In the case of Oregon, it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever- both sites show Oregon going to Kerry, but with less than a 10% lead (leaning Kerry, not actually solid Kerry).
As a wise man said to me as we were standing in line at a job fair back in 2001- this ain't 1992, this ain't 1986, This ain't 1972, This ain't even 1968- This is 1929 baby- and this is the modern eqivalent of the soup line.
When it came to high tech, that guy was right. Completely right. This administration has already destroyed everything I liked about America- and showed me what a hollow shell puppet show our political process actually is.
Clinton had his 8 years and was worn out- quite litterally we found out this year. The people behind Bush are not the kind of people I'd want to meet in a dark alley. I'm convinced that something very much like organized crime is behind Bush- only slightly more legal, because they've manipulated our laws to make their schemes legal.
The division in this country over this election is far more violence prone than any I've ever seen before- or even can find anywhere in our history. It won't matter which man wins really- we'll either be tied up in court for a month or more, or we'll be sitting on a civil war, or most likely, both.
I would suggest that most Americans vote the candidate they are comfortable with: a guy they could picture sitting in their living room or being married into the family. i.e. Someone they are comfortable with.
Based on that- no wonder I'm running in 2008- I'm the only guy that I can picture sitting in my living room or being married into my family.
The difference being that he's an intelligent hypocrite rather than an idiot puppet. Not much difference, I'll admit- but different in three very important areas:
1. Admitting mistakes. 2. Changing plans to fix mistakes. 3. Giving a rat's ass what other people think.
That's why the complaints that Kerry is a flip-flopper don't matter as much to me- I'm COUNTING on him being a flip flopper when it counts.
I hope you're right- because whoever wins I'll be running against both major parties in 2008.
However- I disagree with your conclusion on what would happen with a Kerry Win. I agree that the Bush Supporters won't be complaining about disenfranchisement or rigged elections, because that's not their style. But nor do I think this will be a peacefull trasistion of power if Kerry wins- far more likely the Bush admin will do *something* to attempt to maintain power. I'm not sure what that something will look like- but it probably won't be a court challenge.
No more faulty logic than you use in your sig line, depending on the CIA for intelligence on Iraq...but I guess the real point is that there is no black&white when it comes to Iraq, only shades of explosions- Bush Senior's favored tactic was to wall Iraq off from the world and wait until Saddam died of old age. Kerry's favorite tactic is to go in with an overwhelming number of troops- far more than Bush thinks we need. Bush's tactic seems to be to maximize profit for his friends in the defense and oil industries while putting our troops in danger.
None of them are the same as my plan, which is to pull out of the middle east entirely and either (a) isolate the United States until such a time that the world returns to sanity or (b) create an artwork in radioactive glass in a 1000 square mile area surrounding Mecca, as a warning to future generations as to what happens when you let a crazy right-wing religious sect have weapons and terrorist training camps.
That's totally irrelevent. Are all enterprises under the control of "the people" as a collective group (either in some Utopian way or via the government)?
If they can't lay off workers by law, then yes, they are under control of the government. If the people are having their basic needs met whether they work or not- that's the other half of communism.
It sounds to me like you're saying that because a country has a few socialist laws, it must be communist. That's not right.
Only because you're thinking of CENTRALIZED communism- as opposed to DECENTRALIZED communism. But the point of the Grandparent was that our jobs are leaving here and going there because they are LESS socialized than we are- and that's not true either, just about every country in the world other than the Principality of Morraco is more socialized than we are.
Most modern, industrialised, nations do.
But REAL capitalist countries don't- the one victory of socialist thought and communism is the universal health care system.
I was unaware that communism had triumphed throughout most of the world, I thought it was pretty much universally accepted it hadn't.
Only Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism failed- communism is bigger than those three examples. Capitalism, likewise, runs the spectrum from Laisez Faire, to Corporatism, to Socialism. Of these, only Corporatism (the form we have here in the United States) is failing, suffering from a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
Like the missing WMD? The ONE WMD we knew for sure that Saddam had (sort of- the International Atomic Energy Association had taken actual possesion of it, locked it up, and told our troops where to find it- by the time they got around to actually attempting to secure it it had been looted), the 300 million + pounds of conventional weapons in a single huge stockpile?
