, Italy, Luxembourg, and also Australia and even Canada (where the average able bodied young male draws an average 21 months of unemployment at a time (that is IMPOSSIBLE in the USA)).
So, this is America--a social darwinistic state, where we live shorter lives than the Europeans, where we are stunted physically compared to the citizens of the social democracies, and where we come up with way back in the pack in many areas of living standards.
Best country in the world...MY ASS!