Want to see some REAL class warfare?

[westwall]

Class warfare garbage is just corporate propaganda, nothing more than PR work for them. And a poor attempt in my opinion. People should be outraged. Corporate America is painting the middle class as a bunch of leeches suckling at the tit. That's enough to piss me off. Americas GDP is 25% of the world because of the middle class not the elite. America's infrastructure is the best in the world because of the middle class not the elite. The playing field is NOT level anymore. There is an entitled class but it's not the middle. Americans work longer hours and take less vacation than anyone else in the world. Middle class Americans invest in there educations (college) and communities (housing) more than ever before, only to come into a work field where the virtuous corporations ship jobs over seas to exploit slave labor, or if they are lucky they land a "great" job where the company lets them work 39.5 hrs/wk to avoid giving them and their kids health insurance. Not sure how us middle class people can live with ourselves and our so called entitled views. The corporate greed is disgusting.

Plain and simple: If your not pissed off at these absurd accusations against hard working Americans, then America is no more.

A large, prosperous middle class may mediate between rich and poor, creating the structural foundation upon which democratic political processes may operate. Without a health middle class a democratic government can not last. A shrinking middle class is a danger sign. Hopefully our leaders are paying attention.

I think our leaders are paying very close attention and all is going according to plan.

 

[Mustang]

Some of you, ignorantly, are conflating class and caste.

Look up the terms, please, and read.

I pointed that out. I guess it didn't sink in.

 

[MikeK]

I still haven't heard any suggestions for a better system.

Unfortunately the corruption in government is so deeply imbedded it will take a revolution to rip it out. But the new rulers are tactful enough at their game to maintain sufficient balance in wealth and privilege distribution within the lower class that the spark of revolution remains too cool to start the necesary fire. There is at least one Tory for every four or five prospective revolutionaries. And a lot of those Tories participate right here in this forum.

Also, the Indefinite Detention bill presently being floored will, if passed, effectively eliminate Due Process and Habeas Corpus. And while Obama had promised to veto the bill he recently withdrew that promise. (I am now totally disgusted with that phony sonofabitch.)

The bill will enable the military to detain for an indefinite period, without formal charges or an arraignment hearing, anyone suspected of "terrorism," whatever that means. Based on what we've already seen it's not hard to foresee it being applied to something like publicly saying, "I'm fed up with this goddam government and I think we need to do something to change it!"

"Terrorism."

 

[Trajan]

That case is only one example of a systemic problem that pervades the entire criminal justice system.

Hell, I didn't even mention the fact that rich people can afford better legal counsel. After all, do you think O J Simpson would have gotten away with murder in the 90's without his 'dream team'?

I am sorry for this news to you but this has been the case since...well, mankind got 'organized'. Who wrote "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," and when did he write it?

justice is sometimes a matter of simply, what you can afford. It has always been so.

I think you're missing the entire point. The founding fathers understood that there would be inequality. And as is often said, they weren't trying to make everyone equal. However, they DID strive to make everyone equal under the law.

they also understood that equal opportunity was paramount, and, equal outcome would not and should not ever be assured.

The purpose of this thread is two-fold.

First, it's to dismiss the orchestrated idea that the wealthy in this country are somehow 'victims' of class warfare when talk is floated of raising their taxes to help tackle the deficit and debt at the very same time that massive cuts are on the horizon to tackle the same deficit and debt.

Secondly, it's to show that the REAL class warfare that exists in this country in the criminal justice system actually works in FAVOR of the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Our country is supposed to be a nation of laws and not men, right? Then why is it that our political and financial elites get pardons for their crimes or their crimes aren't even investigated when a country like France doesn't have a problem putting THEIR former president on trial for corruption?

If our collective ideals are to have any real meaning at all, then we have to practice what we preach to others, and it's clear that we as a nation are not doing that.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, I think everyone believed (or at least hoped) that Nixon's pardon was a one time exception. Unfortunately, all it seemed to do is set a precedent for future pardons.

