Victims of this extrajudicial punishment network -- what some have termed "the torture matrix" -- maintain that its operatives are acting as judge, jury and executioner for what amounts to an evil shadow government. So-called "targeted individuals" -- and by extension, entire families -- are subject to physical assault and psychological and physical harassment that victims say amounts to officially-sanctioned domestic torture. Some victims have moved to other cities and towns seeking a safe harbor -- but they say the persecution recurs in their new locale.
"It appears to be a nationwide network that attracts extremists as well as law-and-order types and people connected to public safety such as firefighters, utility workers, police auxiliaries, retired police and military officers, and even their family members, including children and teenagers," says one victim, who says he has been "gang stalked" for several years. "I doubt it could exist without some people in positions of power looking the other way."
Even some regular, uniformed police are reported to have been intimidated by this network of extrajudicial punishment -- described benignly by its defenders as a social "control" mechanism.
Victims say that they are physically harassed and relentlessly stalked, whether they travel on foot or in vehicles. GPS devices are secreted in their cars or cell phones. When a "target" enters a designated "node" area -- whether near or far -- the local vigilantes in that area receive a signal on their GPS or cellphone devices, often accompanied by a read-out of commands from the "team leader," specifying what kind of sadistic psychological terror and harassment to dish out. http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
This is what anonymous members are going to be experiencing. Scientology might be behind some of it, the governments pissed off at wikileaks supporters might be behind some of it, hacker vigilantes and US military cyber warriors might be behind some of it, and Scotland Yard, the FBI, and global counter intelligence agencies will be behind most of it.
I said in over a dozen comments that this is exactly what would happen. I mentioned vigilante gang stalking, I listed websites, got told that it was just a conspiracy. I told people anonymous will be tracked down, got told I was a coward. I told people that these people would be gangstalked, have their lives destroyed permanently, you see?
So now it's happening. Scotland Yard admits it. Anyone who wants to know what gangstalking is and what to expect if you have associated with anonymous:
They have launched a counter intelligence operation. This means they'll go after anybody who is even loosely associated with anonymous as a way to turn them into informants or operatives to bring down the rest of them.
An aggressive investigation means many people loosely associated with anonymous will be entrapped and then used as pawns or as informants to bring down the more experienced hackers.
With the ARM notebooks coming, and the fact that it' is rumored to support virtual machines, the cloud, and many other features, ChromeOS is far from dead. As soon as the ARM based notebooks are powerful enough, and the cost is in the $200-300 range, I'll buy one.
And I predict many others will buy it as well. Saying ChromeOS is dead is like saying Kindle is dead because of the Ipad.
the act of overthrowing an entire government often leads to far more death and misery than was present under the existing system.
Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
What makes you think the revolutionaries will give you freedom when the revolution is over? It just might mean they'll be your new slave master or worse they could give you death.
Because if you use your computer you wont be anonymous. If you use the library computer then you are on camera and not anonymous. If you use an internet cafe they'll ask who was on the computer at that time and so you aren't anonymous.
It's a lot harder to be anonymous than you might have thought. It's not impossible but it's not something a 16 year old hacker can do from their living room or a 40 year old hacker can do from his parents basement. It's something a sophisticated Russia or Chinese state sponsored hacker could do, or an experienced amateur hacker could do.
The government vigilantes mean business and are completely ruthless. He just got outed as being a member of anonymous, this is like being outed as a communist back during the anti-communist era.
At this point counter intelligence agencies are going to run his name through their national security databases. Then they'll find out what they can use against him, or what they can use to entrap and or destroy him. Then they'll give that information to the anti-wikileaks vigilantes
You can bet on that.
Why will they go after him? To get the names and identities of the others.
The worst possibility is to be stalked by legions of anti-wikileaks vigilantes.
This guys life may very well be ruined over this as now he's going to face the Greek version of COINTELPRO. Read about operation Gladio.
And because he's Greek the CIA, NSA and US Military can use full force on him. They don't even have to pretend to respect his human rights or civil rights like they would if he were an American. Extrajudicial justice from the vigilantes will be what he could face just by having associated himself with this sort of manifesto.
It's like having signed your name to the US Constitution or Communist Manifesto and somehow it leaks out and now they all know who you are and where you live.
