Plus public radio is ALWAYS very liberal and it makes me sick.
This is about the Nth reply that's said this. What makes NPR so liberal, that they're ever-so-slightly less rabidly conservative than CNN?
[i]I had totally given up on any local station except for NPR, and the extreme liberal bias of the commentators was annoying the heck out of me.[/i]
You need to get out into the world more. I find the national NPR shows to have a very strong conservative bias. Not as in-your-face as CNN, but quite strong nonetheless.
Actually, weapons like this, for which blinding is likely a very common side effect, are specifically exempted by the geneva convention. See this article in new scientist. They say the reflections could blind people many miles away.
>"For 25 years, I have never backed down and never given up on the
>environment and I never will in my whole life." -- Al Gore,
>October 27, 2000, Madison, Wisconson campaign rally
>
>JIM HIGHTOWER: It's an article of faith among the Democrats-for-Gore set
>that, whatever faults Al may have (his own mother describes him as "a born
>conformist"), at least they can all feel proud about his commitment to
>protecting the environment. Just ask anybody--Al's got a strong
>environmental record all Americans can feel proud of. Right? Indeed, to
>hear the Limbaugh-breaths of the hard-right media talk, one would think
>Gore's secret agenda is to destroy the economy and force everyone to eat
>tofu, ride bicycles and wear Birkenstocks. I don't know what kind of wild
>mushrooms those yelpers are snacking on, but Al's idea of extremism is to
>wear a plaid shirt. Gore has certainly talked a great game of green: "We
>must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle
>for civilization," he wrote in his thoughtful 1992 book, Earth in the
>Balance. "The environment is much more than a policy position to me," he
>declared in a 1999 speech. "It is a profoundly moral obligation." But, as
>actress Rosalind Russell once said, "politics makes strange bedclothes,"
>and while Al wears a cloak of green, he has sewn large pockets inside it to
>store all the campaign funds slipped to him by oil, chemical, developer,
>timber, mining, agribusiness, and other polluting interests. From the first
>days of the Clinton-Gore administration, Mr. Environment began sniffing the
>money and backing off, refusing to throw any hard punches at the polluters.
>Gore's own performance as vice president was so feeble that people who had
>suffered from his inaction took to attending his campaign events, shouting
>out to him: "Read your book!"
>
>East Liverpool, Ohio, haunts Gore, but not as much as he and Waste
>Technologies Industries Inc. haunt the people who live there. The town,
>located on the Ohio River along the state's eastern border, is home to some
>13,000 folks and one humongous toxic waste incinerator. The WTI waste
>burner, now owned by a Swiss corporation, is one of the largest in the
>world. Locals and environmental experts say this facility never should have
>been built there, for it violates five of the eight no-nos that EPA uses to
>reject a hazardous waste site as "inappropriate." WTI's
>incinerator--located only 320 feet from homes and 1,100 feet from an
>elementary school, where 400 children attend classes and play in the
>schoolyard--burns 63,000 tons a year of highly toxic chemicals, heavy
>metals, and other deadly, cancer-causing materials, emitting toxic gases
>and particles from its smokestack day in and day out. Flashback to July
>19, 1992: Beleaguered opponents of WTI's project were overjoyed because
>Captain Courageous had just arrived in the person of Al Gore, Jr. At the
>time, the project still had no federal permit to operate or even to conduct
>a "test burn" that it was required to pass before the company could get an
>operating permit. Campaigning in the area, Gore spoke up for the people:
>"I'll tell you this, a Clinton-Gore administration is going to give you an
>environmental presidency to deal with these problems. We'll be on your side
>for a change." To the delight of these good people, Al and Bill were
>elected that November, and only a month later the incoming veep boosted
>their hopes again by reiterating his stance for environmental sanity:
>"Serious questions concerning the safety of an East Liverpool, Ohio,
>hazardous waste incinerator must be answered before the plant may begin
>operation," he declared in a December 7 press statement. "The new
>Clinton-Gore administration would not issue the plant a test burn permit
>until . . . all questions concerning the compliance with state and federal
>law have been answered." Period. Hoorah for the Great Goreski, the man who
>stared down WTI and saved the children! Except that he didn't. Once he was
>sworn in, the fearless defender of the folks and the environment turned out
>to be the one who blinked, suddenly mumbling that there was nothing he
>could do to stop the permitting process, so sorry, hope no one dies,
>goodbye. As he retreated, Gore lobbed the blame back to outgoing Bush
>officials, asserting that in a dastardly last-minute decision, they'd given
>WTI the go-ahead it needed. WTI eventually conducted its test burn . . .