I've got plenty of criticism for them- problem is most of the things I can think to criticize them on (like their ties to corporate money, their lack of respect for individual rights, their downright bigotry on pregnancy and birth, and large government intruding into our lives), Bush is actually worse on. Which is why if I find time to vote today, My vote will go to Kerry- but I'm not promising that I'll find time to vote today, and it could just as easily flip-flop to either Bush or Kerry winning Oregon by more than 10%- in which case Peroutka will get my vote.
I'm willing to bet a lot of the "left leaning liberals" on slashdot are similar- and will be voting third party for Badnarik or Peroutka if their state isn't a "swing state".
The problem with that is other than Jeb, I can't name a single CLOSE family member for W either. His own father is against this adventure in Iraq (said so in his autobiography- he was given the same chance back in 1991 and refused to take it *because* the cost in lives would be higher than worthwhile). Even Jeb- if W isn't re-elected, he's next on the list of favorite family members to take a shot at the Presidency.
However, ideally, if the good guys aren't in range- automated mission deployment as well- then theoretically do we care if the machine flips out and starts removing future potential terrorists (aka, civilians)?
Heck- have you seen the front end on those things? Farm tractors are built to last- that means HUGE steel bars protecting the engine. I doubt you could stop a John Deere 9600 series with the types of armament that our soldiers are facing in Iraq- stock. No need to armor it at all.
I'd be all for putting a roomba brain in one of these, adding a GPS unit to provide input to the "wall" sensors- and just letting it patrol a sector all by itself.
Biological and chemical weapons scare me a hell of a lot more than nukes. With nukes, at least you know basically what to expect... half the people will die instantly. With biological or chemical weapons, the effect could take months or even years, and it could kill ten times the number of people.
True enough- of course, the only chemical WMDs found in Iraq were the ones we shipped there- and no biologicals have been found at all. Other countries have chemical/biological programs- and we've now got medical treatments for most of them, from new antibiotics to chemical neutralization showers.
The problem with keeping them contained is the same problem as keeping AIDS, or SARS, or Ebola contained. It only takes a tiny bit that gets through yout defenses, and you'll wish you would have wiped them out when you could have.
Nah- people are larger than viruses and it's pretty easy to create a kill zone that people can't cross at all. One that happens quite automatically- with no human intervention at all.
Actually, the Dulfeur report said that Saddam had all the parts and people in place and was actively promoting the lifting of the UN-imposed sanctions, which, if accomplished, meant he could start building nuclear ICBM's immediately.
Where? In those rotting parts he bought from Russia? Remember- that's a country that only has a 1:3 successfull launch record in rockets...
As far as North Korea goes, we're in the process of doing exactly what John Kerry wanted us to do with Iraq, which is get multiple nations to sit down and basically demand that they stop whatever it is that they're doing. Now John Kerry doesn't want that approach. He wants to sit down with Kim Jong Ill, one-on-one, and succumb to any demands he might have. What's John Kerry going to say to Mr. Ill that Bush, along with Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, etc. aren't saying now?
Well, considering that Bush isn't saying anything at all to Mr. Ill and is leaving it to Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan- my suggestion to Mr. Kerry would be "You can have your weapons- but before you can launch South Korea will be an island".
But that's just me- there's plenty of other things he can say, like we'll actually pay up on those war reparations that there's been a UN resolution about since the 1960s.
It sounds like you're referring to North Korea here. Kim Jong Ill played this game in 1994 too. Then-President Clinton sent Jimmy Carter over there to barter with him. Obviously, that turned out just swell.
Turned out better than the "victory" in Iraq did, didn't it?
However, I do agree with you on Iran. So what's your position on it? Should we invade and take out the terrorist regime?
I've already stated my personal position on the whole fskin' middle east- I favor choosing between armed isolationism for the United States or turning the entire region into a radioactive monument for future generations to show that you don't fsk with superpowers. Take your pick- we can sacrifice our economy to winning this war, or we can sacrifice our morality AND our economy. It's the logical end anyway- we aren't going to stop terrorism without killing a billion Islamic Death Cultists- so "'Twas Well It Were Done Quickly".