This situation is exactly the situation I warned about. I said cyber vigilantes would find these anonymous Wikileaks supporters. I also said cyber vigilantes from anonymous would find the anti wikileaks opponents. The anonymous crowd or not, hacked McDonald's and Gawker's 1.5 million user database complete with passwords which will surely be leveraged by hackers to dig into their lives.
The cyberwar is going to be ugly as the victims mount up. It's vigilante group vs vigilante group and the only people we should feel for as the civilians in between. They don't deserve to be stalked merely for speaking out for or against Wikileaks. They don't deserve the gangstalking BS.
What can be done to protect innocent civilians from the fallout?
To be precise I want to expand the bottom until it becomes the middle by changing the meaning of bottom and middle. The current middle class is defined as individuals who work a 9-5 for 40 hours a week who make just enough money to pay their bills, and barely enough money to save. Combined two of these people can buy a house, raise a family, etc.
This is okay but this should not be the goal. The middle class had it better in 1970. It took one parent working 40 hours a week to support a family in 1970 while today it takes too. The reason the middle class and bottom does not control their destiny and wages is because of large multi-national in some cases completely foreign corporations. The only solution is to promote the bottom through entrepreneurship.
It's not the bottom vs the middle class. It's the business owner vs the salary worker. The business owners get to set their own wages. The salary worker is at the mercy of the man. The problem your idea has is you don't explain how you are going to force the man to pay a living wage. The second problem is a living wage is what the middle class has now but thats not the best we've ever had and it should not be the aim for the middle class.
The middle class and lower class should aim for maximum quality of life. This means we should move away from the 9-5. Individuals who work 9-5's aren't being paid what they deserve for working like that, and if you are running a business you work until it's profitable. That could be 8 hour days, 10 hour days, or whatever it needs to be and that is the attitude we need.
We need to make America profitable again by making small businesses profitable. Once it's profitable enough that you have a quality of life that is sufficient, you'll be free from the boss, you'll be happy, you might or might not make more money, you might or might not work more hours, but you'll work as much as the business requires.
I say this because with technology as it is we don't maximize it. We have businesses which close at night when they could be open 24/7 due to the old social construct built for the 9-5 and the factory worker. We still have schools built to teach kids to grow up to work 9-5 or factory work. These jobs are never going to be popular unless you work in government or are lucky enough to be hired by the "man" at the big corporation.
Two things, we have to lower the cost of living as much as possible. While allowing technology to raise the standard of living. This means I think if the bottom has access to technology its good because it changes the bottom. Now if you are poor you do have a cellphone, you do have a computer, you do have internet, these things are becoming basic human rights and thats good because it means more opportunity. It also has some negatives and I recognize that, but the amount of people who don't work and who will never work is not as many as you make them out to be. Their impact on the economy would be insignificant because most of them don't have any special talents or useful skills that are being wasted.
The second point is we have to engineer a higher quality of life. By all means necessary. Starting with a complete redesign of what a corporation is and how it's structured, a redesign of what it means to work, a redesign of virtually everything so that it favors quality of life. Quality of life does not necessarily mean working long hours, it does not necessarily mean following the 9-5 ritual, its not measured in a dollar amount.
It means cleaner air/food/water. Safer environments. Better designed products which promote liberty, choice, opportunity, or whatever.
Example being the design of the internet where decentralized distribution models allow anyone to sell music, movies, etc vs the model which selects lucky "celebrity" people.
Mp3.com was an example of this. It allowed anybody to make music and sell it to the masses. It allowed individuals from any class who have talent to make money.
Clips4sale is another example. It allows anybody from any class w
To be precise I want to expand the bottom until it becomes the middle by changing the meaning of bottom and middle. The current middle class is defined as individuals who work a 9-5 for 40 hours a week who make just enough money to pay their bills, and barely enough money to save. Combined two of these people can buy a house, raise a family, etc.
This is okay but this should not be the goal. The middle class had it better in 1970. It took one parent working 40 hours a week to support a family in 1970 while today it takes too. The reason the middle class and bottom does not control their destiny and wages is because of large multi-national in some cases completely foreign corporations. The only solution is to promote the bottom through entrepreneurship.
It's not the bottom vs the middle class. It's the business owner vs the salary worker. The business owners get to set their own wages. The salary worker is at the mercy of the man. The problem your idea has is you don't explain how you are going to force the man to pay a living wage. The second problem is a living wage is what the middle class has now but thats not the best we've ever had and it should not be the aim for the middle class.