>and failed! Wouldn't this have been a neat time for an environmentally
>macho vice president to assert himself? This was no minor technical
>failure, either--the test showed excess emissions of carbon tetrachloride
>(causes liver cancer), mercury (a neurotoxin that damages people's central
>nervous system), and polychlorinated dibenzodoxins (a super-nasty that
>causes birth defects, cancer, immuno-suppression, and cardiovascular
>problems). But Al just stayed real still, and on April 6, WTI received its
>EPA operating permit. Meanwhile, Greenpeace and others filed suit to stop
>the incinerator from firing up. This time, at long last, the Clinton-Gore
>team sprang into action--on the wrong side. Administration lawyers were
>dispatched to help WTI and the EPA battle the citizen groups, and Janet
>Reno's Justice Department even testified in court on WTI's behalf! In the
>seven years since Gore took a dive, WTI has been incinerating away, even
>though it has recorded 34 fires, had five explosions, experienced 27 other
>"release incidents," and incurred state fines for what the New York Times
>referred to as "violations of air monitoring requirements." How
>bureaucratically genteel that phrase is. Less genteel is the stark picture
>of the townspeople's health. A 1997 state study found that the people of
>East Liverpool have "strikingly higher" rates of cancer death than
>elsewhere in the state and nation (40.25% higher than the national
>average). Yes, this is an old industrial town with more than one source of
>pollution, but the very best you can say about adding a cancer-machine to
>the mix is that it was less than helpful. Notice that no WTI executives or
>board members live anywhere near it. As for the health of those who do live
>there, more studies are needed, say the authorities. But the incinerator
>doesn't wait on studies--it keeps on chugging.
>
>Why did Al disappear? The money boys got to him. Coming into office in
>January of '93, both Clinton and Gore were engulfed by Wall Street
>insiders, corporate chieftains, lobbyists, and their own "wise advisors"
>inside the White House--the latter comprising such corporate stalwarts as
>Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs (later to
>become Treasury Secretary), and Robert Altman, also of Goldman Sachs (a
>firm that now ranks in the top five of Gore's presidential donors). Al was
>seen by this triumvirate of elders as too green, and they did not think it
>helpful to have him running with the rabble in places like East Liverpool,
>making noises about yanking corporate operating permits. Besides, the
>Street had some money in play in East Liverpool. Morgan Guaranty Trust was
>getting nice fees for handling $128 million in construction financing for
>WTI's waste burner. The financing was being provided by Stephens Inc., an
>Arkansas-based financial conglomerate owned by Jackson T. Stephens, who
>happened to have close ties to Clinton. Stephens raised more than $100,000
>for Bill's presidential run and provided a $3.5 million line of credit for
>the '92 campaign. With this new information provided to the always obedient
>son, Gore turned a different shade of green, and he was no longer in touch
>with those trusting souls back in Ohio.
>
>East Liverpool is hardly the only dark stain on Gore's green cloak:
> On October 21, 1999, gearing up his campaign, Al made a flat-out,
>scouts-honor, 100%-guaranteed, cross-my-heart-and-hope- to-die pledge to
>end oil drilling off the California coast: "I will take the most sweeping
>steps in our history to protect our oceans and coastal waters from offshore
>oil drilling. I will make sure that there is no new oil leasing off the
>coasts of California and Florida." The very next month, the Clinton-Gore
>administration granted oil company requests to extend 36 drilling leases in
>California coastal waters. Oil companies were $2 million donors to Gore and
>the Democratic Party for the 2000 election.
