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Are Progressives like Nazis?

Reverend Rick

Frubal Whore
Premium Member
It's not personal, Rick, just cause and effect. Historically, the consequence of a yawning chasm of wealth disparity and a political system set up to advance the fortunes of the wealthy at everyone else's expense has been revolution. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent. It's already happening all over the world, Rick. The Arab spring, the Ukraine, Thailand, even the food riots of 2007.

If it's any consolation, the vast majority of the death and injury of revolt is always suffered by the revolutionaries. The ruling class is better armed and controls the military and police forces.

Being aware of what's on the horizon is not the same as looking forward to it. I would much rather we stopped electing neo-liberal leaders with fascist inclinations and sorted out the issues that have put the world on the path to revolt.
I've said this a million times, when our country quit manufacturing things a whole segment of society got left behind.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Oh please Phil, are you saying a pigmy has the same opportunities as a 7 foot basketball player? Some folks have an IQ lower than my dog while a Mensa student is on equal footing? If you had to guess which child did better on a science or math test and one was Asian what would be your blind guess?

The cream does rise to the top many times, otherwise the NBA would consist of affluent short white guys. Now I'm not some supremacist, because I believe environment goes a long way to further opportunities as well as genes but to say we all are capable of being the next billionaire I have to cry B.S.

Equality is a wonderful thing but it is myth as well.

Come on, Rick, I'm not arguing people are equal. You're building a straw man there.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
I've said this a million times, when our country quit manufacturing things a whole segment of society got left behind.

Yup. And people who were once "very, very rich" became "obscenely rich" and hijacked the democratic process while everyone else was left fighting over jobs at Walmart.
 

Flankerl

Well-Known Member
Even so, a better analogy for that would be the French Revolution... but it doesn't serve their purposes as well because it doesn't have the same implications of the victims being blameless.

An even better analogy would be the Dekulakization. But of course he wouldnt even know that word.


Oh no poor rich people. The americans are starting to get their act together to view the wealth hoarding, greedy capitalists as wealth hoarding greedy capitalists and not as rolemodels for the future. What has the world come to?
 

Reverend Rick

Frubal Whore
Premium Member
An even better analogy would be the Dekulakization. But of course he wouldnt even know that word.


Oh no poor rich people. The americans are starting to get their act together to view the wealth hoarding, greedy capitalists as wealth hoarding greedy capitalists and not as rolemodels for the future. What has the world come to?
I thank you for this post. People here in the States who live in "poverty" have a greater lifestyle than most world wide. Just one look at the average square foot their air conditioned homes have or how many cars are in the driveway. :facepalm:
 

Alceste

Vagabond
I thank you for this post. People here in the States who live in "poverty" have a greater lifestyle than most world wide. Just one look at the average square foot their air conditioned homes have or how many cars are in the driveway. :facepalm:

Just look at Iti Oj, a young man in the prime of his life who, instead of advancing his own career prospects, is using up his own meager wealth and energy trying to sustain his mother and siblings and fend off tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical debt. And all the while, the 0.01% are complaining that life is too easy for the poor and doing everything in their power to make things worse for him... and better for themselves.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I wonder who started the exodus of our manufacturing jobs.

There had been a gradual movement of manufacturing out of the country over decades, but the biggest push occurred with NAFTA when G.H.W. Bush signed it into law in 1992, although negotiations on the deal went back to 1986 under Reagan.
 

Tarheeler

Argumentative Curmudgeon
Premium Member
The free trade agreement comes to mind. You do know who signed that bill and made it law right?

I seriously hope that you're not trying to blame it solely on Clinton considering that Bush had worked for years to see it come to life and had made every attempt to fast track it during his administration and it passed with majority Republican support in both houses of Congress.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Clamping down on free trade wouldn't solve the problem. Even talking heads on MSNBC are beginning to discuss the underlying problem of an increasingly technological economy having less use for lower skill labor. As more & more people are replaced by machines & software, the labor glut will reduce wages for them. We need workers with much better technical educations. But I expect that even they will feel the pressure as business & manufacturing become less dependent upon people.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Pretty much common sense would have it that the more free trade, the lower the wages for the average worker here in North America and in much of western Europe. The driving force here is wages, which is the greatest single cost in manufacturing. If we think we can compete with countries paying under a dollar an hour, especially with many of those countries that do have good educational systems, then we're simply deluding ourselves.

The move into NAFTA and other free-trade agreements was a bonanza for business since they could produce widgets at lower costs, which also made this whole process more appealing to consumers here in the west. Take a look at the success of Walmart as an example, but how many "Made In America" products do you actually find there? In order to compete with companies like Walmart, other companies had to do the same or their products would be more expensive.

So, business, most of the politicians, and much of the American public, benefited in the short run because we had an economic and educational edge, but in the long run we're reaping the penalty with the prognosis actually worsening.
 
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