The middle class and lower class should aim for maximum quality of life. This means we should move away from the 9-5. Individuals who work 9-5's aren't being paid what they deserve for working like that, and if you are running a business you work until it's profitable. That could be 8 hour days, 10 hour days, or whatever it needs to be and that is the attitude we need.
We need to make America profitable again by making small businesses profitable. Once it's profitable enough that you have a quality of life that is sufficient, you'll be free from the boss, you'll be happy, you might or might not make more money, you might or might not work more hours, but you'll work as much as the business requires.
I say this because with technology as it is we don't maximize it. We have businesses which close at night when they could be open 24/7 due to the old social construct built for the 9-5 and the factory worker. We still have schools built to teach kids to grow up to work 9-5 or factory work. These jobs are never going to be popular unless you work in government or are lucky enough to be hired by the "man" at the big corporation.
Two things, we have to lower the cost of living as much as possible. While
1. People who have ambition should be given tax breaks, tax credits, etc.
2. People who are poor should be encouraged to start businesses. There wont be any "jobs" coming from the "man" any time soon. So if we want people in this position to work we have to let them create jobs for themselves. A private investigation agency or a funeral home would provide many jobs but who is willing to pay to help them start these businesses?
3. Teachers should be rewarded on student performance. I don't have a problem with teachers getting paid and I think they should be paid as much or as little as their performance shows they are worth. If their students are dropping out, flunking, not going to college, these teachers shouldn't make as much money as the teachers who are good. Tax credits and deductions can allow the federal government to reward good teachers.
4. Prisons should be reformed completely. The prison industrial complex is a new form of slavery. It's the new south. It should be abolished. Private prisons should be illegal for the same reason private law enforcement should be.
So we replace the prisons with rehab and mental hospitals. People who have drug addiction or depression can go there for a free place to live to repair themselves and their life. It wouldn't damage their criminal record and hinder them from getting jobs.
The most important factor is we need to stop telling people "get a job", and start telling people "start a business", your investment goes further if they create jobs for themselves and their community than if you just give welfare forever.
Not every business will be successful but if you want to encourage hard work the first thing you have to do is guarantee that if they work hard there is no salary cap or limit. That the harder they work the more they will make. Also if they feel like they have a chance to get rich they'll work harder than if they just work 40 hours a week knowing they'll always just be a salary worker.
It's not going to be easy but the final thing is, welfare and government benefits should increase for people who work. One problem is when people do work a BS job at McDonalds or whatever then they lose their healthcare and all their benefits so that they end up working harder and obtaining less money than if they never worked at all. If they work too many hours again they get cut off. The whole system is set up to force people not to work once they get the benefits out of fear of being cut off.
So the solution is to provide other avenues to get benefits which allow a person to work, contribute, without fear of being cut off. Maybe this is where community service or volunteer work would come in.
Allow disabled individuals to do community, volunteer or humanitarian work. This way there is no possibility of being cut off welfare. They don't earn money from the humanitarian work but they should earn benefits instead, so their food stamps increase, their welfare check increases, to provide a backchannel to pay them for their humanitarian service.
So if an individual makes $14,000 a year on welfare and decides to do volunteer work for an NGO, they register with the government and receive a paycheck through their welfare check. They keep all their benefits and just get paid to do humanitarian volunteer work through their welfare check.
This would solve the problem as now people would have an incentive to work. Of course we'd also need the government to fund the NGO's and humanitarian programs to actually make this work and I'm sure Repubicans will complain about welfare receiving do-gooders trying to contribute to the greater good.
If you don't believe ADHD is a disability shouldn't you complain about the doctors who said it was for the last 20 or 30 years?
If you don't believe depression is a disability once again it's the doctors you should be mad at.
A free ride for life can be had either way. Commit a crime, go to prison, you get a free ride for life. Your point is that you don't want people to commit crimes and risk getting a free ride for life, but you don't want people to live off welfare which is cheaper than prison else they might get a free ride for life.
The fact is you pay for the unemployed regardless of if they go to prison or on welfare. You pay most for those who are in prison. You pay least for those who are on welfare.