What is ALSO unfortunate, is that while our justice system has become ever more lenient toward the rich and powerful, it's has also become increasingly merciless to the poor and the middle class because as I noted in the OP, the US has 12.5 times as many people in prison today as we had in prison 40 years ago. And our population hasn't increased by over a factor of 10 in the last two generations.

you can do a lot with numbers as presented the way you did. You are assuming that becasue there is more people in jail now, than there was 40 years ago it is due to some mass scale of injustice.


can you relate to me how that is, exactly?

That is the state of class warfare in our society. The rich aren't victims; they're beneficiaries in every sense of the definition.

when a person makes an issue of the earning power and riches of another, absent particular crimes used to amass such, in a society that is upwardly mobile that provides the same playing field for all, what is it then?


Who is stopping others from becoming the beneficiary of same?

 

[Mustang]

I am sorry for this news to you but this has been the case since...well, mankind got 'organized'. Who wrote "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," and when did he write it?

justice is sometimes a matter of simply, what you can afford. It has always been so.

they also understood that equal opportunity was paramount, and, equal outcome would not and should not ever be assured.






you can do a lot with numbers as presented the way you did. You are assuming that becasue there is more people in jail now, than there was 40 years ago it is due to some mass scale of injustice.


can you relate to me how that is, exactly?

That is the state of class warfare in our society. The rich aren't victims; they're beneficiaries in every sense of the definition.

when a person makes an issue of the earning power and riches of another, absent particular crimes used to amass such, in a society that is upwardly mobile that provides the same playing field for all, what is it then?


Who is stopping others from becoming the beneficiary of same?

Do you know the great thing about numbers. They don't lie. However, it's the interpretation of the numbers that matters. If crime had gone up by 1,250% in 40 years, that could account for the higher prison numbers. And if the population of the US had risen by the same percentage, that would also explain the increase in the number of people in prision. Neithe of those things is true. And no combination of a higher population and an increase of the crime rate can account for those numbers. So, it's something else, isn't it?

Perhaps you would care to offer an alternate theory.

 

[georgephillip]

Poor people like you become rich by sucking every rich dick that swings into range, Rover.

No, they become rich by consistently others value. Often the value is created by hard work, sometimes by clever inventions, others by service.

This is the country where a college dropout from a middle class home became the richest man in the world. (Bill Gates)

Capitalism concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands with each passing generation while throwing the table scraps to useful idiots like you.

Ignorant statements by ignorant fools.

What stupidity you spread.

What slavery you spread.

Capitalism turns everything into commodities including food, shelter, education and the environment, and,eventually, human beings themselves. Anything can be commodified including human rights in your authoritarian sphere.

The same country where a Harvard dropout can become the richest man in the world (except for Carlos Slim) is the one where the richest 26,783 citizens donated an average of $28,913 in the 2010 election cycle; the same country where the median individual income in 2010 was $26,364.

What does that tell you about capitalism's commitment to political equality?

That it's significantly less than Hank Paulson's commitment to money laundering?

The Political One Percent of the One Percent - Sunlight Foundation

 

[Flopper]

they also understood that equal opportunity was paramount, and, equal outcome would not and should not ever be assured.






you can do a lot with numbers as presented the way you did. You are assuming that becasue there is more people in jail now, than there was 40 years ago it is due to some mass scale of injustice.


can you relate to me how that is, exactly?






when a person makes an issue of the earning power and riches of another, absent particular crimes used to amass such, in a society that is upwardly mobile that provides the same playing field for all, what is it then?


Who is stopping others from becoming the beneficiary of same?

Do you know the great thing about numbers. They don't lie. However, it's the interpretation of the numbers that matters. If crime had gone up by 1,250% in 40 years, that could account for the higher prison numbers. And if the population of the US had risen by the same percentage, that would also explain the increase in the number of people in prision. Neithe of those things is true. And no combination of a higher population and an increase of the crime rate can account for those numbers. So, it's something else, isn't it?

Perhaps you would care to offer an alternate theory.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a criminal act is committed and no one reports it, was a crime committed? We do a lot better job today of detecting crime and apprehending criminals. I think this is often overlooked. We assume that crime is so much worst today than in the past and thus we assume there must be a cause. If you make adjustments for population growth, I think there were probably just as many serial killers a hundred years ago as today. Police science and communications was just not good enough then to connect the dots. I think most child abuse and sex crimes were not reported. We are so quick to assume that man is becoming more inhumane. I think the opposite is true.