> In 1992, candidate Gore pledged that the new administration would
>be a ferocious defender of America's vanishing wetlands. Yet with direct
>subsidies and lax EPA enforcement, the administration has encouraged the
>sugar industry to continue destroying the Everglades. Among the sugar
>daddies, Alfonso Fanjul and his Flo-Sun sugar empire in the Everglades have
>sweetened Clinton and Gore's various money pockets with more than $300,000
>in contributions. Also, despite Al's pledge, another 500 acres of sensitive
>New Jersey wetlands are set to be destroyed by an upscale shopping center
>and entertainment complex being built by the Mills Corporation. Various
>federal agencies opposed the construction, but the Council on Environmental
>Quality, which was closely affiliated with Vice President Gore, brokered
>the dirty deal for Mills Corp. Less than a week later, contributions
>totaling $43,000 came to the Gore 2000 campaign fund from the grateful
>folks at Mills.
> In 1996, as part of his "reinventing government" flim-flam, Gore
>achieved what Nixon and Reagan could not get Congress to sit still for:
>privatizing the Navy's strategic oil reserve, known as Elk Hills. This huge
>oil field near Bakersfield, California, is big-time black gold, and the
>industry has drooled over it for decades, just as environmentalists had
>fought to prevent its development. It was the largest privatization of
>federal property in U.S. history. The winning bidder in the sell-off was
>Occidental Petroleum Corp. Just coincidentally, Al and Occidental go waaaay
>back. Indeed, the major source of the wealth amassed by Gore's father came
>from his long relationship with Occidental and its legendary chairman,
>Armand Hammer. Gore has extended the familial ties to the company; he
>currently owns about a million dollars worth of Occidental stock, and also
>enjoys a unique neighborly relationship to the corporation. Adjacent to the
>Gores' bucolic, old family farm back home in Tennessee, right along the
>Caney Fork River that Al talks of so wistfully, he owns another farm--less
>bucolic but far more profitable--that he prefers not to talk of at all.
>This chunk of farmland is rich in zinc, and it was sold to Al in 1973 in a
>sweetheart transaction by Armand Hammer. "Mr. Green" turns out to be a zinc
>miner! As a by-product, he also turns out to be a polluter--some
>environmentalists say that run-off from the mine is getting into his
>beloved Caney Fork. Gore draws annual zinc royalties that have totaled some
>$500,000 since he acquired the land from Occidental, and he has also mined
>more than half a million dollars in campaign funds from Occidental since he
>became vice president--including $50,000 that came after one of Al's
>infamous telephone solicitations from the White House, and another $100,000
>wad that rolled in after Occidental's CEO had enjoyed two nights in the
>Lincoln Bedroom. These cozy connections caused industry eyes to roll when
>it was announced that Occidental had won the bidding on Elk Hills. Writing
>in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn reports that the company was viewed as a
>bankruptcy waiting to happen until it got its hands on this sensationally
>profitable oil reserve. Normally, the Department of Energy would decide
>whether a national asset like Elk Hills, the military's largest strategic
>fuel reserve, should be sold off. Instead, Gore arranged for a private
>consulting firm named ICF Kaiser International to make this assessment.
>Guess who was chairman of ICF Kaiser? Al's old pal, Tony Coelho. "Oh, ye
>cynics," wail Gore staffers, asserting that Occidental's good fortune on
>Elk Hills was all on the up-and-up. Nevertheless, the Energy Department has
>refused to release documents pertaining to the deal. Again and again on
>environmental issues, Gore has deferred to money--to Appalachian coal
>companies, to Florida developers, to oil drillers in Alaska, to timber
>giants in national forests, to Occidental Petroleum (yet again) in
>Colombia. He also deferred to money in his campaign, relegating pollution
>issues to the back burner. Here's a cause that has his name on it, that the
>broad public actually cares about. Never mind that he doesn't really walk
>the walk, he could still talk the talk and hammer Bush, who is as
>defenseless on environmental issues as an armadillo wandering out on the
>Interstate. But Gore won't even be a rhetorical advocate, fearing that he
>might give a case of those bad ol' jitters to his contributors. Gore means
>well, but that by itself doesn't mean squat. Whenever his good intentions
>clash with the moneyed interests, as they must at a presidential level,
>he's a money man. Remember, the opposite of courage is not cowardice--it's
>conformity.
