June 30, 2012

So many of us have been accused on here of wanting a Glorious Revolution. Let's get out with it!

Got "TL DR" looking at this? No problem, it happens to everyone. Just go straight to the end for the short message.

I don't know of anyone here who wants a "Glorious Revolution", most likely referring to the 1917 Bolshevik-style revolution that resulted in the bloodiest dictatorship in history. Someone in another thread (link added since people believe I'm lying) accused some DUers of wanting this, but I doubt any such examples will ever be found. I for one am a fan of a FAR less tragic French Revolution, actually. Or maybe, as other posters in this very thread have mentioned, a rebellion like that which overthrew King James II.

But none of that is going to happen. Why?

Well, let's start with the fact that Democrats, unlike Republicans, turn on each other at the drop of a hat, and stay at each other's throats constantly. Take, for instance, this new bullshit - er, old McCarthyist bullshit claim resurrected like some bloody old zombie - that some of us want a BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION, mass death and chaos and all of that.

So let me explain what is going to happen to America instead.

Let's start with what's happening now. Occupy protesters are out there protesting for the interests of the working class. There are, according to some reports, 72 million registered Democrats. If even 1/10th of us cared about Occupy Wall Street enough to join them, there would be 7.2 million additional Occupiers out there. We could outsize the largest record-breaking protests in history if we took action and supported Occupy. But we don't. Instead, what's happening is Occupy is getting their asses beat bloody and raw by the police gangs. NYC Mayor Bloomberg is sitting comfortable while bragging that he has the world's 7th largest army. Police are sitting on their law enforcement forums bragging about beating Occupiers or cheering on others who do.

Meanwhile, we sit on the DU and whine about it, but do we see even 1/10th of our numbers out there? Nope. Probably not even 1/100, given the size of the Occupy protests.

There will be no Bolshevik Revolution. There won't even be a French Revolution. We couldn't even stage a voters' revolution in the 2010 elections. Hell, we couldn't even take out Scott Walker.

Those of us who are being painted as anarchists here want war and chaos? Nope, not gonna happen. Here's what is coming instead.

Food prices are going to keep skyrocketing. Water is going to become more and more scarce and the Plutocrats, like the Bushes, are going to keep purchasing water access rights. Everything you pay for is going to go up in price, unlike your wages. The Plutocrats' think tanks are even predicting a global resource crisis by 2030. They've stamped an execution date right on your ass.

Oh, there'll be a crisis alright. For the 99%, not the 1%. Oh I know, some say that when that day comes the 1% will get swept up in it. But that would mean war and chaos and revolution, right? And we all know that's just a Bolshevik anarchist wet dream. We just decided that we don't want that, didn't we?

Nope, instead we're going to be stuck with food shortages, health care that will get yanked back out of reach (and if the ACA evolves positively, we'll be hit with a manufactured shortage of doctors - and they're already talking about making that happen), a ruined transportation and electricity infrastructure that the Republicans have made a mockery out of us when we try to fund it adequately, and water supplies increasingly poisoned hydraulic fracking.

Meanwhile the Democrats are going to be arguing over whether one group is a bunch of revolutionary anarchists, with some folks taking a giant frosty piss on the graves of every oppressed peasant and worker who ever took to armed rebellion in the past by likening them all to bloody Stalinists. America will become little better than Mexico, which has been a hellish Plutonomy for the last 100 years.

Hell yes, I'd like to see this future averted by a French Revolution. The Plutocracy needs it burned into their psyche that bad things happen to those who try to turn the working class into disposable serfs. However I'll be happy to accept a voter revolt that overcomes the Diebold firewall and overthrows the Plutocracy in favor of a nation of laws that favor workers' rights.

In short:
TO HELL with "small, incremental solutions". WE NEED MAJOR, RADICAL CHANGES to save this country! We have Stage-4 societal CANCER and we need CHEMOTHERAPY.

June 29, 2012

For the record, 99.99% of the Affordable Care Act is absolutely beautiful.

I contend, and not ever strongly or loudly enough, there is but one wart on its hind side that needs to be removed. It is an unsightly wart and an infectious one at that.

I don't think I'm alone in supporting most of the ACA while wanting one part to go.

June 28, 2012

What if the Government told you that for safety's sake, you must purchase a gun?

(I didn't post this in the Gungeon because it's about mandatory purchases, not merely guns.)

Let's say law enforcement became as broken as the health care system* and we came to a point the public agreed that it needed more "protection" than they already have.

