Its never been particularly easy blogging over there, and I've been part of their crowd for years now. But those moderators over there, especially Bob R, can just get ridiculous sometimes in their tyrannical moods. And Bob R does have that streak of tyrant in him that comes out occasionally.
Anyway I was conducting a debate with Ron Swaren and good old Bob decided it was turning into a 'flame war' here is the debate:
----------------------
al m Says:
Nobody but Jack Bogdanski talks about the billion and a half dollar mystery train.
All the coneservatives are following the world wide template to destroy public service workers and public service itself.
They always fail to mention the trillions spent in useless wars.
Its all about everything domestic.
I'm getting so sick of this I am getting ready to just put it all out of my mind and let nature take its course.
All through human history is the citizens that have to suffer so the rulers can rule they way they want.
2 billion people live on a dollar a day!
Anybody talking about that?
NOPE
All the coneservatives are following the world wide template to destroy public service workers and public service itself.
They always fail to mention the trillions spent in useless wars.
Its all about everything domestic.
I'm getting so sick of this I am getting ready to just put it all out of my mind and let nature take its course.
All through human history is the citizens that have to suffer so the rulers can rule they way they want.
2 billion people live on a dollar a day!
Anybody talking about that?
NOPE
-------------------
RON SWAREN SAYS:
Al m, "All the coneservatives are following the world wide template to destroy public service workers and public service itself.
They always fail to mention the trillions spent in useless wars."
George Bush, Sr. knew a better course in Iraq: Initiate, and then also follow, a UN resolution. There are some nutballs running around the conservative world who think that he was talking about a global government, when he referred to a "new world order." This only referred to the current (1990) thinking that they would work to keep all national borders just as they were at the time, and if some other country aggressively tried to change those, then the UN would intervene. Strengthening the UN mission in Iraq would have been much simpler than goin' in and shootin' up the place, as GWB Jr. did.
The flip side, however, is that it seems just about everyone in the world feels the US should be responsible for their happiness. Go to most poorer countries and as soon as they figure out you're American---with good US dollars---the plots begin. So in the UN, you've got really vociferous people who will blame the US or Europe for everything and pass resolutions that alter the freedoms of Americans. So everyone has to be judged on a case by case basis.
As far as most people living on a dollar a day that's is changing fast. This was another upshot of the UN State of the World Forum I went to in 2000. They kept talking about developing countries "leapfrogging" the United States, at least in high tech adaptability. Lots of new middle class folks over there, also able to take advantage of the outlandishly cheap prices their fellow human beings are selling themselves for. It's in the news this last week, Here:
http://www.malaya.com.ph/index.php/news/international/9592-less-poor-by-2030-says-us-intelligence
How much these people care about improving their fellow man, I don't know. But believe me, conservative people, especially in religions, are reminded constantly about suffering people around the world. Probably why church mission spending runs around $60 billion per year.
I don't think libertarians like Ron Paul necessarily have the right answer, but I do think it would be better to form "regional security initiatives" (a UN term) so the US doesn't keep spending money on such things. However, the UN is kinda weak to take on Red China, say, and there's a lot of worried people in SE Asia and the Pacific starting to get alarmed. But "regional security initiatives" in which these other countries shoulder some of the costs of stability would be very helpful. That is what the African Union has been doing in Africa.
It's too long a subject for this forum...
-----------------
al m Says:
I know I am just repeating myself but I said over and over and over-if this whole BUDGET CRISIS was real then ALL THE PEOPLE MAKING SIX FIGURE INCOMES should have been confronted with a 15-20% slash in wages. So there insurance changed and we are stuck with it too. They work inside mostly 9-5, clean environments, limited exposure to the public etc (BTW the non union employees are not happy campers anymore than the union employees are)
This place is going to have to go under eventually, as will most governmental units that operate on a set of rules completely opposite to citizens. The word "debt" to these governmental units has no meaning. All the people that function as executives are using tax payers money and none of them are accountable for it.
The whole system has to be dismantled and re-built.
This focus on the union benefits is a complete and total lie and the public, fools that they are, eat it up. "I don't get that kind of health insurance, why should they"
So the public does the work for the power elite.
Power elite gets a cheaper and cheaper workforce and the public gets less and less jobs worth having.
But what is happening to us is all based on a big lie. There is just no way to get the masses to understand that. The masses have always been ignorant, throughout history.
The only reason I keep my blog going is to embarass Trimet at this point. Just so they can't have total control of the message. And while their web site dwarfs mine, mine is still there, telling the other side of the story.
But I know its hopeless, Trimet wins, every single time. The game is fixed and we can't win, EVER.
None of the SERFS (any working man for hourly pay) ever win, never once in the entire history of man.
And when the government gets itself in trouble they just take everyone to war and wave the flag of patriotism. Thousands get killed and injured but the power elite maintains its control
This place is going to have to go under eventually, as will most governmental units that operate on a set of rules completely opposite to citizens. The word "debt" to these governmental units has no meaning. All the people that function as executives are using tax payers money and none of them are accountable for it.
The whole system has to be dismantled and re-built.
This focus on the union benefits is a complete and total lie and the public, fools that they are, eat it up. "I don't get that kind of health insurance, why should they"
So the public does the work for the power elite.
Power elite gets a cheaper and cheaper workforce and the public gets less and less jobs worth having.
But what is happening to us is all based on a big lie. There is just no way to get the masses to understand that. The masses have always been ignorant, throughout history.