The government taking money from people is not necessarily stealing. If you get rich in America, and America's laws and infrastructure enable you to get rich, you owe America something. To let individuals, and especially corporations, keep all the profits they are able to receive because of services provided by the government amounts to stealing from everybody! Sure, you could just eliminate the government altogether, and that's what it would take to get around this. In many other countries, people pay tons of taxes, but they get things in return! Admittedly, that doesn't happen in America, but that doesn't have to be the case forever. Mybe you don't want government to provide any services for you, and that's fine. There are plenty of countries all around the world that will let you do pretty much whatever you want and don't ask much in return. Would you really want to live in any of those places?
Large corporations like Microsoft or multinats are certainly
NOT the libertarian ideal, nor are they the product of laissez-faire. On the contrary, they are paternalistic expressions of a paternalistic societal, economic and
political system with a highly regulated, non-free market.
So don't "throw the baby out with the bath water," as it were. Government can do many Good Things for people, like keep the peace, provide health care, and provide education. Lets have responsible government minus big business.
Never mind that freedom is in many ways incompatible with the idea of society
Ah yes, the main arguement of totalitarianism.
It's often useful to think of different categories of freedom. Social freedoms, like owning guns, marrying who you feel like, etc, and economic freedoms, like the freedom to incorporate and exploit workers are two examples. For me, more social freedom and less economic freedom makes the most sense. This does not mean totalitarianism. It means a responsible society that provides for its members, and holds all people accountable for the gains they acheive as part of being hosted by society.
80% of the income tax (the overwhelming source of federal revenue) comes from 20% of the households (FWIW, 40% of American households pay no income
tax at all. ..some even come out ahead after the earned income tax credit is factored into the equation)
This would only be unfair if wealth and income in America were distributed evenly, say in a nice bell curve. In reality, things are way skewed. The richest 1% of the
population owns 40% of all wealth (houses, boats, cars, etc) and 62% of business assets! The bottom 90% controls only 28% of all wealth! I've posted this bit before, but it bears repeating. The distribution of wealth in this country is profoundly unfair. It wounds democracy gravely, and it is un-American.
And about the earned income credit: have you ever known anyone who's received it? Sure, they get a few bucks from the government, but the people I've known who've qualified for the EIC haven't "come out ahead" in any regard. They have struggled to feed their families.
"Agreed, so why is it that all the tax breaks go to the folks with the most money?"
Probalby because the folks with the most money are paying most of the taxes. The top 10% pay around 50-60% of the tax burden.
This would only be unfair if wealth and income in America were distributed evenly, say in a nice bell curve. In reality, things are way skewed. The richest 1% of the population owns 40% of all wealth (houses, boats, cars, etc) and 62% of business assets! The bottom 90% controls only 28% of all wealth!
Sure, the government pays lots of money for health care, but who benefits? Big corporations. The government would pay billions less if drug companies didn't gouge Americans so badly.
Try going to a doctor and not paying. It's impossible, save for the emergency room, which has become the primary care physician for millions of Americans. Some 60% of emergency room visits are for minor, treatable ailments like sore throats. This isn't just sad, it's disgraceful. I love America with all my heart, and the lack of universal health care in this country is an embarassment.
I'm all for personal freedom, but there is a great deal to be said for doing things for the common good. I don't mean socialism necessarily, but I do think that selfishness is not a virtue.
In many coutries, if you're sick, you go to a doctor, whether you're rich or you live in the gutter. The same cannot be said for America.
Really, why should it be that huge segments of the population have no access to health care?
So who thinks the government can run health care effectively?:P
(Yes, I know, it's out of context. But that's how it wrapped on my screen, and I had to read it through three times to parse it correctly -- I was so shocked at the
thought of anyone thinking the government could run anything effectively:)
I don't trust the government much either, but for real, who else could do it? Corporations have been managing health care up to now, and it sucks. 44 million Americans don't have health insurance. That's 25% of the population under 65! Unfettered corporate control isn't working.
Moderate down the dudes that post porn, or pages of nonsense, fine. Do whatever you want. Just leave this guy alone!
This guy is actually funny, and the bits that could be considered offensive usually aren't that bad.
Next time you're about to assign a point to some moronic kharma fag just because he said "I'll know this will get modded down, BUT..." remember the Open Source Guy.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus public radio is ALWAYS very liberal and it makes me sick. This is about the Nth reply that's said this. What makes NPR so liberal, that they're ever-so-slightly less rabidly conservative than CNN?
