I think this is the biggest issue of our time, and except for a few people like Krugman and Greg Palast, hardly anybody is talking about it.

The middle class is really getting squeezed ever since Reagan. Clinton’s heart was in the right place and for a few years wages actually increased against inflation, but Bush made it worse than it ever was.

We can’t go decade after decade seeing the 80 percent of the wage earners in this country continue to decline.

That’s unsustainable for the economy. We’re already seeing the price of new cars falling drastically because nobody can afford to buy them. First, they instituted free financing, then they just lowered the price. I’ve never seen new car prices as low as they are now.

People who don’t make any money can’t buy anything.

It’s extreme wealth inequality that leads to increased socialistic tendencies if not communist revolution.

We need a little more “socialism” (really just gov’t intervention) now to stop the demand for a lot more real socialism later.

Conservatives ideologues invariably frame the issue as poor people whining about their problems but, the truth is, those who have benefited the most are far beyond a level of wealth that 99% of the people will never see. And even millionaires are paupers when you look at who’s really running the show.

There’s also an interesting contradiction in their reasoning. On one hand, as Ian MacKaye once reminded us, nothing is fair. Yet the system is presumed to be so fair that using one’s democratic franchise to make it more fair is somehow cheating! That’s already an uphill battle, since, as “the real golden rule” states, those who have the gold make the rules.

I think it’s basically worship of wealth (see “The Bell Curve” for the ugly correlations to that type of thinking), a view that assets are somehow are a direct reflection of intelligence and work ethic. Or more generally, a (not entirely unjustified) view that sucking up to power pays off. Sorry, folks, in many ways I admire Bill Gates (in a sense going from a mere wealthy background to his level is truly “rags to riches”). But the man is not “worth” 60 billion dollars.

Pell grants, small business loans, and the like ultimately benefit more than the recipients. A more educated population and more small businesses benefit everyone. Universal health care ultimately protects the health of everyone (H5N1 flu, anyone?). We can continue this pretense as long as we like, but the truth is, no man is an island.

We’re all in this together.

That was the theory of Reagan in 1980. It hasn’t happened yet, except under a Democratic President who RAISED taxes.

The Bush tax cuts have yet to come close to bring in receipts that would balance the budget. The spending increases have been exclusively for “defense” spending, so expeditures cannot be blamed on the Democrats.

So when is the Bush economy going to pay dividends?

-There’s no doubt of that one. First of all because it’s true.What the libby’s don’t want to understand is it helps more than the $300 pocket. Tax cuts across the board *stimulate* the economy. The more you have to spend/invest/donate the more you will.

As far as my religion goes and just about every other. They are based on faith. There are many things you can’t prove yet believe I’m sure. It’s called faith.

Maybe that’s why you and yours seem so angry all the time. You are so busy trying to disprove something and anything, you just can’t show the simple faith of a child in something and reap the benefits of it (which among others are inner peace.).

You’ve made lazzie-faire free marketering your religion and you believe anything that supports it–even when proven false–and disbelieve anything that refutes it, even when patently and manifestly true.

You’re like the fundamentalist Christians who think that every word in the Bible is LITERALLY true, even though that can’t possibly be right because of the many internal logical inconsistencies of the Bible itself.

Doesn’t matter. It’s all true. Don’t think. Just believe. Listen to Rush.

Some of you listen and repeat Rush and others of you listen and repeat Bill O’Reilly.

I do notice that you CONs never seem to disagree with each other, unlike the libs.

When one CON argument is proven false, you just throw up another. That doesn’t stop you from using the proven false one at a later date.

I’ll bet you 50 dollars that within the next six months, some CON repeats the same tired lie about the “tax cuts helped the poor more than the rich.”

That wasn’t a quote from me. So what’s your point? All of us Republicans must/surely think alike? Quite a progressive opinion.

Notice how the conservatives change the grounds of the arguments?

First they say that Bush’s tax breaks “benefit the poor more than the rich.” I show that to be unequivocally false, that the richest 1 percent got more than 100 times the tax break of the bottom 60 percent. Then they come back with, “well, the more taxes you pay, the more of a break you can get.”

Okay, that’s fine. But it’s in utter contradiction to your first position.