You are for a living wage but the fact is we don't have one. So the option poor smart individuals have is to either go on welfare or commit crimes. Welfare is cheaper for the economy due to how it's structured. Medicare might be a problem but once again if you have people who don't have medicare then how is that better?
You are upset because you work hard and you have nothing to show for it, while some smarter person figured out that they'd be working hard and have nothing to show for it and decided to just take what they can get. In the end neither of these people win the game. The winners are the ones who work hard and who have something to show for it.
Individuals on welfare never get to buy a house, never get to have a "real" life, never get to do certain things. Welfare gives enough money to survive but not enough money to live in luxury. So if you don't want to work hard and have nothing to show for it why don't you go on disability yourself? Why complain?
he problem is that in the communities I'm talking about, we're already spending in the top national quintile for education, but all the money gets soaked-up by teacher compensation (average HS teacher makes over $80K here, not including benefits) while buildings crumble and kids go without books. All in the name of 'fair income for teachers', who have now placed themselves into the 'top 5%' income bracket of the communities they work for (in this example).
I don't know what school pays teachers 80k but for that kind of money I'd become a teacher my damn self. I don't believe you. I do believe people go on disability when they figure out hard work will never pay or when they get tired. Depression is being tired of living, which would count as a factor which would make someone unable to hold a job.
The solution is not to complain about people who can't get ahead from hard work. I do accept that there are lazy people, but what do they get? $10,000 a year? $14,000? Welfare recipients still live in poverty and live cheaper than prisoners. If the option where clear where someone offered them the opportunity to work 40 hours a week at a job where they could make it into the middle class, if they decline that job then you can call them lazy bastards and I'd agree with you.
If however there is no opportunity that exists except go on welfare or go criminal, then you get to choose what you want to pay for. Do you want to pay $30,000 a year to keep them housed in prison where they'll get healthcare, shelter, food, cable TV, etc
Or do you want to pay $10,000-14,000 a year where they'll get these same things without having to pay the cops, the judges, the investigators, the guards and all that?
If there is no opportunity, and if people are not allowed to use illegal means to create opportunity for themselves, welfare is paying people to stay out of prison essentially. People who would ordinarily have nothing to lose by criminal activity now have to consider losing their welfare benefits if they get arrested.
Now if they are like the Octomom then I can see why you'd call them a scammer. Having babies while on welfare should result in a reduction of benefits. Getting an education should result in an increase in benefits. The structure of the social safety n
and the real hackers come out of the wood work and utterly GARBAGE the usa's websites. until know i have sat back and watched...do not threaten these youth's...you do so at YOUR PERIL. WE think of the children unlike you and believe in freedom to the adverse of corporate fascism that you preach.
From how you type you are the child. DDOSing a website? That is amateurish script kiddie BS. You aren't advancing the cause of network neutrality, internet liberty, human rights or anything by taking down websites. The only thing you generate is negative publicity for yourself and for the internet as a whole.
This will result in Lieberman being able to pass the Internet Censorship bill. Don't you see you are a useful idiot? You are being used to help pass this bill which would never be able to pass if Anonymous did not do stupid pointless BS.
The poor who want to work hard for a better life have to rob the rich people and take a better life.
Or go on welfare and be satisfied with the lives they have.
Hard work wont improve their life as cited by the fact that median incomes are not positively correlated with the hard work of generations. So what this means is it's smarter to take what you can get than to work hard.
I've never met anyone who is content to stay at the bottom. Thats why most people at the bottom who aren't working are miserable and addicted to drugs.
Also if there is no way out of that situation (if they aren't able to educate themselves or have a criminal record), what else can they do that is any better? You can only expect them to take their best option which is not to wok if working at McDonalds for their whole life is all they can have.
When theres enough jobs so that people can have a better quality of life by hard work then you can complain about the people who don't work, but not while theres 9.8% unemployment and low skilled jobs are being shipped overseas.
Slashdot Mirror
Specifically because of how Anonymous is designed.
Victims of this extrajudicial punishment network -- what some have termed "the torture matrix" -- maintain that its operatives are acting as judge, jury and executioner for what amounts to an evil shadow government. So-called "targeted individuals" -- and by extension, entire families -- are subject to physical assault and psychological and physical harassment that victims say amounts to officially-sanctioned domestic torture. Some victims have moved to other cities and towns seeking a safe harbor -- but they say the persecution recurs in their new locale.