 

[georgephillip]

No it doesn't you buffoon. Capitalism is the only system that allows poor people like me to become wealthy without breaking laws or murdering people. You're just a lazy asshole who thinks the world owes you something for breathing.

We don't. You OWE us for being a lazy fool.

Poor people like you become rich by sucking every rich dick that swings into range, Rover.

Capitalism concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands with each passing generation while throwing the table scraps to useful idiots like you.

Only because lazy pricks like you allow it to happen buckwheat. You sit back and take your assistance checks and swill your beer while lazing around on the porch whining about "the man". Then when the next Dem shows up promising to give you an extra 25 cents to suck his cock and vote for him you trot down to the voting booth like a good little slave and elect another massa who'll treat you like a good boy!

YOU are the problem with capitalism fool. You are.

Except...

I don't receive an assistance check.
I don't drink beer.
And I haven't been lazy enough to vote for a Democrat OR Republican in decades.

You're riding a dead horse here, Rockefeller.
Capitalism is a global fraud masquerading as faith. Just ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, when shortly after contributing to the greatest transfer of private debt into public debt in history, Blankfein told his victims he was "doing God's work" by keeping the gears of the financial system turning.

Are you slave enough to believe in religion?

 

[westwall]

Poor people like you become rich by sucking every rich dick that swings into range, Rover.

Capitalism concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands with each passing generation while throwing the table scraps to useful idiots like you.

Only because lazy pricks like you allow it to happen buckwheat. You sit back and take your assistance checks and swill your beer while lazing around on the porch whining about "the man". Then when the next Dem shows up promising to give you an extra 25 cents to suck his cock and vote for him you trot down to the voting booth like a good little slave and elect another massa who'll treat you like a good boy!

YOU are the problem with capitalism fool. You are.

Except...

I don't receive an assistance check.
I don't drink beer.
And I haven't been lazy enough to vote for a Democrat OR Republican in decades.

You're riding a dead horse here, Rockefeller.
Capitalism is a global fraud masquerading as faith. Just ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, when shortly after contributing to the greatest transfer of private debt into public debt in history, Blankfein told his victims he was "doing God's work" by keeping the gears of the financial system turning.

Are you slave enough to believe in religion?

Nope, and i believe that Goldman Sachs' upper managers need to be put up against the wall. But that doesn't negate the advantages that capitalism bestows upon those who choose to work hard. The problem with your little socialist utopia is it can't ever work because people are lazy. When laziness becomes systemic the country fails. Terror will keep the slaves putting out for awhile but eventually they become numb to it.

Just look at that socialist utopia the USSR. They failed and had to embrace capitalism to survive. If you were smart you'd read up on that.

 

[rdean]

Come on. It was a "Job Creator" (play heavenly music here).

 

[georgephillip]

Only because lazy pricks like you allow it to happen buckwheat. You sit back and take your assistance checks and swill your beer while lazing around on the porch whining about "the man". Then when the next Dem shows up promising to give you an extra 25 cents to suck his cock and vote for him you trot down to the voting booth like a good little slave and elect another massa who'll treat you like a good boy!

YOU are the problem with capitalism fool. You are.

Except...

I don't receive an assistance check.
I don't drink beer.
And I haven't been lazy enough to vote for a Democrat OR Republican in decades.

You're riding a dead horse here, Rockefeller.
Capitalism is a global fraud masquerading as faith. Just ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, when shortly after contributing to the greatest transfer of private debt into public debt in history, Blankfein told his victims he was "doing God's work" by keeping the gears of the financial system turning.

Are you slave enough to believe in religion?

Nope, and i believe that Goldman Sachs' upper managers need to be put up against the wall. But that doesn't negate the advantages that capitalism bestows upon those who choose to work hard. The problem with your little socialist utopia is it can't ever work because people are lazy. When laziness becomes systemic the country fails. Terror will keep the slaves putting out for awhile but eventually they become numb to it.

Just look at that socialist utopia the USSR. They failed and had to embrace capitalism to survive. If you were smart you'd read up on that.