I tend to take this view with most of the world, but current technology prohibits the theory from being put into practice.
So why are we tied to CURRENT technology? There are other options- we could reduce the energy usage in our nation back down to equal our population, give up our technology, and return to the substinence farming of the 1700s and 1800s when the world was a much simpler place.
It's impossible not to have any interests in any way at all in the middle east.
Only because we're not willing to give up our technology and our economy to do so. Thus, not impossible- just highly improbable. But the highly improbable can be accomplished with faith and sacrif
Why do you think layoffs are illegal there? And why else would they have a national health system?
Leaving aside whether you can legitimately continue to call China "communist" given their adoption of a free market economy since the 1980s (China today is better refered to as Fascist), since when has India ever been communist in any shape or form?
Since the Marxist Party gained control in certain provinences in the 1980s- democratically elected of course.
India is a thriving, democratic, capitalist country. And has been since independence.
And yet- they've got a universal health care system and we don't.
Um no, that's reflected in the price. As a commodity becomes more scarce, the price rises, encouraging conservation and exploration of alternatives. Although I suspect trying to explain basic economic principles to a self-described Marxist is going to be futile.
If that were true, then at the first warnings of oil running out it would have been $120/barrel- instead of being subsidized down. And nobody would be buying SUVs because they wouldn't be able to afford to drop $100 to fill the tank.
Kerry, on the other hand, doesn't really believe in the terrorist threat and even if he did he'd sit back and take a defensive stance. I don't believe such a posture is going to increase the safety of the US and I do believe it will encourage other despots and terrorists around the world to continue their attacks against the US.
I don't believe that Kerry would sit back and take a defensive stance. But since it's one of my two basic strategies, let me explain what I think would happen:
1. We'd pull back. We'd retreat and break our treaties with the WTO, we wouldn't have the extra oil for shipping products halfway around the world anymore so we'd stop importing altogether. Stopping importing means we'd also stop exporting, since nobody would be stupid enough to buy from us when we weren't buying from them.
2. We'd actually use our troops, freed from overseas duty, to solidify our borders. We'd still need a general draft- until we had at least 9 soldiers per mile of our borders, ideally 5000 soldiers per mile of our borders.
3. This would put a huge crimp in our labor force- between no more illegal workers available (because they wouldn't be able to get past the army alive) and no more legal immigrants either (because we would have basically become a fascist society)- so we'd have to really start pouring the R&D budgets into robotics. Eventually we'd become a nice, comfortable neutral country- and everybody would have to pledge a decade of their lives to the army, so we'd all be living on the borders as the robots take the interior to raise enough food, fibers, manufactured housing and clothing, and water to sustain us.
Yeah, we all know about the horrible atricities performed by the "Zionist terrorists" against Roman schoolchildren in Italy, don't we?
Uh- as far as I know the Zionist Zealotes movement was confined to the Roman province of Palestine for the most part. But just because they were killing centurions and the families who moved to be close to the Garrison doesn't make them any less terrorists- and doesn't change the fact that General Titus found a solution to the problem.
And funny you should say 1968. If you believe Zionist terrorism started then, you'd be hard pressed to explain the Palestinian terrorist acts which took place in the previous 50 years.
Nope- that's Islamic Terrorism, and I fully support putting them down just as violently, or better yet, taking the other option of removing our little toys and going home.
I guess that marxists don't bother to learn 20th century history - too painful a subject, what with what happened to the USSR. Not to mention a short period of time known as WWII where people with your grasp of morality have made a big impact:
I see you're too stupid to read the other two words also. Once again, I hack marxism- and morality doesn't enter into it, Bush gave away the last of the morality of America in Abu Gharib.
Isn't it great you can now nuke them from a distance instead of going to the trouble of rounding them up and shooting or gassing them?
Or like General Titus had to do- use bronze swords and have his centurions face every one of the 500 victims killed for each centurion death.
Not a bit- I understand that the United States supported terrorists that have come back to attack us. I'm just pointing out that if the rest of the world is going to call us devils or worse- then we might as well show them what a superpower without morals can really do.
Does that frighten you? It should. But the fact is, we're going to get out of this with either our morals or our economy intact- and not both.
