WCGreen
WCGreen's Journal"We ate so poorly that the Hobo's wouldn't come to our house..."
This one quote, from an older gentleman talking about his childhood, sums up the desperation that was his while living through the the Dust Bowl years.
Ken Burns has done it again, turning his talents, cameras and his sense of empathy on one of the greatest ecological disasters in recorded history.
10 years the dry winds ripped down from Canada and scoured all the top soil that was exposed by the indiscriminate practices of the farmers who flocked to get at the cheap land. They ripped up the deep rooted natural grasses and so set the table for their own destruction.
It's heartbreaking and also sobering in the sense that we are never that far from natures wraith. Especially when we jump into action putting profits first and everything else can just go to hell.
Only thing is, the only going to hell is those who are stuck to deal with the consequences.
To me, this is an answer to all those climate change deniers who say how can man change something as awesome as nature. Well Sparky, watch the four hour film about the Dust bowl and you will see first hand how man can gin up Mother Natures furry by ignoring the consequences of those actions.
there is no oil there....
Whats he doing over there?
Seriously, that is what we would expect from Bush. President Obama is reaching out to the new democracies around the world to show them what is possible.
Seriously, having a African American as president in the US is a big deal. It shows that anything is possible if you set the rules so that anyone can aspire to leadership. It's the best example of what the US represents; anything can happen if you let freedom flourish.
I know, I know, I sound like some dewey eyed kid who has never tasted the reality of our country. But I have and so I know that the Obama election came exactly at the same time.
Think about it, we could have had one term of Bush, two of Clinton, two of Bush and then two of Clinton. It really could have happened.
I think that having Senator Obama reach out and take the reigns of power from media proclaimed dynasties will bode very well with our future.
Well this Democrat doesn't HAVE to accept a water downed version of radical republicanism...
The only way to stop all of this is to stop putting ex employees of the largest Investment Banks in charge of the economy.
Why don't we just try to raise taxes, make it harder to be compensated with Investment Instrument and stop giving special tax treatment to Capital Gains taxes. The idea that we are "taxing" successful investment is only making it more confusing to the non investing public to make a clear decision on whether to support tax policy concerning investments.
If workers are to be "partners" in this economy, then we must be treated the same as investors.
Also, any country that has "free trade" agreements with the US has to agree on paying a "living Wage" to their workers.
While we are at it, if a US company moves production to a third or fourth world country then they will be charged an excise tax before they can re-import their product to the US in order to even the competition between those people willing to work for a buck a day and American workers.
How fucking anti-American are these right-wing douche bags that are willing to tank their companies..
just because the election didn't go their way.
We sucked it up and dealt with arguably the worst administration in the last 100 years and still did what we had to do. We didn't sulk or strike, for that matter, we did what AMERICANS are supposed to do; be a loyal opposition.
To publicly say they are going to undermine their companies just because the election didn't go their was is so wrong in so many ways.
First of all, all these mini-titans of industry are violating their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors by not doing what is best for the shareholders.
Second, they are almost, almost right at that line between coercion and personal opinion by publicly saying they are going to tank their companies because of the votes taken by people that work for them.
And Third, did it cross their little fucking right wing brains that maybe, just maybe that because of Obama care their employees will be healthier and so not have to call off work, their kids will be happier and healthier and so their parents wont have to call off work because their kids are sick.
How did these ass holes get to the top of their companies when they let petty political vendettas rule their actions instead of common sense.
That, my friends, is the god damn truth.
Get over it, douche bags...
Cut the Military by 10%...
Close the gap between the tax rate for capital gains and earned income...
Raise the top marginal income tax rate to 39%...
Limit the interest deduction for the second, third, fourth and etc "homes"...
Go after income siphoned into foreign tax havens...
Limit the deduction for CEO's to only 40% higher than the companies minimum wage. Anything after that will not be deductible by the company...
Limit the amount of stock options for senior executives...
If stock options are being offered to senior management, they have to be offered to every other employee...
Stock Options redeemed before 3 years will be taxed at 50%...
These are some of the proactive changes in the US Tax Code that I believe should be instituted in order to change the short term culture that has siphoned vast wealth to the the top of the top...
Let me get this straight...
Doesn't every candidate for national office offer "stuff" to those they want to win over before the vote?
What is a "Platform" but a collection of wishes and desires gleemed to build a base from those who support the candidate?
But since Barack Obama dares to turn his head away, slightly, I might add, from those self-proclaimed captians of coapitalism he is doing something dastardly and dishonest and, number one with a bullet, Un-American, and so he is villified and pilloried in the eyes of Wall Street and K Street and their toadies in the national media.
Let me explain how Rush got to be so powerful on the AM radio dial and why it is highly
unlikely to happen again...
Back in the 1980's, the law of the land restricted the number of radio and television stations one person or company could own in any given market. It was called Duopoly and that kept the local airwaves competitive.
