The rich and the upper class use nonproft foundations to mold the American political culture, specifically to influence leftism towards multicultualism & identity politics, and away from economic leftism, such as progressive taxation, unionism, and universal healthcare.
This started decades ago. The rich created a pseudoLeft here in America, a Left that would not threaten their fat wallets. They use the pseudoLeft to divide and conquer us.
See my sig for more on this.
America is the western nation that LEAST protects its workers. The overclass here has managed to use a variety of propaganda techniques to allow the ruination of legal protections for American workers. That makes us easier to exploit than the workers in other nations. So, startups want to be here--honest, educated, hardworking and exploitable.
Get back to work, you good little american sheeple!
some traitor wrote"
This is a moot point. The quality of an average American sweeper or construction worker might be far better than the comparable Mexican's for all I know/care, but no one cares about your quality or better sweeping skills when you demand $50 an hour to wash my sink, health insurance to take care of your diabetic fat ass, severance pay, hard working conditions allowance, and various other allowances. And on top of all this, you refuse to attend school or get trained in newer skills
Aren't you a nasty little traitor to your fellow Amwerican citizen? I am assuming you are american. I can hardly that europeans have been so propagandized against the working person as to make the sort of evil comments you made. You have certainly internalized the overclass point of view by demonizing your fellow working American instead of realizing where the true evil lies--at the top. The overclass has successfully shaped the American culture to create evil little traitors like you.
I sure hope nothing happens to you, like, say, getting big fat tumor in your brain, completely inoperative. Well, maybe that would be OK. After all, we do execute murderers. So maybe we should indict and try for treason little turncoats like you. But in truth, it is your overclass masters who should pay for creating you.
everyone seems to be missing out on the most important part of this idea--that the universe is infinitely large and old, and that it will last forever.
That means individual humans could LIVE FOREVER.
Looks like we cryonicists could be living forever!
.....over 70% of Americans support the idea of universal healthcare. And instead of ideas about how to implement it, we get this nonsense from both the Dems and GOP.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of Americans die every year who would have otherwise survived in all other western nations (because those nations have universal healthcare, and we do not).
I call this negligent homicide on the part of our politicians.
Or maybe, seeing as how these politicians take money from the healthcare cartel, what these politicians are doing is not NEGLIGENT homicide, but DELIBERATE homicide. Murder, I call it.
These politicians are colluding with the healthcare cartel to MURDER people so as to extort every more money from the rest of us.
I say try em and convict em for murder.....
I call on the Justice Dept to indict for murder Clinton, Lieberman, and every other senator who gets involved in this little games scam, instead of working on universal healthcare.
Major Forums were "made" by Mass Media
on
Netroots Politics
·
· Score: 1
In order to make money as a democratic/liberal political blogger, one must toe the Demcratic party line, which is the neoliberal, conventional wisdom, Washington Consenus.
If you allow posters on your liberal forum that deviate markedly from this party line, they will be banned. This is how the mass media and those already in power maintain the status quo, and how they maintain ideological hegemony.
People who own and run forums like Kos, DU, etc, can make money from Speaking Fees, books, Consultation fees, etc. But only so long as the material in their blogs substanially toes the party line.
Generally speaking, the party line requires less attention be given to economics oriented aspects of politics, and more focus on social issues politics, i.e., wedge issues, like gay rights, identity politics, race and gender politics, guns, abortion, and other wedge issues.
How does one become a MAJOR Liberal blogger? You must be mentioned by the mass media. How do you get mentioned by the mass media? It is like being "made" by the Mafia, I suppose. You gotta show them you are a Good Fella! Show them that you enforce ideological hegemony by banning not only rightwing posters, but also those posters who question the party line of BOTH parties.
Once you have been mentioned repeatedly by the mass media as a blogger, you are MADE. You can make a living at it. But don't wander from the conventional wisdom.
These same things pretty much apply to the rightwing GOP political forums
we should tax the rich more because WE OWN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!