[i]I had totally given up on any local station except for NPR, and the extreme liberal bias of the commentators was annoying the heck out of me.[/i]
You need to get out into the world more. I find the national NPR shows to have a very strong conservative bias. Not as in-your-face as CNN, but quite strong nonetheless.
Actually, weapons like this, for which blinding is likely a very common side effect, are specifically exempted by the geneva convention. See this article in new scientist. They say the reflections could blind people many miles away.
Whatever happened to the subtle, witty ones?
MOD THIS UP!!
>"For 25 years, I have never backed down and never given up on the
>environment and I never will in my whole life." -- Al Gore,
>October 27, 2000, Madison, Wisconson campaign rally
>
>JIM HIGHTOWER: It's an article of faith among the Democrats-for-Gore set
>that, whatever faults Al may have (his own mother describes him as "a born
>conformist"), at least they can all feel proud about his commitment to
>protecting the environment. Just ask anybody--Al's got a strong
>environmental record all Americans can feel proud of. Right? Indeed, to
>hear the Limbaugh-breaths of the hard-right media talk, one would think
>Gore's secret agenda is to destroy the economy and force everyone to eat
>tofu, ride bicycles and wear Birkenstocks. I don't know what kind of wild
>mushrooms those yelpers are snacking on, but Al's idea of extremism is to
>wear a plaid shirt. Gore has certainly talked a great game of green: "We
>must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle
>for civilization," he wrote in his thoughtful 1992 book, Earth in the
>Balance. "The environment is much more than a policy position to me," he
>declared in a 1999 speech. "It is a profoundly moral obligation." But, as
>actress Rosalind Russell once said, "politics makes strange bedclothes,"
>and while Al wears a cloak of green, he has sewn large pockets inside it to
>store all the campaign funds slipped to him by oil, chemical, developer,
>timber, mining, agribusiness, and other polluting interests. From the first
>days of the Clinton-Gore administration, Mr. Environment began sniffing the
>money and backing off, refusing to throw any hard punches at the polluters.
>Gore's own performance as vice president was so feeble that people who had
>suffered from his inaction took to attending his campaign events, shouting
>out to him: "Read your book!"
>
>East Liverpool, Ohio, haunts Gore, but not as much as he and Waste
>Technologies Industries Inc. haunt the people who live there. The town,
>located on the Ohio River along the state's eastern border, is home to some
>13,000 folks and one humongous toxic waste incinerator. The WTI waste
>burner, now owned by a Swiss corporation, is one of the largest in the
>world. Locals and environmental experts say this facility never should have
>been built there, for it violates five of the eight no-nos that EPA uses to
>reject a hazardous waste site as "inappropriate." WTI's
>incinerator--located only 320 feet from homes and 1,100 feet from an
>elementary school, where 400 children attend classes and play in the
>schoolyard--burns 63,000 tons a year of highly toxic chemicals, heavy
>metals, and other deadly, cancer-causing materials, emitting toxic gases
>and particles from its smokestack day in and day out. Flashback to July
>19, 1992: Beleaguered opponents of WTI's project were overjoyed because
>Captain Courageous had just arrived in the person of Al Gore, Jr. At the
>time, the project still had no federal permit to operate or even to conduct
>a "test burn" that it was required to pass before the company could get an
>operating permit. Campaigning in the area, Gore spoke up for the people:
>"I'll tell you this, a Clinton-Gore administration is going to give you an
>environmental presidency to deal with these problems. We'll be on your side
>for a change." To the delight of these good people, Al and Bill were
>elected that November, and only a month later the incoming veep boosted
>their hopes again by reiterating his stance for environmental sanity:
>"Serious questions concerning the safety of an East Liverpool, Ohio,
>hazardous waste incinerator must be answered before the plant may begin
>operation," he declared in a December 7 press statement. "The new
>Clinton-Gore administration would not issue the plant a test burn permit
>until . . . all questions concerning the compliance with state and federal
>law have been answered." Period. Hoorah for the Great Goreski, the man who
>stared down WTI and saved the children! Except that he didn't. Once he was
>sworn in, the fearless defender of the folks and the environment turned out
>to be the one who blinked, suddenly mumbling that there was nothing he
>could do to stop the permitting process, so sorry, hope no one dies,
>goodbye. As he retreated, Gore lobbed the blame back to outgoing Bush
>officials, asserting that in a dastardly last-minute decision, they'd given
>WTI the go-ahead it needed. WTI eventually conducted its test burn . . .