To the extent that's true, it's because it's cheaper to make stuff elsewhere, even including the cost of shipping it here. The cost savings are reflected in lower prices to customers and increased returns to shareholders.
However- in so doing we're ignoring the larger cost of using up the world's energy resources before we have a replacement. One of the softer options I've heard for this is to charge $1/mile surcharge for energy research- so that the corporations actually have to pay the REAL cost of shipping. I wonder if you'd still buy those Levis if they had a $12,000 surcharge on them?
And raising prices, and lowering our standard of living. See "comparative advantage".
Comparative advantage is largely a lie because it fails to take into account the environmental cost of excess energy usage or the human cost of constant retraining before the original training is paid for. Ricardo lied to you.
Your one possibly valid point is that the cost of oil doesn't take into account the negative externalities of being dependent on terrorist-infested hellholes, which may or may not be the case. If it is, then raise the tax on oil to compensate. But ending all imports would be immensely destructive.
The thing you fail to take into account is that all other countries, thanks to free trade, are potential terrorist-infested hellholes. Free trade insures that the multinational corporations will hoard resources that average people need to survive- thus creating terrorist-infested hellholes wherever they touch. Ricardo was worse than a liar- his system has the intended consequence of creating a system of haves and have nots with the sole purpose of making sure that the have nots will eventually use violence against the haves. FAR better not to mess with trying to apply capitalism across borders to begin with.
See all Kerry has to do is use a few big words and he has your vote.
Actually, no- he also has to be either winning or losing my state by less than 10%, otherwise Peroutka will get my vote because he's MUCH closer to what I actually believe (the unconstitutionality of the War On Terror, the need to bring our constitution up to date with the UDHR, etc.). So no, Kerry doesn't have my vote automatically- but Bush has, at this point, lost my vote utterly for being too stupid to change his plan when needed.
1. Who said anything about competing? I'm talking REAL social conservativism- the kind the Apostles practiced, the kind Marx tried to mimic.
2. I'm not saying that we need to get the government out of the corporations, only the corporations out of government- and I don't give a rat's ass if the current economy survives, we'll replace it either with laisez faire capitalism with a platonic maximum wage cap, or with outright automation of the basic needs so that nobody needs to be in charge of any of it.
Why are you anti-corporations?
Corporations have a tendency to hoard wealth away from the citizens; that is a great way to run an economy if you're running a bananna republic but not if you're trying to let people be as free as possible. If you like living under an oligarchial dictatorship that pretends to give you rights (the right to vote for the puppet that the corporations choose to present to you, the right to work which really means the right for the corporation to lay you off at any time, the right to have control over your own resources which means con artists working for the corporations will just take your assets away from you), then fine- continue on with the immoral behavior of a system based on the mortal sin of Greed. IF, however, you're like me- you want the right to own your own home, build a small business, sell to your neighbors, and lynch anybody who cons you because they're local enough to be held responsible for their actions- and want to actually VOTE on the concept of a moral foundation for our laws- and not have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, because we'll actually have a government that fullfills the constitutional duty to provide for the GENERAL welfare instead of the CORPORATE welfare- then all you need to do is wait until November 6th when the website goes up to join the Technosolidarity Union (Yes, to anybody else watching- the name has changed due to a basic change in our economic philosophy- we WILL trade with other nations, but only those that have an equal or greater standard of living for basic laborers).
WHO cares, if they won, they don't have to put up with anything. that's the point of winning. War doesn't respect any boundaries and a SOVEREIGN nation doesn't answer to any outside its borders except for war. SO, if the WINNER is accused of war crimes SOMEONE is going to have to start ANOTHER war in order to prosecute those "crimes". That is the nature of war, and it is naive and foolish to believe otherwise.
And yet it worked, given a very large meta culture, between 400 AD and 1400 AD (to the point that for a while in there, it was considered immoral to fight for more than three days a week- Friday to Monday was considered the Sabbath and it was not legal to hold a seige during that time even if you won- or the Inquisitors would charge you with heresy).
Slashdot Mirror
In the case of Oregon, it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever- both sites show Oregon going to Kerry, but with less than a 10% lead (leaning Kerry, not actually solid Kerry).