We are the LANDLORDS. We can raise the rent when we want and on WHOMEVER we want. And what if some people don't like it? I say that those people can git their elite-loving asses to some other country! And if the rich people decide to run off to another country with their millions, I say send the military after them to get the money....
What gives us the people this right? The welfare clause of the American Constitution! The Rich elite who wrote the constitution screwed up when they let that one slip by.
No flame intended of course. I direct this not at you, but to a hypothetical third person...
france is certainly a much better country than America. You and the vast majority of American citizens are like some sort of cattle, walking slowly and zombielike into the slaughterhouse.
Vote Badnarik or Peroutka to weaken the GOP
on
The Hidden Swing State?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Either Badnarik or Peroutka is OK. THat way it helps build the Libertarian and Constitution parties for the future, which will weaken the GOP in the future.
Here in Texas, Kerry is out of the running, and the only presidential candidates who made it on the ballot. So I will be voting for Badnarik, the better to build the future Libertarian party, and take future votes from the GOP. I plan to do this even though I find most of the Libertarian party platform irrational and even revolting in some areas.
The Constitution party is the one that can really really hurt the GOP if they get any real publicity in 2008....
It will really get bad when corporate lobbyists target our politicians with these kinds of techniques.
Entire healthcare system is a criminal travesty!
on
Atomic Veterans Speak Out
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
In ANY OTHER industrialized western democracy, EVERY citizen of that country has his/her medical needs taken care of for either a FRACTION of what we charge here, or for free. THat is because their healthcare systems are funded by taxes, and mainly by income taxes on wealthy investors, upper income earners (doctors, etc), and corporations.
If any of these vets were to live in Canada legally, all they have to do is walk into any hospital, and they would be taken care of.
But the USA has a healthcare system rigged to hold the American citizen hostage to investor interests. It is rigged to make the average American citizen hostage to employment. It is rigged to increase desperation in the workers. It is rigged to increase dependence of the employee to the employer. It is rigged to make people afraid to lose their job, and therefore more malleable and more productive. It is rigged to make Americans scramble and hustle so they and their kids will not die due to lack of healthcare.
Our healthcare system is a CRIME and our top politicians, past and present, should be indicted, tried, convicted, and severely punished by rule of law for their criminal malfeasance in this travesty that is American healthcare.
I am not advocating any illegal acts here, but the ruling elite of our country are selling us out to the corporations, and we should organize and take action at the ballot box to punish Hatch and his ilk. And this treason by Hatch, et al., will continue until we humilate and shame and send to lasting infamy some of these traitors. That will serve as an example and a deterrent to future politicians.
As it is now, traitors like Hatch are in a win-win situation--there is NO punishment for this treason. if they get thrown out of office, they will make even more money working as lobbyists for the corporations. We need deterrents to this kind of treason.
Here is how we can make this country a country that works to serve its citizenry, and not the ruling elite, the wealthy, the corporations: First, we elect representatives who say they will indict, try, and punish these politicians who have sold out the people to corporations.
Then they can write laws under which these traitors may be indicted.
They we indict and try them in a court of law.
Then we punish them publicly when they are found guilty. The Stocks? Flogging? Life in prison? These punishments are well suited for this type of treason.
We can do this. We have the power as granted to us by the Constitution. It starts here. One step at a time.
Why should traitorous politicians like Hatch get away with this. Why should dirt-poor young men give their lives in uniform just so they can scratch out a living, and meanwhile the imperial ruling elite like Hatch betray us without fear of the slightest harm?
These ruling elite should pay for their crimes after being tried and found guilty in a court of law. And they are guilty, no doubt of that. If you and I and our peer citizenry sit in the jury box, do you doubt conviction?
We have freedom of speech in the USA, at least for now. But you use, or you lose it!
You think such a plan is impossible? It is not! Not if you and I and 50% of the voters in each state believe it can be done, and then go do it at the ballot box.
....we impose severe sanctions and penalties upon them.