I'm not an authority on socialism, but it's my understanding it was viciously suppressed first by Lenin and Trotsky and later by Stalin in the Soviet Union:

Noam Chomsky is where I got that idea:

"A historian sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, E.H. Carr, writes that 'the spontaneous inclination of the workers to organize factory committees and to intervene in the management of the factories was inevitably encourage by a revolution with led the workers to believe that the productive machinery of the country belonged to them and could be operated by them at their own discretion and to their own advantage" (my emphasis).

"For the workers, as one anarchist delegate said, 'The Factory committees were cells of the future... They, not the State, should now administer...'"

The Soviet Union Versus Socialism, by Noam Chomsky

When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917 the Russian people were starving.
Wall Street capitalists offered boat loads of food which Lenin accepted.
One of the capitalist benefactors, Armand Hammer, received several lucrative concessions.
Another got 500,000 acres of prime Siberian timber.

Socialism may or may not work, but, so far, it hasn't even been tried in a pure form.
If it ever happens in this country, every time you get a tax bill you will also receive a ballot instructing the government where you want your tax dollars spent.

 

[Flopper]

Only because lazy pricks like you allow it to happen buckwheat. You sit back and take your assistance checks and swill your beer while lazing around on the porch whining about "the man". Then when the next Dem shows up promising to give you an extra 25 cents to suck his cock and vote for him you trot down to the voting booth like a good little slave and elect another massa who'll treat you like a good boy!

YOU are the problem with capitalism fool. You are.

Except...

I don't receive an assistance check.
I don't drink beer.
And I haven't been lazy enough to vote for a Democrat OR Republican in decades.

You're riding a dead horse here, Rockefeller.
Capitalism is a global fraud masquerading as faith. Just ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, when shortly after contributing to the greatest transfer of private debt into public debt in history, Blankfein told his victims he was "doing God's work" by keeping the gears of the financial system turning.

Are you slave enough to believe in religion?

Nope, and i believe that Goldman Sachs' upper managers need to be put up against the wall. But that doesn't negate the advantages that capitalism bestows upon those who choose to work hard. The problem with your little socialist utopia is it can't ever work because people are lazy. When laziness becomes systemic the country fails. Terror will keep the slaves putting out for awhile but eventually they become numb to it.

Just look at that socialist utopia the USSR. They failed and had to embrace capitalism to survive. If you were smart you'd read up on that.

There are a lot of reasons for the failure of the USSR. At the top of the list has to be tight government control of production and distribution of goods and services. However, going to other end of the economic scale, unfettered capitalism is also doomed to failure. We have see the disastrous results in countries such Haiti and other 3rd world countries. With American style regulated capitalism we benefit from social services yet still providing the financial incentive to excel.

 

[westwall]

Except...

I don't receive an assistance check.
I don't drink beer.
And I haven't been lazy enough to vote for a Democrat OR Republican in decades.

You're riding a dead horse here, Rockefeller.
Capitalism is a global fraud masquerading as faith. Just ask Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, when shortly after contributing to the greatest transfer of private debt into public debt in history, Blankfein told his victims he was "doing God's work" by keeping the gears of the financial system turning.

Are you slave enough to believe in religion?

Nope, and i believe that Goldman Sachs' upper managers need to be put up against the wall. But that doesn't negate the advantages that capitalism bestows upon those who choose to work hard. The problem with your little socialist utopia is it can't ever work because people are lazy. When laziness becomes systemic the country fails. Terror will keep the slaves putting out for awhile but eventually they become numb to it.

Just look at that socialist utopia the USSR. They failed and had to embrace capitalism to survive. If you were smart you'd read up on that.

There are a lot of reasons for the failure of the USSR. At the top of the list has to be tight government control of production and distribution of goods and services. However, going to other end of the economic scale, unfettered capitalism is also doomed to failure. We have see the disastrous results in countries such Haiti and other 3rd world countries. With American style regulated capitalism we benefit from social services yet still providing the financial incentive to excel.

Here we are in agreement. I believe government should be just large enough to do its job. When it gets too large is when corruption begins to become systemic. The USSR had a massive bureaucracy, corruption was everywhere, and there was no motivation to do well because if you did you got sent to the Gulag by overlords who were incompetent.