But when cable TV moved into the picture, everything changed.
Suddenly, the small businesses in these small and medium sized markets could now afford to advertise on Cable. Am radio which was a way to make a decent living for the owner/operator, lost a ton of ad money to the cable companies.
Rush, or whoever was working with him at the time, saw an opportunity to get his show off a few stations and into hundreds by offering all these struggling mom and pop radio stations a chance to stay in the business. His EIB network worked like this, they would syndicate for free and allow the local station to place a certain amount of ads during his show.
Rush had several national accounts from places like Snapple which was struggling to get a toehold in the US soft drink industry. So he would make his money off of the national accounts.
At the local level, the owner could run those three hours without having to pay a DJ. They hired kids who wanted to be in radio to stay in the booth so that if anything happened with the signal, they could switch over to live radio.
Everybody wins in this scenario. Rush makes money and increases his reach with little to no cost. The local owner doesn't have to pay an on air talent and the local advertisers liked the idea of being on a national radio show even though the signal was beamed in.
By the end of the 80's, Rush had built such a large following that he could go into the larger markets and sell his show to the struggling AM radio stations.
That's how it started and Rush pushed to make it a one shot deal by lobbying to get rid of those restrictions on market ownership percentages and poof, all those mom and pop radio station were quickly snapped up by companies like Clear Channel.
That is why this kind of stuff cannot happen again. Large media conglomerations own most of those AM radio stations across the country and the only way to get programming on to those stations is to go through the big corps.
Now I am sure there are hundreds of little radio stations out there in small to medium sized markets that are still hanging on, but that means you would have to go to each and everyone and try and sell your format.
No one has done that because it is a monumental task to first ID the stations and then convince a local business person who probably belongs to the local Chamber of Commerce to put progressive talk shows on their station.
Good luck with that.
To me, I think continuing to build a presence on the web is the way to go because that is where our core market resides and it is a lot cheaper to break into.
One key historical item that Republicans love to ignore...
is that the US economy didn't really get going until the Rockefeller and Morgan trusts were busted.
It was when all that competition was let loose on a country begging to work, begging for the dream that they believed when they sailed into the New York City harbor, that was when the dream was acknowledged and set loose to create the US domination of the 20th century and all that brought with it that the United States gelled into modern times.
That, to me, is the exceptional part of our country. The belief that laws should and would reach high when they had to in order to serve the greater good. It is in these times of exceptional actions are taken that proves the myth of American Exceptionalism.
The right will have it that this country of ours was always exceptional and that we were destined to be blessed by this myth. It wasn't. Not when Slavery was allowed to continue, not when half of the population had no say in how they were governed, not when everyone was left on their own to thrive, survive or waste away without a thought to it. That wasn't exceptionalism it was brutal survival of the fittest which sets us smack in the middle of animal kingdom.
Until we embraced equality as reality and not a myth that the United States became and Exceptional entity.
As a tax preparer, soon to be retired, I have done a bunch of business tax returns over the
last 25 years.
I worked for people who employed three people and I have worked with a company that had over 100 people working for that company. Every one of these people proclaimed to be a small business person. And they were proud that they took the initiative to go out and create something.
What I would like to know is this; what does Mitt Romney and the other Republicans see when they look out at American capitalism? Do they even see these small business owners? I believe they do no. They look out at the vastness of American Enterprise and see companies worth $250 million and having hundreds of employees as examples of Small Business. To these owners, yea they would have to kick in some money in order to have a healthy company working for them, but they certainly are not small business owners now.
But the real Small Businesspeople out there, the mom and pop shops that still flourish outside the cavernous malls, the guys and gals in their basements or garages trying to come up with something, the small maid companies that clean the houses of the well-to-do, the Electrician the Plumber the guy who cuts your grass. These are the back bone of American Small Businesses and know that when they owe tax they did something right, maybe wrong because they didn't structure things right (that's when I come in), but they are creating wealth and making America a better place.
Now I am sure Romney looks at Bain Capital as a small business but we all know that is far from those who want to serve their customers and maybe make a good living out on their own. No one in their right mind would look at Bain Capital and view it as a thing of good. Sure they squeeze inefficiencies out of the market place but at what cost.
Let's resolve to continue to help the guys and gals with a few dozen employees and raise a middle finger to those who prey on business like a Vampire.
They could have spent twice as much and still lost....
There is a point of diminishing returns on any investment and I think it was reached in this election.
The reason the turnout was lower is because so many people were repelled by the sewer that political advertising has become. Plain and simple.
The people who are out there who aren't wired in like we are here don't pay attention as much as we do. With the news media as it is, no one really trust anything that is put on any news. It's all opinion and slant and that is why the ratings for news has dropped dangerously.
We have in ill informed population swayed by emotions and other wise disengaged from the process.
Welcome to the beginnings of Idiocracy.
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Gender: MaleCurrent location: Cleveland Ohio
Member since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 45,558