The only reason I keep my blog going is to embarass Trimet at this point. Just so they can't have total control of the message. And while their web site dwarfs mine, mine is still there, telling the other side of the story.
But I know its hopeless, Trimet wins, every single time. The game is fixed and we can't win, EVER.
None of the SERFS (any working man for hourly pay) ever win, never once in the entire history of man.
And when the government gets itself in trouble they just take everyone to war and wave the flag of patriotism. Thousands get killed and injured but the power elite maintains its control
-------------------
RON SWAREN SAYS:
"None of the SERFS (any working man for hourly pay) ever win, never once in the entire history of man."
Oh, really? Some of the retired guys from the Carpenters union get monthly checks up to 4 G's. Then they get their social security, too. Then they often work under the table, have rental properties or farms or have built and sold homes. Their spouses probably get some pension and SS, too. They got such big pensions because they got to work Saturdays and Sundays to fix their screw ups from the week before.
------------------ Oh, really? Some of the retired guys from the Carpenters union get monthly checks up to 4 G's. Then they get their social security, too. Then they often work under the table, have rental properties or farms or have built and sold homes. Their spouses probably get some pension and SS, too. They got such big pensions because they got to work Saturdays and Sundays to fix their screw ups from the week before.
Then good old Bob R decides its time for him TO TAKE CONTROL
Bob R. Says:
OK, first... I haven't posted or contributed much here lately because I've been busy with numerous other projects.
But,
I'm invoking moderator's prerogative to shut down what would otherwise
indubitably become a flame ware between Al and Ron. I've allowed both
sets of comments to stand, so you've both had your say, but drop the
bashing already and stick to documented facts.
Thanks,Bob R.
------------------
and then this comment by me gets moderated out
Oh, really? Some of the retired guys from the Carpenters union get monthly checks up to 4 G's. Then they get their social security, too. Then they often work under the table, have rental properties or farms or have built and sold homes.
OK_you got me on that one. I will admit there was this little tiny period of time that wealth was so easily available in the world most dominant empire in all of history that some people did indeed come out winners. But your talking about this tiny little period of time the 80's-2000.
Some people are doing fine AT THE MOMENT!
Don't be so cocky to think its gonna last cause it aint!
This is not a flame war either Bob, this is logical conversation. He's making his points and I'm making mine.
It never came to my mind once that he was trying to "flame" me.
Heck I agree with him on lots of subjects.
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AND NOW A BLAST FROM THE WAY BACK PAST
5 comments:
Ron is like the millions of Americans who bought Reagan's lie about all the welfare mothers driving around in Cadillacs. Of course this was a fictitious boogeyman (or in this case boogeywoman), but it got Ronnie Ray-gun elected instead of that "naive", nice guy Jimmy Carter who only wanted to end our fossil fuel dependence and ween us off Mid East oil. It's not like fossil fuels pollute or cause global warming, or that Mid East oil has ever caused us any problems or led to any wars, right? RRRight...
So we chose trickle down Reaganomics and have become a nation of pee-ons. Rather than LOOKING UP and challenging the corporate aristocrats, it's always easier to LOOK DOWN with scorn and scoff at
your fellow man or woman who is down on their luck. That is, until you too end up like that person.
I was openly anti-Reagan, as a matter of fact. The ATU members applauded me for advising TriMet to go to double decker buses, like Everett, WA has instead of blowing the money on MAX. What the MAX strategy ( which I used to support) boils down now to a social engineering phenomenon. And I am not saying it was intended to be, either.
I hope you got my other post, which included something on building houses. With the MAX strategy, you can't even build your own house, because they want people to live in mass scale housing that can only be done by corporate builders---unless you formed a co-op with a lot of members. But basically, they're strategy is to keep pumping up the population, which will always have a large class of in-migrants. But, according to expert UN sources, people in other countries are already surpassing the US in the use of high technology. So what it amounts to, is that the welfare cases they don't want to address get sent here. And Portland policy makers count on that.
I am accurate in what I said about carpenters. Nearly all of them that I have met do quite a lot of work under the table, at times, paying no taxes on it. "Some" have been able to work things out very well for themselves.
I don't like people labeling me. I belong to neither Party. My parents left me no money, I have been through worse recessions than the current one, had to deal with predatorial realtors, suffered cervical spine injuries twice, and I got torpedoed by a crooked mortgage broker (verified by State reports and litigation) that ended up costing me 300 G's and about twelve years of life. So stop your labeling, and you know who you are.
The thing about houses is that it isn't rocket science to build one---in fact they have gotten easier to do as technology advances. So people who want to improve their lives have plenty of opportunity to do something like build their home, maybe even twice, over a lifetime. You might have to stay out of the inebriants aisle at Safeway and stop watching the Sunday game to do it. It isn't really that hard to build; except now we're supposed to live in condos that somebody else, like foreign immigrants, build for us in a planned Transit Oriented Development. I like urban condos, but the owner-builder can't build one by him or herself. But a lot of people throughout human civilization have built their own homes and improved their lives measurably.
al m, you said on PortlandTransport:
"Hey Bob- you never did put my post up like I asked you.
Now you can't tell me that's not intentional."
I doubt that Bob. R can "put anything up" if y'know what I mean! And he's still pretty young, too!
OH BOY-HOPEFULLY HE WONT READ THAT!
Post a Comment