"It appears to be a nationwide network that attracts extremists as well as law-and-order types and people connected to public safety such as firefighters, utility workers, police auxiliaries, retired police and military officers, and even their family members, including children and teenagers," says one victim, who says he has been "gang stalked" for several years. "I doubt it could exist without some people in positions of power looking the other way."
Even some regular, uniformed police are reported to have been intimidated by this network of extrajudicial punishment -- described benignly by its defenders as a social "control" mechanism.
Victims say that they are physically harassed and relentlessly stalked, whether they travel on foot or in vehicles. GPS devices are secreted in their cars or cell phones. When a "target" enters a designated "node" area -- whether near or far -- the local vigilantes in that area receive a signal on their GPS or cellphone devices, often accompanied by a read-out of commands from the "team leader," specifying what kind of sadistic psychological terror and harassment to dish out.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
This is what anonymous members are going to be experiencing. Scientology might be behind some of it, the governments pissed off at wikileaks supporters might be behind some of it, hacker vigilantes and US military cyber warriors might be behind some of it, and Scotland Yard, the FBI, and global counter intelligence agencies will be behind most of it.
Know the risks before you enter the stage.
I said in over a dozen comments that this is exactly what would happen. I mentioned vigilante gang stalking, I listed websites, got told that it was just a conspiracy. I told people anonymous will be tracked down, got told I was a coward. I told people that these people would be gangstalked, have their lives destroyed permanently, you see?
So now it's happening. Scotland Yard admits it. Anyone who wants to know what gangstalking is and what to expect if you have associated with anonymous:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
They have launched a counter intelligence operation. This means they'll go after anybody who is even loosely associated with anonymous as a way to turn them into informants or operatives to bring down the rest of them.
An aggressive investigation means many people loosely associated with anonymous will be entrapped and then used as pawns or as informants to bring down the more experienced hackers.
With the ARM notebooks coming, and the fact that it' is rumored to support virtual machines, the cloud, and many other features, ChromeOS is far from dead. As soon as the ARM based notebooks are powerful enough, and the cost is in the $200-300 range, I'll buy one.
And I predict many others will buy it as well. Saying ChromeOS is dead is like saying Kindle is dead because of the Ipad.
the act of overthrowing an entire government often leads to far more death and misery than was present under the existing system.
Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
What makes you think the revolutionaries will give you freedom when the revolution is over? It just might mean they'll be your new slave master or worse they could give you death.
Most mobs don't know how to deal with counter intelligence.
Subversive revolutionaries are usually mistreated by the authorities in any country. Governments hate subversives.
Authorities know who they are and are using this guy to prove a point.
And the punishment is lifetime COINTELPRO.
Counter intelligence agencies certainly want to know who he is and how to destroy him. They probably also want to know who and what he knows.
Because if you use your computer you wont be anonymous. If you use the library computer then you are on camera and not anonymous. If you use an internet cafe they'll ask who was on the computer at that time and so you aren't anonymous.
It's a lot harder to be anonymous than you might have thought. It's not impossible but it's not something a 16 year old hacker can do from their living room or a 40 year old hacker can do from his parents basement. It's something a sophisticated Russia or Chinese state sponsored hacker could do, or an experienced amateur hacker could do.
The government vigilantes mean business and are completely ruthless. He just got outed as being a member of anonymous, this is like being outed as a communist back during the anti-communist era.
At this point counter intelligence agencies are going to run his name through their national security databases. Then they'll find out what they can use against him, or what they can use to entrap and or destroy him. Then they'll give that information to the anti-wikileaks vigilantes
You can bet on that.
Why will they go after him? To get the names and identities of the others.
The worst possibility is to be stalked by legions of anti-wikileaks vigilantes.
This guys life may very well be ruined over this as now he's going to face the Greek version of COINTELPRO. Read about operation Gladio.
And because he's Greek the CIA, NSA and US Military can use full force on him. They don't even have to pretend to respect his human rights or civil rights like they would if he were an American. Extrajudicial justice from the vigilantes will be what he could face just by having associated himself with this sort of manifesto.
It's like having signed your name to the US Constitution or Communist Manifesto and somehow it leaks out and now they all know who you are and where you live.