As a wise man said to me as we were standing in line at a job fair back in 2001- this ain't 1992, this ain't 1986, This ain't 1972, This ain't even 1968- This is 1929 baby- and this is the modern eqivalent of the soup line.
When it came to high tech, that guy was right. Completely right. This administration has already destroyed everything I liked about America- and showed me what a hollow shell puppet show our political process actually is.
Clinton had his 8 years and was worn out- quite litterally we found out this year. The people behind Bush are not the kind of people I'd want to meet in a dark alley. I'm convinced that something very much like organized crime is behind Bush- only slightly more legal, because they've manipulated our laws to make their schemes legal.
The division in this country over this election is far more violence prone than any I've ever seen before- or even can find anywhere in our history. It won't matter which man wins really- we'll either be tied up in court for a month or more, or we'll be sitting on a civil war, or most likely, both.
I would suggest that most Americans vote the candidate they are comfortable with: a guy they could picture sitting in their living room or being married into the family. i.e. Someone they are comfortable with.
Based on that- no wonder I'm running in 2008- I'm the only guy that I can picture sitting in my living room or being married into my family.
The difference being that he's an intelligent hypocrite rather than an idiot puppet. Not much difference, I'll admit- but different in three very important areas:
1. Admitting mistakes.
2. Changing plans to fix mistakes.
3. Giving a rat's ass what other people think.
That's why the complaints that Kerry is a flip-flopper don't matter as much to me- I'm COUNTING on him being a flip flopper when it counts.
I hope you're right- because whoever wins I'll be running against both major parties in 2008.
However- I disagree with your conclusion on what would happen with a Kerry Win. I agree that the Bush Supporters won't be complaining about disenfranchisement or rigged elections, because that's not their style. But nor do I think this will be a peacefull trasistion of power if Kerry wins- far more likely the Bush admin will do *something* to attempt to maintain power. I'm not sure what that something will look like- but it probably won't be a court challenge.
No more faulty logic than you use in your sig line, depending on the CIA for intelligence on Iraq...but I guess the real point is that there is no black&white when it comes to Iraq, only shades of explosions- Bush Senior's favored tactic was to wall Iraq off from the world and wait until Saddam died of old age. Kerry's favorite tactic is to go in with an overwhelming number of troops- far more than Bush thinks we need. Bush's tactic seems to be to maximize profit for his friends in the defense and oil industries while putting our troops in danger.
None of them are the same as my plan, which is to pull out of the middle east entirely and either (a) isolate the United States until such a time that the world returns to sanity or (b) create an artwork in radioactive glass in a 1000 square mile area surrounding Mecca, as a warning to future generations as to what happens when you let a crazy right-wing religious sect have weapons and terrorist training camps.
Sorry- I still don't have a problem with it. Now if you said, replace machine with corporations- well, isn't that what they're already doing?
That's totally irrelevent. Are all enterprises under the control of "the people" as a collective group (either in some Utopian way or via the government)?
If they can't lay off workers by law, then yes, they are under control of the government. If the people are having their basic needs met whether they work or not- that's the other half of communism.
It sounds to me like you're saying that because a country has a few socialist laws, it must be communist. That's not right.
Only because you're thinking of CENTRALIZED communism- as opposed to DECENTRALIZED communism. But the point of the Grandparent was that our jobs are leaving here and going there because they are LESS socialized than we are- and that's not true either, just about every country in the world other than the Principality of Morraco is more socialized than we are.
Most modern, industrialised, nations do.
But REAL capitalist countries don't- the one victory of socialist thought and communism is the universal health care system.
I was unaware that communism had triumphed throughout most of the world, I thought it was pretty much universally accepted it hadn't.
Only Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism failed- communism is bigger than those three examples. Capitalism, likewise, runs the spectrum from Laisez Faire, to Corporatism, to Socialism. Of these, only Corporatism (the form we have here in the United States) is failing, suffering from a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
Like the missing WMD? The ONE WMD we knew for sure that Saddam had (sort of- the International Atomic Energy Association had taken actual possesion of it, locked it up, and told our troops where to find it- by the time they got around to actually attempting to secure it it had been looted), the 300 million + pounds of conventional weapons in a single huge stockpile?
