Wednesday Open Thread 03-25-15
Our "free market" society is suffering from a lack of values.
If you look up "values" the dictionary is full of monetary definitions, who cares? Empirical valuation is arbitrary.
The values I am talking about are core beliefs that guide and motivate attitudes and actions.
How does someone come to value the rights of a corporation more than safe drinking water? More than cancer free children?
Is a Caucasian fetus more valuable than an African American teenager?
Does Trans Canada's rights trump all the property owners on the Keystone XL path?
Is being the largest arms merchant on the planet morally acceptable?
Should corporations be able to contribute to global warming and diminish the public health for profit?
Citizens United has perverted an already corrupt system. The only benefactors are the politicians, corporations and 1%. The politicians receive the bribes/donations, block fixing the system and rig the system for their benefactors. The 1% and corporations get a very high return on their investment. A better return than participating in the market place.
How many examples of politicians pandering to hard core donors and corporations, followed by a piece of legislation that harms the public, but benefits the "people too" do we need before it qualifies as quid pro quo? Do these people value the graft more than the humanity?
It is time for a reboot.
Readers Digest rant by Tim. To catch the full version, we'll have to have a few beers together.
What do you feel like ranting about?
Comments
Thanks...
for helping out with the Open Threads, Tim.
God Morning Sunshine
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Morning back at ya'...
I added break tags between your Mavis tubes to separate them. Remove the dashes. You can also use the "br" button above the text editor.
Thanks, I could use a break
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
through the snowstorm in my brain I see
a billion people fighting the billionaire party, one flake at a time.
Good morning.
I am not sure
But I think Mimi just referred to us as flakes.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
melting snow flakes, soaked brain, fluid values...
I am sick.
Keep on trucking. I need a break.
It it wasn't for the Occupy protests
I wouldn't be as aware of the wealth inequality in this country or the urgent need to address it.
According to some. I don't know, I suppose it did help some people become aware, but geez, isn't
it like rather obvious?
Most of the population has no concept of
the order of magnitude.
Heck, they don't even know their times tables, let alone that Bain Capital was conducting leveraged buyouts and reaping more than would be left for the entire work force's pension plan.
The upward distribution of wealth has reached insane proportions. Tens of millions compensation packages, that at orders of magnitude larger than the average life time earnings!
And then the rich want to tell us how we are unworthy?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
It's enough to make you cry
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-2016-campaign-the-lament-of-th...
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Now the millionaires are going to start a
revolution against the billionaires. Maybe they will all eat each other and solve our problem for us.
I'd buy a ticket
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Of course no even cares
about the rest of us people. And then they wonder why so many do not vote?
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Why won't anyone ask this question?
Why is the U.S. telling Iran it can't have a nuclear weapon when the U.S. has thousands?
It does not make any sense.
And Israel does too in addition
to waging terrorism upon the imprisioned peoples of Gaza.
The biggest hypocrites in the world are those representing us in the US government.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Lobbyist refusing to "eat his own words"
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/03/lobbyist-fails-his-own-pesticide-chall...
They force feed prisoners
So there are ways to work this out.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
heh, this failure of values...
has me thinking that it is needed to start a religion to transmit decent values along with a political movement in order to be effective activists.
Cognitive Dissonance Rules . . .
[Photo Credit: Grand Bargain Watch, Flickr, DonkeyHotey's Photostream]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/6997920407/in/photostream/
Right now, I'm listening to Van Hollen's "BS"--he one of the main proponents of a 'Grand Bargain'--I have him on tape during an interview with Lori Montgomery (WaPo) and another reporters, talking about striking a deal with McCain and Graham to trade entitlement cuts for military spending/ending the sequester--as he disparages the current budget that's being debated, which is practically the same as the President's Budget regarding cuts to 'entitlement' programs.
"Good Cop, Bad Cop."
Also, the votes that will be taken by tomorrow evening will likely determine whether or not Medicaid and the SNAP program wind up being block granted to the states--drastically cutting these programs, since there will be a flat amount of federal dollars relegated to each state--regardless of the need.
Of course, these proposals are greatly facilitated by FP Clinton's complicity in destroying a New Deal program--AFDC (Aid For Families And Dependent Children). Ryan, et all, are certainly making sure that they credit him for providing this model.
I'm not very accomplished at 'negotiating' the DKos website, but I've not seen any mention of the 'Doc Fix' (except at EB) in relation to the many Medicare cuts that it would entail.
I hope to locate a piece that put a dollar figure to the President's proposal for increased Medicare premiums--from the current 5% to 25%.
It is a startling low figure--in the range of a school teacher.
(David Dayen alluded to this, but did not elaborate, IIRC.)
I'll post it at EB if I can find it by this evening.
After that, it's a done deal, and won't matter.
For example, Boehner and Pelosi could say "today" that folks making six figure incomes are the only ones who will be affected.
However, in time, millions and millions more seniors would be caught up in the premiums, dipping into lower middle class income ranges. [if the language of the law is written like PBO's] Of course, I doubt seriously that we will see the exact language of the bill, until it is too late.
That is because the President's proposal would not provide for indexing for inflation.
Democratic Senators pulled this off with the so-called Cadillac Plan law, then delayed the implementation of the law, until 2017--just after the next Presidential election.
Hey, guess I can't blame corporatist Establishment Dems for not wanting 150 million angry group health plan beneficiaries in the streets with pitchforks before 'the Inevitable' is safely ensconced in the White House to have another 4-8 years to go after 'entitlements'--if there's anything left, that is.
Oh, apparently there is much 'chest beating' by Pelosi's camp for managing to strike a bipartisan bill with Boehner, proving that The House can work.
And any reporting about 'opposition to the Doc Fix,' that I am hearing on C-Span and on the XM News/POTUS Channels, is always framed around conservative objections that more of the Fix was not paid for.
We are totally invisible. Even in a fight over Medicare cuts. Incredible!
Color me 'depressed.'
Thanks for the opportunity to vent, Tim.
Mollie
[A bit pushed, so this may be 'scattered.' Sorry!]
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.