We need to build into our constitution severe sanctions and penalties triggered by popular vote in referendum and initiative. For example, each politician should be subject to potential recall by popular vote ever 6 months or so.
But just doing that would not be enough: we need to punish severely any politician who is recalled. For example, if a politician is recalled by a 55-45% vote, they should be fined. If recalled by a 60-40% vote, they should be jailed for 1 year. If by a 65-35% margin, life imprisonment. If by a 70-30% margin, they should be executed publicly.
We have let our "public servants" make themselves into gods and kings. We need to show them who is boss. Being a politician is a great boon to a person and they should be grateful for the chance to SERVE the public. But instead they sell us out to corporations.
So we need to make an example of some of them. All to be done by rule of law....
Are we men or are we sheeple? Are we still pack animals, giving our obesiance unto the animals at the top of the hierarchy, or are we something more than animals? Are we truly rational creatures? Show me that we are.....
It always rewards those who are the most capable, smartest, and most productive. Never fails! It is surely the most efficient of any economic system!/snicker
Hey, slashdotters, when are you all going to learn that "lasseiz faire" freemarket, corporate capitalism is a "turtles all the way down" Ponzi scheme? You want a better country? Just look to the Scandanavian countries....
I have not seen gmail, but I know that one thing that attracted me to google at the start was that on my dialup connection, google was a FAST download, because of its lack of large graphical ads, etc., compared to the slow and bulky yahoo interface. The reason I avoid hotmail and yahoo mail now is because their interfaces are still ad-ridden and bulky and slow as hell on dialup.
If the Gmail interface is as fast as the google interface, gmail will eat hotmail and yahoo for lunch.
Seriously! Every huge brick building was built starting with just one single brick. And every long journey starts with a first step. We CAN take control of our own country. It starts here!
Cant we find a better way to spend $4M, like cancer research. Anyway, I only support the space program for real and cost-efficient research, meaning we need to stop sending up humans.
You wrote:
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
So, if I cannot show such a a law already created, then it will never happen, eh?
Fortunately, it is NOT as simple as the SW vendors just passing a law at their whim. If that were the case, then it would now be illegal to use OSS. It is not.
But what happens is that --over time-- the powerful entities in any "free market" use their power to consolidate their gains and protect themselves from competition. Not exactly a novel idea, BTW. Check out a bird nest with two chicks in April, and then drop by in May and you will often find the bones of the smaller chick on the ground. Oops! There's goes the competition!
What happens is that the foundation is laid first. This is where the propaganda comes into play. Maybe some of us have heard of FUD-type propaganda directed against OSS from powerful vendors already. So aint it so!
They even try to get their propaganda into young minds at school.
They cultivate congressmen and Senators. It may take a while for their elected lapdogs to get into position, much as a lion may stalk a baby gazelle.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..."
...at the expense of others. Bill Gates is an American citizen too. Why restrict his right to produce inferior software products?
Because he is the lion and we are the lamb. End of story.
Because you don't like Microsoft?
I would hope that our govt treat Microsoft as I would treat a useful but dangerous machine--with great care. Microsoft can be useful to us, as a chain saw may be useful to me, but if we do not control it, it may wound us.
I but I still respect MS's right to exist.
We, the people, through our servant, the American government, ALLOW Microsoft to exist. It only exists if we want it to. We OWN this country. Not Microsoft.
Your engineered government inherently infringes on the rights of other people,
And it had better do so when our general welfare requires that it do so (cf. "The American Constitution").
Govt should fund open source SW, as closed source SW vendors will use their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS.
That is really the blind spot of libertarians, free traders, etc--they fail to see to see how the so-called "free maeket" is really just a license to allow wealthy entities (e.g., corporations, etc) to manipulate and control lesser entities (i.e., all the rest of us so-called "humans".)
If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us. Govt is just a machine. Designing machines has NEVER been easy.
There aint no such as a free lunch, and a free market is certainly no free lunch, although it comes pretty close to that for corporations and the wealthy and upper income class.