I've got plenty of criticism for them- problem is most of the things I can think to criticize them on (like their ties to corporate money, their lack of respect for individual rights, their downright bigotry on pregnancy and birth, and large government intruding into our lives), Bush is actually worse on. Which is why if I find time to vote today, My vote will go to Kerry- but I'm not promising that I'll find time to vote today, and it could just as easily flip-flop to either Bush or Kerry winning Oregon by more than 10%- in which case Peroutka will get my vote.
I'm willing to bet a lot of the "left leaning liberals" on slashdot are similar- and will be voting third party for Badnarik or Peroutka if their state isn't a "swing state".
The problem with that theory is that it fails to be supported by the proper objective data.
The problem with that is other than Jeb, I can't name a single CLOSE family member for W either. His own father is against this adventure in Iraq (said so in his autobiography- he was given the same chance back in 1991 and refused to take it *because* the cost in lives would be higher than worthwhile). Even Jeb- if W isn't re-elected, he's next on the list of favorite family members to take a shot at the Presidency.
However, ideally, if the good guys aren't in range- automated mission deployment as well- then theoretically do we care if the machine flips out and starts removing future potential terrorists (aka, civilians)?
Heck- have you seen the front end on those things? Farm tractors are built to last- that means HUGE steel bars protecting the engine. I doubt you could stop a John Deere 9600 series with the types of armament that our soldiers are facing in Iraq- stock. No need to armor it at all.
I'd be all for putting a roomba brain in one of these, adding a GPS unit to provide input to the "wall" sensors- and just letting it patrol a sector all by itself.
Biological and chemical weapons scare me a hell of a lot more than nukes. With nukes, at least you know basically what to expect... half the people will die instantly. With biological or chemical weapons, the effect could take months or even years, and it could kill ten times the number of people.
True enough- of course, the only chemical WMDs found in Iraq were the ones we shipped there- and no biologicals have been found at all. Other countries have chemical/biological programs- and we've now got medical treatments for most of them, from new antibiotics to chemical neutralization showers.
The problem with keeping them contained is the same problem as keeping AIDS, or SARS, or Ebola contained. It only takes a tiny bit that gets through yout defenses, and you'll wish you would have wiped them out when you could have.
Nah- people are larger than viruses and it's pretty easy to create a kill zone that people can't cross at all. One that happens quite automatically- with no human intervention at all.
Actually, the Dulfeur report said that Saddam had all the parts and people in place and was actively promoting the lifting of the UN-imposed sanctions, which, if accomplished, meant he could start building nuclear ICBM's immediately.
Where? In those rotting parts he bought from Russia? Remember- that's a country that only has a 1:3 successfull launch record in rockets...
As far as North Korea goes, we're in the process of doing exactly what John Kerry wanted us to do with Iraq, which is get multiple nations to sit down and basically demand that they stop whatever it is that they're doing. Now John Kerry doesn't want that approach. He wants to sit down with Kim Jong Ill, one-on-one, and succumb to any demands he might have. What's John Kerry going to say to Mr. Ill that Bush, along with Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, etc. aren't saying now?
Well, considering that Bush isn't saying anything at all to Mr. Ill and is leaving it to Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan- my suggestion to Mr. Kerry would be "You can have your weapons- but before you can launch South Korea will be an island".
But that's just me- there's plenty of other things he can say, like we'll actually pay up on those war reparations that there's been a UN resolution about since the 1960s.
It sounds like you're referring to North Korea here. Kim Jong Ill played this game in 1994 too. Then-President Clinton sent Jimmy Carter over there to barter with him. Obviously, that turned out just swell.
Turned out better than the "victory" in Iraq did, didn't it?
However, I do agree with you on Iran. So what's your position on it? Should we invade and take out the terrorist regime?
I've already stated my personal position on the whole fskin' middle east- I favor choosing between armed isolationism for the United States or turning the entire region into a radioactive monument for future generations to show that you don't fsk with superpowers. Take your pick- we can sacrifice our economy to winning this war, or we can sacrifice our morality AND our economy. It's the logical end anyway- we aren't going to stop terrorism without killing a billion Islamic Death Cultists- so "'Twas Well It Were Done Quickly".