What if the Government responded by saying you must purchase a handgun? If you're poor, of course, you can get one for free or at a discount. Failure to do so will cost you more than you already pay in taxes.

The Supreme Court just paved the way for this potential episode of madness.


* wait, it isn't already?

Edited to add: you might want to consider looking into past history before you respond. Gun ownership was actually mandatory by law back in the day and this fact has been used to defend this new mandatory purchase law. Oh and here's a thread where DUers actually CITED this mandatory gun ownership law to justify the mandatory health insurance purchase law.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101624252

June 28, 2012

2-3 million jobs could be re-shored back to the USA?

Forgive me if I view this with just a BIT of skepticism. Still, I hope it turns out to be true.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give-manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A.

........

Harold L. Sirkin, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group, said, “At 58 cents an hour, bringing manufacturing back was impossible, but at $3 to $6 an hour, where wages are today in coastal China, all of a sudden the equation changes.”

The firm reported in April that one-third of American companies with revenue greater than $1 billion were either planning or considering to move manufacturing back to the United States. Boston Consulting predicted that the reversal could bring two million to three million jobs back to this country.

“The companies who are investing in technology in the U.S.A. are more nimble and agile,” said Drew Greenblatt, president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore, which continues to manufacture in the United States by relying on automation technologies. “Parts are made quicker, and the quality is better.”

Other factors are playing a role as well, said Mitch Free, chief executive and founder of Mfg.com, an electronic marketplace for manufacturing firms. He pointed to trends including distributed manufacturing and customization as playing an important role in the “reshoring” of manufacturing to the United States.

........

June 28, 2012

Every American citizen is now required to help make insurance corporations richer. Enjoy!

Oh and that whole single payer system we wanted? You'll be moving to another country if you want to see that.

Edited to add: the ACA is not the problem. The individual mandate is the problem. Let's run the real world numbers. If you are earning $28,000 a year, this is how the Individual Mandate impacts your existing budget:

[IMG][/IMG]

Someone earning $28,000 a year (as is the case with some DUers) just took a $2,189 additional annual hit to their already overburdened budget.

$2,189 a year is a lot of food to buy.

June 28, 2012

I'm glad Paula Deen lost weight.

I just hope she doesn't decide to ditch her delicious recipes in favor of some flavorless "healthy" gruel.

June 26, 2012

It's America's duty to export jobs to the third world to make their lives better.

So what happens to the third world's dreams of prosperity when we run out of jobs to export? What happens if our currency collapses and we can't afford their imports?

Free traders scream incessantly about how we owe it to the third world to lower our standard of living to help them. So what happens to their economies, which depend on sucking us dry, when there's nothing left to suck from us?

An economy that is based on draining other nations dry to fuel one's dreams of prosperity is an economy that is doomed to fail.

The third world may lose Europe as a lifeline sooner than America, though, especially if the Euro collapses.

June 26, 2012

Summary executions: what's the difference between America doing it and Iran doing it?

Say we declare someone in Yemen to be a terrorist and we send a drone to kill them. We don't offer any evidence besides "our troops said the target was a threat to America".

Then Iran declares one of our generals in Afghanistan to be a terrorist and they send a drone to kill them. Iran offers no evidence besides "our troops said the target was a threat to Iran".

What excuse do we have to exonerate America and condemn Iran except "we're America and they're not"?

June 25, 2012

Population control will NOT save our environment; and why Stephen Hawking was right.

Overpopulation is not a new refrain; it was a subject of complaint even as far back as the Roman Empire. The problem is, you can have a small population of humans and still over-consume your way into a crisis or even ecological ruin and a catastrophic population crash. Malthusian theories can argue all day long about how much physical room the Earth has for human beings, but history shows one certainty: even 100 million is enough to ruin the ecosystem.

Take the deforestation that occurred on Rapa Nui aka Easter Island, for instance. Or better yet, look at deforestation patterns in Midieval Europe, from the 13th to 16th centuries, where the populace in the area never exceeded 150 million. There weren't a lot of humans there, at least compared to now, but they wrought much devastation on their ecosystem, with catastrophic consequences, such as famines and plagues that were fueled by the resulting waves of mass starvation and malnutrition.

Ironically, the mass deforestation was slowed down by the growing use of coal. Compared to Medieval times, coal was the first form of alternative energy, and petroleum was the alternative energy to whale oil. Alternative energy slowed the destruction of forests and saved the whales.