>and failed! Wouldn't this have been a neat time for an environmentally
>macho vice president to assert himself? This was no minor technical
>failure, either--the test showed excess emissions of carbon tetrachloride
>(causes liver cancer), mercury (a neurotoxin that damages people's central
>nervous system), and polychlorinated dibenzodoxins (a super-nasty that
>causes birth defects, cancer, immuno-suppression, and cardiovascular
>problems). But Al just stayed real still, and on April 6, WTI received its
>EPA operating permit. Meanwhile, Greenpeace and others filed suit to stop
>the incinerator from firing up. This time, at long last, the Clinton-Gore
>team sprang into action--on the wrong side. Administration lawyers were
>dispatched to help WTI and the EPA battle the citizen groups, and Janet
>Reno's Justice Department even testified in court on WTI's behalf! In the
>seven years since Gore took a dive, WTI has been incinerating away, even
>though it has recorded 34 fires, had five explosions, experienced 27 other
>"release incidents," and incurred state fines for what the New York Times
>referred to as "violations of air monitoring requirements." How
>bureaucratically genteel that phrase is. Less genteel is the stark picture
>of the townspeople's health. A 1997 state study found that the people of
>East Liverpool have "strikingly higher" rates of cancer death than
>elsewhere in the state and nation (40.25% higher than the national
>average). Yes, this is an old industrial town with more than one source of
>pollution, but the very best you can say about adding a cancer-machine to
>the mix is that it was less than helpful. Notice that no WTI executives or
>board members live anywhere near it. As for the health of those who do live
>there, more studies are needed, say the authorities. But the incinerator
>doesn't wait on studies--it keeps on chugging.
>
>Why did Al disappear? The money boys got to him. Coming into office in
>January of '93, both Clinton and Gore were engulfed by Wall Street
>insiders, corporate chieftains, lobbyists, and their own "wise advisors"
>inside the White House--the latter comprising such corporate stalwarts as
>Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs (later to
>become Treasury Secretary), and Robert Altman, also of Goldman Sachs (a
>firm that now ranks in the top five of Gore's presidential donors). Al was
>seen by this triumvirate of elders as too green, and they did not think it
>helpful to have him running with the rabble in places like East Liverpool,
>making noises about yanking corporate operating permits. Besides, the
>Street had some money in play in East Liverpool. Morgan Guaranty Trust was
>getting nice fees for handling $128 million in construction financing for
>WTI's waste burner. The financing was being provided by Stephens Inc., an
>Arkansas-based financial conglomerate owned by Jackson T. Stephens, who
>happened to have close ties to Clinton. Stephens raised more than $100,000
>for Bill's presidential run and provided a $3.5 million line of credit for
>the '92 campaign. With this new information provided to the always obedient
>son, Gore turned a different shade of green, and he was no longer in touch
>with those trusting souls back in Ohio.
>
>East Liverpool is hardly the only dark stain on Gore's green cloak:
> On October 21, 1999, gearing up his campaign, Al made a flat-out,
>scouts-honor, 100%-guaranteed, cross-my-heart-and-hope- to-die pledge to
>end oil drilling off the California coast: "I will take the most sweeping
>steps in our history to protect our oceans and coastal waters from offshore
>oil drilling. I will make sure that there is no new oil leasing off the
>coasts of California and Florida." The very next month, the Clinton-Gore
>administration granted oil company requests to extend 36 drilling leases in
>California coastal waters. Oil companies were $2 million donors to Gore and
>the Democratic Party for the 2000 election.