I tend to take this view with most of the world, but current technology prohibits the theory from being put into practice.
So why are we tied to CURRENT technology? There are other options- we could reduce the energy usage in our nation back down to equal our population, give up our technology, and return to the substinence farming of the 1700s and 1800s when the world was a much simpler place.
It's impossible not to have any interests in any way at all in the middle east.
Only because we're not willing to give up our technology and our economy to do so. Thus, not impossible- just highly improbable. But the highly improbable can be accomplished with faith and sacrif
India is communist?
Why do you think layoffs are illegal there? And why else would they have a national health system?
Leaving aside whether you can legitimately continue to call China "communist" given their adoption of a free market economy since the 1980s (China today is better refered to as Fascist), since when has India ever been communist in any shape or form?
Since the Marxist Party gained control in certain provinences in the 1980s- democratically elected of course.
India is a thriving, democratic, capitalist country. And has been since independence.
And yet- they've got a universal health care system and we don't.
And those people rotted in hell for all eternity. The End.
Um no, that's reflected in the price. As a commodity becomes more scarce, the price rises, encouraging conservation and exploration of alternatives. Although I suspect trying to explain basic economic principles to a self-described Marxist is going to be futile.
If that were true, then at the first warnings of oil running out it would have been $120/barrel- instead of being subsidized down. And nobody would be buying SUVs because they wouldn't be able to afford to drop $100 to fill the tank.
Kerry, on the other hand, doesn't really believe in the terrorist threat and even if he did he'd sit back and take a defensive stance. I don't believe such a posture is going to increase the safety of the US and I do believe it will encourage other despots and terrorists around the world to continue their attacks against the US.
I don't believe that Kerry would sit back and take a defensive stance. But since it's one of my two basic strategies, let me explain what I think would happen:
1. We'd pull back. We'd retreat and break our treaties with the WTO, we wouldn't have the extra oil for shipping products halfway around the world anymore so we'd stop importing altogether. Stopping importing means we'd also stop exporting, since nobody would be stupid enough to buy from us when we weren't buying from them.
2. We'd actually use our troops, freed from overseas duty, to solidify our borders. We'd still need a general draft- until we had at least 9 soldiers per mile of our borders, ideally 5000 soldiers per mile of our borders.
3. This would put a huge crimp in our labor force- between no more illegal workers available (because they wouldn't be able to get past the army alive) and no more legal immigrants either (because we would have basically become a fascist society)- so we'd have to really start pouring the R&D budgets into robotics. Eventually we'd become a nice, comfortable neutral country- and everybody would have to pledge a decade of their lives to the army, so we'd all be living on the borders as the robots take the interior to raise enough food, fibers, manufactured housing and clothing, and water to sustain us.
Yeah, we all know about the horrible atricities performed by the "Zionist terrorists" against Roman schoolchildren in Italy, don't we?
Uh- as far as I know the Zionist Zealotes movement was confined to the Roman province of Palestine for the most part. But just because they were killing centurions and the families who moved to be close to the Garrison doesn't make them any less terrorists- and doesn't change the fact that General Titus found a solution to the problem.
And funny you should say 1968. If you believe Zionist terrorism started then, you'd be hard pressed to explain the Palestinian terrorist acts which took place in the previous 50 years.
Nope- that's Islamic Terrorism, and I fully support putting them down just as violently, or better yet, taking the other option of removing our little toys and going home.
I guess that marxists don't bother to learn 20th century history - too painful a subject, what with what happened to the USSR. Not to mention a short period of time known as WWII where people with your grasp of morality have made a big impact:
I see you're too stupid to read the other two words also. Once again, I hack marxism- and morality doesn't enter into it, Bush gave away the last of the morality of America in Abu Gharib.
Isn't it great you can now nuke them from a distance instead of going to the trouble of rounding them up and shooting or gassing them?
Or like General Titus had to do- use bronze swords and have his centurions face every one of the 500 victims killed for each centurion death.
Not a bit- I understand that the United States supported terrorists that have come back to attack us. I'm just pointing out that if the rest of the world is going to call us devils or worse- then we might as well show them what a superpower without morals can really do.