Now we’ve got KIA who makes the accurate observation that not all liberals would like to be judged on the basis of one.

However, that’s not what I was doing, KIA. I was responding to this pearl of wisdumb:

“if you think conservatives want Johnson to do anything but recover 100% then you are a delusional fool.”

Some conservatives clearly do not want Johnson to do anything but recover 100 percent.

I’m sure it helps for CONservatives to hold two mutually exclusive positions at the same time, but try not to do it on the WEBlog.

Thank you,

The Management

Here’re a small sample of posts I culled from The Free Republic website. They have not be altered in any way, just cut and pasted.

Enjoy.

******

I hope he recovers – still, while trying not to be ghoulish and tacky, what party is the governor of SD (who would appoint his replacement)?

Prayers for his recovery, and that he’ll decide to retire from the Senate.

After today’s presser and this news – Carl Levin is heading to a local union hole for three boilermakers and Hill has just kicked the hell out of her cat.

As I recall, he barely beat Thune, and that was only because of some fraudulent votes from the Indian reservations.

I like to believe that everything happens for a reason – fate guides our hands in unusual ways.

Is it okay if I wish him well, but unable to continue as Senator?

Been a long time since we’ve caught a break.

you either play to win, or leave the field.

we’ve spent the last 6 years getting our teeth kicked in for trying the “new tone”. it doesn’t work.

I hope the GOP gov appoints a Republican, and a conservative one at that, to fill his spot.

Just because a tragedy happens is no reason to ignore the fact that the voters voted for a Republican Governor in South Dakota, and, thusly, endorsed him to chose who to appoint in such situations, which would presumably be a Republican.

Bipartisanship is capitulation

Screw bipartisanship. Appoint a republican

If it was Ted Kennedy, I would just flat out wouldn’t comment

Politics is warfare by other means and the dems stole the seat he currently occupies from the other current SD Senator, John Thune.

Is this a hairplugs-related problem?

We’ve often heard of “bleeding heart liberals”. Now we know of one “bleeding head liberal”.

Throughout the Nineties, Limbaugh blamed Chilton for Ruby Ridge. The facts seem to get in the way of a good story:

What did Clinton have to do with Ruby Ridge? The incident at Ruby Ridge happened August 22, 1992 in Idaho. At the time, Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. He was elected president in November 1992 and took the oath of office in January 1993. The FBI was responsible for the fatal attack. Did the Governor of Arkansas give the order to a Federal agency?

Rush Limbaugh – Lying Nazi Whore…

Your example is of hiring people to fix up the car is fine is far as it goes.

But that’s not what is in dispute.

Workers are not just “equipment”–human robots.

They can improve the means of production too. And when they do, some of the wealth they create, they should be able to keep–otherwise, there’s no incentive.

Let me give you a counter-example. You go into business fixing up old cars. Your men can fix up an average of two cars a week. But then they get efficient at it and fix up three cars a week.

According to you, they are still worth no more than when you hired them even though you’re now producing 50 percent more output.

I once rented a house from a guy who’s father worked as an engineer for Kellogg’s cereal. They had a “suggestion box” for ideas. So the engineer writes a note saying that since we put cereal in boxes lined with wax paper, you could perforate the boxes and turn the box into a cereal bowl.

Two weeks later the man is fired.

He had submitted such a good money-making idea, the company made sure that he wouldn’t be around to ask for any of it.

Yup, that’s the so-called “free market.”

Go get em, JR. This time, I’ll stay in the car, LOL!

There’s a shocker.”

Golfnut, being that you never knew JR’s dad, and don’t really know JR, you might want to knock it the hell off.

Thank you.

Michigan or Carolina sol?

heh heh

Sad part is I really don’t enjoy busting this dittohead.

There’s a shocker.

I’m outta here for awhile, hubby and I are gonna go spend some quality time together. :D

Bless your father and fuck you.

Hows about you GET in bed. Get in bed with that bastard golfnuts.

Don’t forget that I saved your ass from being “paul” as in Paul Rosell. Another poster I destroyed.

Get straight with the forum before you take me on buddy.

You are in Michigan? Or is it Carolina?

Your posts TODAY say both.

And don’t you DARE talk about my father. He fought for people like you all his life. Ass suckers like you stabbed him in the back at every turn.