Slashdot Mirror
The rich and the upper class use nonproft foundations to mold the American political culture, specifically to influence leftism towards multicultualism & identity politics, and away from economic leftism, such as progressive taxation, unionism, and universal healthcare. This started decades ago. The rich created a pseudoLeft here in America, a Left that would not threaten their fat wallets. They use the pseudoLeft to divide and conquer us. See my sig for more on this.
America is the western nation that LEAST protects its workers. The overclass here has managed to use a variety of propaganda techniques to allow the ruination of legal protections for American workers. That makes us easier to exploit than the workers in other nations. So, startups want to be here--honest, educated, hardworking and exploitable.
Get back to work, you good little american sheeple!
some traitor wrote" This is a moot point. The quality of an average American sweeper or construction worker might be far better than the comparable Mexican's for all I know/care, but no one cares about your quality or better sweeping skills when you demand $50 an hour to wash my sink, health insurance to take care of your diabetic fat ass, severance pay, hard working conditions allowance, and various other allowances. And on top of all this, you refuse to attend school or get trained in newer skills Aren't you a nasty little traitor to your fellow Amwerican citizen? I am assuming you are american. I can hardly that europeans have been so propagandized against the working person as to make the sort of evil comments you made. You have certainly internalized the overclass point of view by demonizing your fellow working American instead of realizing where the true evil lies--at the top. The overclass has successfully shaped the American culture to create evil little traitors like you. I sure hope nothing happens to you, like, say, getting big fat tumor in your brain, completely inoperative. Well, maybe that would be OK. After all, we do execute murderers. So maybe we should indict and try for treason little turncoats like you. But in truth, it is your overclass masters who should pay for creating you.
everyone seems to be missing out on the most important part of this idea--that the universe is infinitely large and old, and that it will last forever. That means individual humans could LIVE FOREVER. Looks like we cryonicists could be living forever!
.....over 70% of Americans support the idea of universal healthcare. And instead of ideas about how to implement it, we get this nonsense from both the Dems and GOP.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of Americans die every year who would have otherwise survived in all other western nations (because those nations have universal healthcare, and we do not).
I call this negligent homicide on the part of our politicians.
Or maybe, seeing as how these politicians take money from the healthcare cartel, what these politicians are doing is not NEGLIGENT homicide, but DELIBERATE homicide. Murder, I call it.
These politicians are colluding with the healthcare cartel to MURDER people so as to extort every more money from the rest of us.
I say try em and convict em for murder.....
I call on the Justice Dept to indict for murder Clinton, Lieberman, and every other senator who gets involved in this little games scam, instead of working on universal healthcare.
In order to make money as a democratic/liberal political blogger, one must toe the Demcratic party line, which is the neoliberal, conventional wisdom, Washington Consenus. If you allow posters on your liberal forum that deviate markedly from this party line, they will be banned. This is how the mass media and those already in power maintain the status quo, and how they maintain ideological hegemony. People who own and run forums like Kos, DU, etc, can make money from Speaking Fees, books, Consultation fees, etc. But only so long as the material in their blogs substanially toes the party line. Generally speaking, the party line requires less attention be given to economics oriented aspects of politics, and more focus on social issues politics, i.e., wedge issues, like gay rights, identity politics, race and gender politics, guns, abortion, and other wedge issues. How does one become a MAJOR Liberal blogger? You must be mentioned by the mass media. How do you get mentioned by the mass media? It is like being "made" by the Mafia, I suppose. You gotta show them you are a Good Fella! Show them that you enforce ideological hegemony by banning not only rightwing posters, but also those posters who question the party line of BOTH parties. Once you have been mentioned repeatedly by the mass media as a blogger, you are MADE. You can make a living at it. But don't wander from the conventional wisdom. These same things pretty much apply to the rightwing GOP political forums
we should tax the rich more because WE OWN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY!