Does that frighten you? It should. But the fact is, we're going to get out of this with either our morals or our economy intact- and not both.
To the extent that's true, it's because it's cheaper to make stuff elsewhere, even including the cost of shipping it here. The cost savings are reflected in lower prices to customers and increased returns to shareholders.
However- in so doing we're ignoring the larger cost of using up the world's energy resources before we have a replacement. One of the softer options I've heard for this is to charge $1/mile surcharge for energy research- so that the corporations actually have to pay the REAL cost of shipping. I wonder if you'd still buy those Levis if they had a $12,000 surcharge on them?
And raising prices, and lowering our standard of living. See "comparative advantage".
Comparative advantage is largely a lie because it fails to take into account the environmental cost of excess energy usage or the human cost of constant retraining before the original training is paid for. Ricardo lied to you.
Your one possibly valid point is that the cost of oil doesn't take into account the negative externalities of being dependent on terrorist-infested hellholes, which may or may not be the case. If it is, then raise the tax on oil to compensate. But ending all imports would be immensely destructive.
The thing you fail to take into account is that all other countries, thanks to free trade, are potential terrorist-infested hellholes. Free trade insures that the multinational corporations will hoard resources that average people need to survive- thus creating terrorist-infested hellholes wherever they touch. Ricardo was worse than a liar- his system has the intended consequence of creating a system of haves and have nots with the sole purpose of making sure that the have nots will eventually use violence against the haves. FAR better not to mess with trying to apply capitalism across borders to begin with.
See all Kerry has to do is use a few big words and he has your vote.
Actually, no- he also has to be either winning or losing my state by less than 10%, otherwise Peroutka will get my vote because he's MUCH closer to what I actually believe (the unconstitutionality of the War On Terror, the need to bring our constitution up to date with the UDHR, etc.). So no, Kerry doesn't have my vote automatically- but Bush has, at this point, lost my vote utterly for being too stupid to change his plan when needed.
1. Who said anything about competing? I'm talking REAL social conservativism- the kind the Apostles practiced, the kind Marx tried to mimic.
2. I'm not saying that we need to get the government out of the corporations, only the corporations out of government- and I don't give a rat's ass if the current economy survives, we'll replace it either with laisez faire capitalism with a platonic maximum wage cap, or with outright automation of the basic needs so that nobody needs to be in charge of any of it.
Why are you anti-corporations?
Corporations have a tendency to hoard wealth away from the citizens; that is a great way to run an economy if you're running a bananna republic but not if you're trying to let people be as free as possible. If you like living under an oligarchial dictatorship that pretends to give you rights (the right to vote for the puppet that the corporations choose to present to you, the right to work which really means the right for the corporation to lay you off at any time, the right to have control over your own resources which means con artists working for the corporations will just take your assets away from you), then fine- continue on with the immoral behavior of a system based on the mortal sin of Greed. IF, however, you're like me- you want the right to own your own home, build a small business, sell to your neighbors, and lynch anybody who cons you because they're local enough to be held responsible for their actions- and want to actually VOTE on the concept of a moral foundation for our laws- and not have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, because we'll actually have a government that fullfills the constitutional duty to provide for the GENERAL welfare instead of the CORPORATE welfare- then all you need to do is wait until November 6th when the website goes up to join the Technosolidarity Union (Yes, to anybody else watching- the name has changed due to a basic change in our economic philosophy- we WILL trade with other nations, but only those that have an equal or greater standard of living for basic laborers).
WHO cares, if they won, they don't have to put up with anything. that's the point of winning. War doesn't respect any boundaries and a SOVEREIGN nation doesn't answer to any outside its borders except for war. SO, if the WINNER is accused of war crimes SOMEONE is going to have to start ANOTHER war in order to prosecute those "crimes". That is the nature of war, and it is naive and foolish to believe otherwise.
And yet it worked, given a very large meta culture, between 400 AD and 1400 AD (to the point that for a while in there, it was considered immoral to fight for more than three days a week- Friday to Monday was considered the Sabbath and it was not legal to hold a seige during that time even if you won- or the Inquisitors would charge you with heresy).