This situation is exactly the situation I warned about. I said cyber vigilantes would find these anonymous Wikileaks supporters. I also said cyber vigilantes from anonymous would find the anti wikileaks opponents. The anonymous crowd or not, hacked McDonald's and Gawker's 1.5 million user database complete with passwords which will surely be leveraged by hackers to dig into their lives.
The cyberwar is going to be ugly as the victims mount up. It's vigilante group vs vigilante group and the only people we should feel for as the civilians in between. They don't deserve to be stalked merely for speaking out for or against Wikileaks. They don't deserve the gangstalking BS.
What can be done to protect innocent civilians from the fallout?
Ron Paul Assange and- Julian Ron Paul.
the *idea* behind wikileaks was good, but Assange is an Ass-hat with an overinflated ego, who needs to go.
Another site that does what wikileaks does, without Assange, sounds like a good thing.
What do you mean "he needs to go"?
This is much better than that idea where they'd send you a URL and have you click it and get raided.
To be precise I want to expand the bottom until it becomes the middle by changing the meaning of bottom and middle. The current middle class is defined as individuals who work a 9-5 for 40 hours a week who make just enough money to pay their bills, and barely enough money to save. Combined two of these people can buy a house, raise a family, etc.
This is okay but this should not be the goal. The middle class had it better in 1970. It took one parent working 40 hours a week to support a family in 1970 while today it takes too. The reason the middle class and bottom does not control their destiny and wages is because of large multi-national in some cases completely foreign corporations. The only solution is to promote the bottom through entrepreneurship.
It's not the bottom vs the middle class. It's the business owner vs the salary worker. The business owners get to set their own wages. The salary worker is at the mercy of the man. The problem your idea has is you don't explain how you are going to force the man to pay a living wage. The second problem is a living wage is what the middle class has now but thats not the best we've ever had and it should not be the aim for the middle class.
The middle class and lower class should aim for maximum quality of life. This means we should move away from the 9-5. Individuals who work 9-5's aren't being paid what they deserve for working like that, and if you are running a business you work until it's profitable. That could be 8 hour days, 10 hour days, or whatever it needs to be and that is the attitude we need.
We need to make America profitable again by making small businesses profitable. Once it's profitable enough that you have a quality of life that is sufficient, you'll be free from the boss, you'll be happy, you might or might not make more money, you might or might not work more hours, but you'll work as much as the business requires.
I say this because with technology as it is we don't maximize it. We have businesses which close at night when they could be open 24/7 due to the old social construct built for the 9-5 and the factory worker. We still have schools built to teach kids to grow up to work 9-5 or factory work. These jobs are never going to be popular unless you work in government or are lucky enough to be hired by the "man" at the big corporation.
Two things, we have to lower the cost of living as much as possible. While allowing technology to raise the standard of living. This means I think if the bottom has access to technology its good because it changes the bottom. Now if you are poor you do have a cellphone, you do have a computer, you do have internet, these things are becoming basic human rights and thats good because it means more opportunity. It also has some negatives and I recognize that, but the amount of people who don't work and who will never work is not as many as you make them out to be. Their impact on the economy would be insignificant because most of them don't have any special talents or useful skills that are being wasted.
The second point is we have to engineer a higher quality of life. By all means necessary. Starting with a complete redesign of what a corporation is and how it's structured, a redesign of what it means to work, a redesign of virtually everything so that it favors quality of life. Quality of life does not necessarily mean working long hours, it does not necessarily mean following the 9-5 ritual, its not measured in a dollar amount.
It means cleaner air/food/water. Safer environments. Better designed products which promote liberty, choice, opportunity, or whatever.
Example being the design of the internet where decentralized distribution models allow anyone to sell music, movies, etc vs the model which selects lucky "celebrity" people.
Mp3.com was an example of this. It allowed anybody to make music and sell it to the masses. It allowed individuals from any class who have talent to make money.
Clips4sale is another example. It allows anybody from any class w
To be precise I want to expand the bottom until it becomes the middle by changing the meaning of bottom and middle. The current middle class is defined as individuals who work a 9-5 for 40 hours a week who make just enough money to pay their bills, and barely enough money to save. Combined two of these people can buy a house, raise a family, etc.