Of course, deforestation is still happening at a breathtaking pace, and the practice of using fossil fuels in place of trees is itself catching up with us in the form of pollution and global warming. At the same time the Malthusian crowd is again blowing the overpopulation trumpet.

Populations have swelled and declined, but regardless of the size of the world's population, or that of any one region, two things have always been constant: overconsumption and wastefulness.

No matter what size a given population is, overconsumption and wastefulness still make for an unsustainable society and will lead to the Malthusian sky falling on our heads.

The key to protecting our environment and global habitat is sustainability. We need a system of recycling that is as close to perfect as possible, and one in which we cut pollution to a bare minimum. We need to build consumer goods in a way that they can be recycled in an environmentally-friendly way, and build them to last. We need a society where few things go into the trash and almost nothing goes into landfills. We need a global agreement of hard and inflexible pollution REDUCTIONS, not just "cap and move pollution around to whatever nation can pay the pollution fee." We need to make use of solar energy, which can now be generated at night as well as during the day; the sun bathes the Earth in more energy PER DAY than modern society will use in centuries, and we need to harness a respectable portion of that. We must all become like Germany, who now uses more solar energy than the whole world combined. Composting must also become a religion, while research in nano-pesticides must begin so that we can ditch the use of chemicals. I could list the specifics all day long, but I think Democrats can get the picture. Waste not, want not, is an old but wise and very relevant saying.

Which brings me to Stephen Hawking, who once famously said that for our survival, we need to colonize other worlds. He's correct. This be a huge creator of jobs worldwide, and would result in access to more resources beyond Earth. Outer space is, potentially, the world's biggest jobs program, ever; it is likely to create an employee's market for anything from manual labor (think: asteroid miners in space suits, or people piloting mining drones) to jobs in the hard sciences and engineering. The prospect of putting factories on the moon, by itself, offers huge ecological benefits for the world. In the long term it will also solve the Malthusian problem of physical space.

However, there is an even bigger benefit to listening to Hawking's advice. The biggest benefit of all is that when it comes to long-term existence in outer space, you are forced to research and implement a system of total sustainability. Short term trips into orbit don't necessarily require sustainability, but people working in offworld factories and those taking trips to places like Mars will. Recycling of all resources is a must, as is the use of alternative and renewable energy. The sustainability issues that must be solved to achieve long-term space travel and colonization of inhospitable worlds will be of enormous benefit for us back on Earth.

There's another reason to shoot for sustainability over population control: whenever you hear about population control, it's YOU AND YOUR FAMILY who will be controlled. The Plutocracy will have no skin in the game at all; they won't use less resources or make any sacrifices, but YOU WILL. Malthusians are quick to say that it's the poor who overpopulate the most - problem is, they're talking about YOU, as in the person who is reading this and saying to themselves, "No, that can't be right". Yeah, it is right. It's all about controlling YOU so that the Plutocrats can have mansions the size of Los Angeles and flying yachts that rival the size of islands, along with all the resources such luxuries use.

June 23, 2012

How unpopular is foreign outsourcing in America? Critically unpopular.

If foreign outsourcing was so great then why is Mitt Robbedme, upon being rightfully accused of promoting offshoring of American jobs, trying to take evasive action?

It's because the American people have heard all the defenses for this detestable act and have seen through the bullshit. Robbedme doesn't want to stand his ground on "free trade" because he knows he'll get mobbed.

One of the most damaging things Robbedme could do is shoot back at the President over this.


http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/obama-campaign-romney-would-be-outsourcer-in-chief/

Obama Campaign: Romney Would Be ‘Outsourcer In Chief’

The Obama campaign pounced this morning on a Washington Post article claiming Bain Capital invested in companies that helped ship American jobs overseas while Mitt Romney was at the helm of the firm, calling it a “significant moment” in this campaign.

“People really have a fundamental choice in this election,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod told reporters on a conference call. “The question is, do they want an outsourcer-in-chief in the Oval Office or do they want a president who will fight for American jobs, American manufacturing and the American middle class.”

The president’s campaign argues the article is further proof that Romney’s business record would not translate into economic growth if he were elected president.

“This is really significant because throughout this campaign Romney has suggested that the experience that he’s had in business gives him special insights into the economy and that would translate into jobs and growth and benefits to the American worker,” Axelrod said. “This article speaks more to the kind of experience he has, the kind of insights he may have drawn from that experience. And it goes to the fundamental question of whether that is the experience that we need in the Oval Office. Do we need the philosophy that embraces outsourcing and offshoring as a positive tool in our economy?”