We are the LANDLORDS. We can raise the rent when we want and on WHOMEVER we want. And what if some people don't like it? I say that those people can git their elite-loving asses to some other country! And if the rich people decide to run off to another country with their millions, I say send the military after them to get the money....
What gives us the people this right? The welfare clause of the American Constitution! The Rich elite who wrote the constitution screwed up when they let that one slip by.
No flame intended of course. I direct this not at you, but to a hypothetical third person...
The problem is that we stop taxing the rich and upper class with progressive taxation. Higher tax brackets is what is needed.
Tax the wealth of the upper class and rebuild our infrastructure and provide universal healthcare.
france is certainly a much better country than America. You and the vast majority of American citizens are like some sort of cattle, walking slowly and zombielike into the slaughterhouse.
Either Badnarik or Peroutka is OK. THat way it helps build the Libertarian and Constitution parties for the future, which will weaken the GOP in the future. Here in Texas, Kerry is out of the running, and the only presidential candidates who made it on the ballot. So I will be voting for Badnarik, the better to build the future Libertarian party, and take future votes from the GOP. I plan to do this even though I find most of the Libertarian party platform irrational and even revolting in some areas. The Constitution party is the one that can really really hurt the GOP if they get any real publicity in 2008....
It will really get bad when corporate lobbyists target our politicians with these kinds of techniques.
In ANY OTHER industrialized western democracy, EVERY citizen of that country has his/her medical needs taken care of for either a FRACTION of what we charge here, or for free. THat is because their healthcare systems are funded by taxes, and mainly by income taxes on wealthy investors, upper income earners (doctors, etc), and corporations.
If any of these vets were to live in Canada legally, all they have to do is walk into any hospital, and they would be taken care of.
But the USA has a healthcare system rigged to hold the American citizen hostage to investor interests. It is rigged to make the average American citizen hostage to employment. It is rigged to increase desperation in the workers. It is rigged to increase dependence of the employee to the employer. It is rigged to make people afraid to lose their job, and therefore more malleable and more productive. It is rigged to make Americans scramble and hustle so they and their kids will not die due to lack of healthcare.
Our healthcare system is a CRIME and our top politicians, past and present, should be indicted, tried, convicted, and severely punished by rule of law for their criminal malfeasance in this travesty that is American healthcare.
I am not advocating any illegal acts here, but the ruling elite of our country are selling us out to the corporations, and we should organize and take action at the ballot box to punish Hatch and his ilk. And this treason by Hatch, et al., will continue until we humilate and shame and send to lasting infamy some of these traitors. That will serve as an example and a deterrent to future politicians.
As it is now, traitors like Hatch are in a win-win situation--there is NO punishment for this treason. if they get thrown out of office, they will make even more money working as lobbyists for the corporations. We need deterrents to this kind of treason.
Here is how we can make this country a country that works to serve its citizenry, and not the ruling elite, the wealthy, the corporations: First, we elect representatives who say they will indict, try, and punish these politicians who have sold out the people to corporations.
Then they can write laws under which these traitors may be indicted.
They we indict and try them in a court of law.
Then we punish them publicly when they are found guilty. The Stocks? Flogging? Life in prison? These punishments are well suited for this type of treason.
We can do this. We have the power as granted to us by the Constitution. It starts here. One step at a time.
Why should traitorous politicians like Hatch get away with this. Why should dirt-poor young men give their lives in uniform just so they can scratch out a living, and meanwhile the imperial ruling elite like Hatch betray us without fear of the slightest harm?
These ruling elite should pay for their crimes after being tried and found guilty in a court of law. And they are guilty, no doubt of that. If you and I and our peer citizenry sit in the jury box, do you doubt conviction?
We have freedom of speech in the USA, at least for now. But you use, or you lose it!
You think such a plan is impossible? It is not! Not if you and I and 50% of the voters in each state believe it can be done, and then go do it at the ballot box.
....we impose severe sanctions and penalties upon them.
We need to build into our constitution severe sanctions and penalties triggered by popular vote in referendum and initiative. For example, each politician should be subject to potential recall by popular vote ever 6 months or so.