> In 1992, candidate Gore pledged that the new administration would
>be a ferocious defender of America's vanishing wetlands. Yet with direct
>subsidies and lax EPA enforcement, the administration has encouraged the
>sugar industry to continue destroying the Everglades. Among the sugar
>daddies, Alfonso Fanjul and his Flo-Sun sugar empire in the Everglades have
>sweetened Clinton and Gore's various money pockets with more than $300,000
>in contributions. Also, despite Al's pledge, another 500 acres of sensitive
>New Jersey wetlands are set to be destroyed by an upscale shopping center
>and entertainment complex being built by the Mills Corporation. Various
>federal agencies opposed the construction, but the Council on Environmental
>Quality, which was closely affiliated with Vice President Gore, brokered
>the dirty deal for Mills Corp. Less than a week later, contributions
>totaling $43,000 came to the Gore 2000 campaign fund from the grateful
>folks at Mills.
> In 1996, as part of his "reinventing government" flim-flam, Gore
>achieved what Nixon and Reagan could not get Congress to sit still for:
>privatizing the Navy's strategic oil reserve, known as Elk Hills. This huge
>oil field near Bakersfield, California, is big-time black gold, and the
>industry has drooled over it for decades, just as environmentalists had
>fought to prevent its development. It was the largest privatization of
>federal property in U.S. history. The winning bidder in the sell-off was
>Occidental Petroleum Corp. Just coincidentally, Al and Occidental go waaaay
>back. Indeed, the major source of the wealth amassed by Gore's father came
>from his long relationship with Occidental and its legendary chairman,
>Armand Hammer. Gore has extended the familial ties to the company; he
>currently owns about a million dollars worth of Occidental stock, and also
>enjoys a unique neighborly relationship to the corporation. Adjacent to the
>Gores' bucolic, old family farm back home in Tennessee, right along the
>Caney Fork River that Al talks of so wistfully, he owns another farm--less
>bucolic but far more profitable--that he prefers not to talk of at all.
>This chunk of farmland is rich in zinc, and it was sold to Al in 1973 in a
>sweetheart transaction by Armand Hammer. "Mr. Green" turns out to be a zinc
>miner! As a by-product, he also turns out to be a polluter--some
>environmentalists say that run-off from the mine is getting into his
>beloved Caney Fork. Gore draws annual zinc royalties that have totaled some
>$500,000 since he acquired the land from Occidental, and he has also mined
>more than half a million dollars in campaign funds from Occidental since he
>became vice president--including $50,000 that came after one of Al's
>infamous telephone solicitations from the White House, and another $100,000
>wad that rolled in after Occidental's CEO had enjoyed two nights in the
>Lincoln Bedroom. These cozy connections caused industry eyes to roll when
>it was announced that Occidental had won the bidding on Elk Hills. Writing
>in The Nation, Alexander Cockburn reports that the company was viewed as a
>bankruptcy waiting to happen until it got its hands on this sensationally
>profitable oil reserve. Normally, the Department of Energy would decide
>whether a national asset like Elk Hills, the military's largest strategic
>fuel reserve, should be sold off. Instead, Gore arranged for a private
>consulting firm named ICF Kaiser International to make this assessment.
>Guess who was chairman of ICF Kaiser? Al's old pal, Tony Coelho. "Oh, ye
>cynics," wail Gore staffers, asserting that Occidental's good fortune on
>Elk Hills was all on the up-and-up. Nevertheless, the Energy Department has
>refused to release documents pertaining to the deal. Again and again on
>environmental issues, Gore has deferred to money--to Appalachian coal
>companies, to Florida developers, to oil drillers in Alaska, to timber
>giants in national forests, to Occidental Petroleum (yet again) in
>Colombia. He also deferred to money in his campaign, relegating pollution
>issues to the back burner. Here's a cause that has his name on it, that the
>broad public actually cares about. Never mind that he doesn't really walk
>the walk, he could still talk the talk and hammer Bush, who is as
>defenseless on environmental issues as an armadillo wandering out on the
>Interstate. But Gore won't even be a rhetorical advocate, fearing that he
>might give a case of those bad ol' jitters to his contributors. Gore means
>well, but that by itself doesn't mean squat. Whenever his good intentions
>clash with the moneyed interests, as they must at a presidential level,
>he's a money man. Remember, the opposite of courage is not cowardice--it's
>conformity.