This is okay but this should not be the goal. The middle class had it better in 1970. It took one parent working 40 hours a week to support a family in 1970 while today it takes too. The reason the middle class and bottom does not control their destiny and wages is because of large multi-national in some cases completely foreign corporations. The only solution is to promote the bottom through entrepreneurship.
It's not the bottom vs the middle class. It's the business owner vs the salary worker. The business owners get to set their own wages. The salary worker is at the mercy of the man. The problem your idea has is you don't explain how you are going to force the man to pay a living wage. The second problem is a living wage is what the middle class has now but thats not the best we've ever had and it should not be the aim for the middle class.
The middle class and lower class should aim for maximum quality of life. This means we should move away from the 9-5. Individuals who work 9-5's aren't being paid what they deserve for working like that, and if you are running a business you work until it's profitable. That could be 8 hour days, 10 hour days, or whatever it needs to be and that is the attitude we need.
We need to make America profitable again by making small businesses profitable. Once it's profitable enough that you have a quality of life that is sufficient, you'll be free from the boss, you'll be happy, you might or might not make more money, you might or might not work more hours, but you'll work as much as the business requires.
I say this because with technology as it is we don't maximize it. We have businesses which close at night when they could be open 24/7 due to the old social construct built for the 9-5 and the factory worker. We still have schools built to teach kids to grow up to work 9-5 or factory work. These jobs are never going to be popular unless you work in government or are lucky enough to be hired by the "man" at the big corporation.
Two things, we have to lower the cost of living as much as possible. While
Here are some of my solutions -
1. People who have ambition should be given tax breaks, tax credits, etc.
2. People who are poor should be encouraged to start businesses. There wont be any "jobs" coming from the "man" any time soon. So if we want people in this position to work we have to let them create jobs for themselves. A private investigation agency or a funeral home would provide many jobs but who is willing to pay to help them start these businesses?
3. Teachers should be rewarded on student performance. I don't have a problem with teachers getting paid and I think they should be paid as much or as little as their performance shows they are worth. If their students are dropping out, flunking, not going to college, these teachers shouldn't make as much money as the teachers who are good. Tax credits and deductions can allow the federal government to reward good teachers.
4. Prisons should be reformed completely. The prison industrial complex is a new form of slavery. It's the new south. It should be abolished. Private prisons should be illegal for the same reason private law enforcement should be.
So we replace the prisons with rehab and mental hospitals. People who have drug addiction or depression can go there for a free place to live to repair themselves and their life. It wouldn't damage their criminal record and hinder them from getting jobs.
The most important factor is we need to stop telling people "get a job", and start telling people "start a business", your investment goes further if they create jobs for themselves and their community than if you just give welfare forever.
Not every business will be successful but if you want to encourage hard work the first thing you have to do is guarantee that if they work hard there is no salary cap or limit. That the harder they work the more they will make. Also if they feel like they have a chance to get rich they'll work harder than if they just work 40 hours a week knowing they'll always just be a salary worker.
It's not going to be easy but the final thing is, welfare and government benefits should increase for people who work. One problem is when people do work a BS job at McDonalds or whatever then they lose their healthcare and all their benefits so that they end up working harder and obtaining less money than if they never worked at all. If they work too many hours again they get cut off. The whole system is set up to force people not to work once they get the benefits out of fear of being cut off.
So the solution is to provide other avenues to get benefits which allow a person to work, contribute, without fear of being cut off. Maybe this is where community service or volunteer work would come in.
Allow disabled individuals to do community, volunteer or humanitarian work. This way there is no possibility of being cut off welfare. They don't earn money from the humanitarian work but they should earn benefits instead, so their food stamps increase, their welfare check increases, to provide a backchannel to pay them for their humanitarian service.
So if an individual makes $14,000 a year on welfare and decides to do volunteer work for an NGO, they register with the government and receive a paycheck through their welfare check. They keep all their benefits and just get paid to do humanitarian volunteer work through their welfare check.
This would solve the problem as now people would have an incentive to work. Of course we'd also need the government to fund the NGO's and humanitarian programs to actually make this work and I'm sure Repubicans will complain about welfare receiving do-gooders trying to contribute to the greater good.
If you don't believe ADHD is a disability shouldn't you complain about the doctors who said it was for the last 20 or 30 years?
If you don't believe depression is a disability once again it's the doctors you should be mad at.