But just doing that would not be enough: we need to punish severely any politician who is recalled. For example, if a politician is recalled by a 55-45% vote, they should be fined. If recalled by a 60-40% vote, they should be jailed for 1 year. If by a 65-35% margin, life imprisonment. If by a 70-30% margin, they should be executed publicly.
We have let our "public servants" make themselves into gods and kings. We need to show them who is boss. Being a politician is a great boon to a person and they should be grateful for the chance to SERVE the public. But instead they sell us out to corporations.
So we need to make an example of some of them. All to be done by rule of law....
Are we men or are we sheeple? Are we still pack animals, giving our obesiance unto the animals at the top of the hierarchy, or are we something more than animals? Are we truly rational creatures? Show me that we are.....
It always rewards those who are the most capable, smartest, and most productive. Never fails! It is surely the most efficient of any economic system! /snicker
Hey, slashdotters, when are you all going to learn that "lasseiz faire" freemarket, corporate capitalism is a "turtles all the way down" Ponzi scheme? You want a better country? Just look to the Scandanavian countries....
I have not seen gmail, but I know that one thing that attracted me to google at the start was that on my dialup connection, google was a FAST download, because of its lack of large graphical ads, etc., compared to the slow and bulky yahoo interface. The reason I avoid hotmail and yahoo mail now is because their interfaces are still ad-ridden and bulky and slow as hell on dialup.
If the Gmail interface is as fast as the google interface, gmail will eat hotmail and yahoo for lunch.
Seriously! Every huge brick building was built starting with just one single brick. And every long journey starts with a first step. We CAN take control of our own country. It starts here!
the google API does not include Google news query rights, so how did they query google news?
Cant we find a better way to spend $4M, like cancer research. Anyway, I only support the space program for real and cost-efficient research, meaning we need to stop sending up humans.
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
So, if I cannot show such a a law already created, then it will never happen, eh?
Fortunately, it is NOT as simple as the SW vendors just passing a law at their whim. If that were the case, then it would now be illegal to use OSS. It is not. But what happens is that --over time-- the powerful entities in any "free market" use their power to consolidate their gains and protect themselves from competition. Not exactly a novel idea, BTW. Check out a bird nest with two chicks in April, and then drop by in May and you will often find the bones of the smaller chick on the ground. Oops! There's goes the competition!
What happens is that the foundation is laid first. This is where the propaganda comes into play. Maybe some of us have heard of FUD-type propaganda directed against OSS from powerful vendors already. So aint it so! They even try to get their propaganda into young minds at school. They cultivate congressmen and Senators. It may take a while for their elected lapdogs to get into position, much as a lion may stalk a baby gazelle.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..." ...at the expense of others. Bill Gates is an American citizen too. Why restrict his right to produce inferior software products?
Because he is the lion and we are the lamb. End of story.
Because you don't like Microsoft?
I would hope that our govt treat Microsoft as I would treat a useful but dangerous machine--with great care. Microsoft can be useful to us, as a chain saw may be useful to me, but if we do not control it, it may wound us.
I but I still respect MS's right to exist.
We, the people, through our servant, the American government, ALLOW Microsoft to exist. It only exists if we want it to. We OWN this country. Not Microsoft.
Your engineered government inherently infringes on the rights of other people,
And it had better do so when our general welfare requires that it do so (cf. "The American Constitution").
Govt should fund open source SW, as closed source SW vendors will use their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS. That is really the blind spot of libertarians, free traders, etc--they fail to see to see how the so-called "free maeket" is really just a license to allow wealthy entities (e.g., corporations, etc) to manipulate and control lesser entities (i.e., all the rest of us so-called "humans".) If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us. Govt is just a machine. Designing machines has NEVER been easy. There aint no such as a free lunch, and a free market is certainly no free lunch, although it comes pretty close to that for corporations and the wealthy and upper income class.
I haven't seen any discussion of that on this thread....