The government taking money from people is not necessarily stealing. If you get rich in America, and America's laws and infrastructure enable you to get rich, you owe America something. To let individuals, and especially corporations, keep all the profits they are able to receive because of services provided by the government amounts to stealing from everybody! Sure, you could just eliminate the government altogether, and that's what it would take to get around this. In many other countries, people pay tons of taxes, but they get things in return! Admittedly, that doesn't happen in America, but that doesn't have to be the case forever. Mybe you don't want government to provide any services for you, and that's fine. There are plenty of countries all around the world that will let you do pretty much whatever you want and don't ask much in return. Would you really want to live in any of those places?
Large corporations like Microsoft or multinats are certainly NOT the libertarian ideal, nor are they the product of laissez-faire. On the contrary, they are paternalistic expressions of a paternalistic societal, economic and political system with a highly regulated, non-free market.
So don't "throw the baby out with the bath water," as it were. Government can do many Good Things for people, like keep the peace, provide health care, and provide education. Lets have responsible government minus big business.
Never mind that freedom is in many ways incompatible with the idea of society
Ah yes, the main arguement of totalitarianism.
It's often useful to think of different categories of freedom. Social freedoms, like owning guns, marrying who you feel like, etc, and economic freedoms, like the freedom to incorporate and exploit workers are two examples. For me, more social freedom and less economic freedom makes the most sense. This does not mean totalitarianism. It means a responsible society that provides for its members, and holds all people accountable for the gains they acheive as part of being hosted by society.
80% of the income tax (the overwhelming source of federal revenue) comes from 20% of the households (FWIW, 40% of American households pay no income tax at all. . .some even come out ahead after the earned income tax credit is factored into the equation)
This would only be unfair if wealth and income in America were distributed evenly, say in a nice bell curve. In reality, things are way skewed. The richest 1% of the population owns 40% of all wealth (houses, boats, cars, etc) and 62% of business assets! The bottom 90% controls only 28% of all wealth! I've posted this bit before, but it bears repeating. The distribution of wealth in this country is profoundly unfair. It wounds democracy gravely, and it is un-American.
And about the earned income credit: have you ever known anyone who's received it? Sure, they get a few bucks from the government, but the people I've known who've qualified for the EIC haven't "come out ahead" in any regard. They have struggled to feed their families.
"Agreed, so why is it that all the tax breaks go to the folks with the most money?"
Probalby because the folks with the most money are paying most of the taxes. The top 10% pay around 50-60% of the tax burden.
This would only be unfair if wealth and income in America were distributed evenly, say in a nice bell curve. In reality, things are way skewed. The richest 1% of the population owns 40% of all wealth (houses, boats, cars, etc) and 62% of business assets! The bottom 90% controls only 28% of all wealth!
What unfettered corporation control?
Sure, the government pays lots of money for health care, but who benefits? Big corporations. The government would pay billions less if drug companies didn't gouge Americans so badly.
Try going to a doctor and not paying. It's impossible, save for the emergency room, which has become the primary care physician for millions of Americans. Some 60% of emergency room visits are for minor, treatable ailments like sore throats. This isn't just sad, it's disgraceful. I love America with all my heart, and the lack of universal health care in this country is an embarassment.
I'm all for personal freedom, but there is a great deal to be said for doing things for the common good. I don't mean socialism necessarily, but I do think that selfishness is not a virtue.
In many coutries, if you're sick, you go to a doctor, whether you're rich or you live in the gutter. The same cannot be said for America.
Really, why should it be that huge segments of the population have no access to health care?
So who thinks the government can run health care effectively? :P
(Yes, I know, it's out of context. But that's how it wrapped on my screen, and I had to read it through three times to parse it correctly -- I was so shocked at the
thought of anyone thinking the government could run anything effectively :)
I don't trust the government much either, but for real, who else could do it? Corporations have been managing health care up to now, and it sucks. 44 million Americans don't have health insurance. That's 25% of the population under 65! Unfettered corporate control isn't working.
This guy is actually funny, and the bits that could be considered offensive usually aren't that bad.
Next time you're about to assign a point to some moronic kharma fag just because he said "I'll know this will get modded down, BUT..." remember the Open Source Guy.
A breakdancing stamp! How fucking good is that!?
Belee dat