A free ride for life can be had either way. Commit a crime, go to prison, you get a free ride for life. Your point is that you don't want people to commit crimes and risk getting a free ride for life, but you don't want people to live off welfare which is cheaper than prison else they might get a free ride for life.
The fact is you pay for the unemployed regardless of if they go to prison or on welfare. You pay most for those who are in prison. You pay least for those who are on welfare.
You are for a living wage but the fact is we don't have one. So the option poor smart individuals have is to either go on welfare or commit crimes. Welfare is cheaper for the economy due to how it's structured. Medicare might be a problem but once again if you have people who don't have medicare then how is that better?
You are upset because you work hard and you have nothing to show for it, while some smarter person figured out that they'd be working hard and have nothing to show for it and decided to just take what they can get. In the end neither of these people win the game. The winners are the ones who work hard and who have something to show for it.
Individuals on welfare never get to buy a house, never get to have a "real" life, never get to do certain things. Welfare gives enough money to survive but not enough money to live in luxury. So if you don't want to work hard and have nothing to show for it why don't you go on disability yourself? Why complain?
he problem is that in the communities I'm talking about, we're already spending in the top national quintile for education, but all the money gets soaked-up by teacher compensation (average HS teacher makes over $80K here, not including benefits) while buildings crumble and kids go without books. All in the name of 'fair income for teachers', who have now placed themselves into the 'top 5%' income bracket of the communities they work for (in this example).
I don't know what school pays teachers 80k but for that kind of money I'd become a teacher my damn self. I don't believe you. I do believe people go on disability when they figure out hard work will never pay or when they get tired. Depression is being tired of living, which would count as a factor which would make someone unable to hold a job.
The solution is not to complain about people who can't get ahead from hard work. I do accept that there are lazy people, but what do they get? $10,000 a year? $14,000? Welfare recipients still live in poverty and live cheaper than prisoners. If the option where clear where someone offered them the opportunity to work 40 hours a week at a job where they could make it into the middle class, if they decline that job then you can call them lazy bastards and I'd agree with you.
If however there is no opportunity that exists except go on welfare or go criminal, then you get to choose what you want to pay for. Do you want to pay $30,000 a year to keep them housed in prison where they'll get healthcare, shelter, food, cable TV, etc
Or do you want to pay $10,000-14,000 a year where they'll get these same things without having to pay the cops, the judges, the investigators, the guards and all that?
If there is no opportunity, and if people are not allowed to use illegal means to create opportunity for themselves, welfare is paying people to stay out of prison essentially. People who would ordinarily have nothing to lose by criminal activity now have to consider losing their welfare benefits if they get arrested.
Now if they are like the Octomom then I can see why you'd call them a scammer. Having babies while on welfare should result in a reduction of benefits. Getting an education should result in an increase in benefits. The structure of the social safety n
and the real hackers come out of the wood work and utterly GARBAGE the usa's websites.
until know i have sat back and watched...do not threaten these youth's...you do so at YOUR PERIL.
WE think of the children unlike you and believe in freedom to the adverse of corporate fascism that you preach.
From how you type you are the child. DDOSing a website? That is amateurish script kiddie BS. You aren't advancing the cause of network neutrality, internet liberty, human rights or anything by taking down websites. The only thing you generate is negative publicity for yourself and for the internet as a whole.
This will result in Lieberman being able to pass the Internet Censorship bill. Don't you see you are a useful idiot? You are being used to help pass this bill which would never be able to pass if Anonymous did not do stupid pointless BS.
The poor who want to work hard for a better life have to rob the rich people and take a better life.
Or go on welfare and be satisfied with the lives they have.
Hard work wont improve their life as cited by the fact that median incomes are not positively correlated with the hard work of generations. So what this means is it's smarter to take what you can get than to work hard.
I've never met anyone who is content to stay at the bottom. Thats why most people at the bottom who aren't working are miserable and addicted to drugs.
Also if there is no way out of that situation (if they aren't able to educate themselves or have a criminal record), what else can they do that is any better? You can only expect them to take their best option which is not to wok if working at McDonalds for their whole life is all they can have.
When theres enough jobs so that people can have a better quality of life by hard work then you can complain about the people who don't work, but not while theres 9.8% unemployment and low skilled jobs are being shipped overseas.
Thank Anonymous.