The US is heading down that road now, and I do agree unfettered capitalism is just as doomed to fail as socialism. Laws need to be enacted that severly punish any who game the system for personal gain. Politicians and capitalists alike. We have not enjoyed a free market in over a hundred years and that needs to stop.

 

[Toro]

I hope the cyclist gets rich.

Personally, as the injured, I would rather settle this in civil court than in criminal court.

I'd ask for $20 million but $5 million would do.

 

[JoeB131]

To the OP, there's always been a different law for the rich and always will be. It's wrong. This guy should have went to jail.

But in your meandering rant, you denounce the fact no one responsible for the 2008 meltdown went to jail, but whose fault is that? Who is in charge of the DoJ right now?

Hell, George W. Bush felt the need to put Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling on trial for the Enron Fiasco. Why hasn't Obama, champion on the little guy, put a one of these folks in prison?

 

[JoeB131]

I hope the cyclist gets rich.

Personally, as the injured, I would rather settle this in civil court than in criminal court.

I'd ask for $20 million but $5 million would do.

Yeah, because it wouldn't occur to a rich asshole like that to simply crush a little guy.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I still haven't heard any suggestions for a better system.

Unfortunately the corruption in government is so deeply imbedded it will take a revolution to rip it out. But the new rulers are tactful enough at their game to maintain sufficient balance in wealth and privilege distribution within the lower class that the spark of revolution remains too cool to start the necesary fire. There is at least one Tory for every four or five prospective revolutionaries. And a lot of those Tories participate right here in this forum.

Also, the Indefinite Detention bill presently being floored will, if passed, effectively eliminate Due Process and Habeas Corpus. And while Obama had promised to veto the bill he recently withdrew that promise. (I am now totally disgusted with that phony sonofabitch.)

The bill will enable the military to detain for an indefinite period, without formal charges or an arraignment hearing, anyone suspected of "terrorism," whatever that means. Based on what we've already seen it's not hard to foresee it being applied to something like publicly saying, "I'm fed up with this goddam government and I think we need to do something to change it!"

"Terrorism."

Well, we can certainly guess what is not considered "terrorism" by this administration:
Obama Regime Calls Ft. Hood Shooting 'Workplace Violence' - Ft. Hood Shooting - Fox Nation

 

[Two Thumbs]

Pols get to walk all the time.

krist just look at the record of anyone in Congress.

I'd bet at least 75 percent should be in jail.

As wrong as this is, please recall, Kennedy killed a woman and obama executed a citizen w/o a trial.

And no one said or will say shit about it.

 

[sfcalifornia]

Regarding the comment: "Rape the Rich" from the mindless left.

Let me see if I understand your point of view. Wealth and power are in fact concentrated to a decreasing number of people;

Not really.

The the population in the top 1%, 5% and 10% of income earners has stayed pretty static relative to total population since 1990.



Yes, I oppose corruption. I have no issue with wealth. The more wealth created, the better. I support wealth and oppose corruption.

I'm the opposite of the democrats, I suppose, who oppose wealth and favor corruption.

HOWEVER, you find it inanely absurd (to the point that it is mindless) to think that the same wealth/power is not used to manipulate the law making process, tax code, or financial institutions. Is that accurate?

Again, the issue is one of corruption. Equal justice under the law is the foundation of this nation. We have lost that, we have distinctly different laws for the well connected than we do for the common people.

Wealth and power often go hand in hand, in the case of the Clintons, the wealth is a by-product of political power. It is the connections that pervert the law though, not the wealth.

Simply put, I believe that Barack Obama should be held to the same law that Tyrone Jackson in San Bernardino is - and I don't think you can argue that he is.

I take offense when you call people mindless who would take your very logic, and say "Has all wealth and power in this country been earned by the people who wield it." The answer is no. People love the Bill Gates of this country and have no problem with them. Coincidentally, most wealthy people who earn their wealth (like him) claim that they don't carry the public burden on a fair level. The point of those "mindless" people you accuse, is that much of that wealth and power has been accumulated through corruption and exploitation. Two concepts that led our country to rebel in the first place (see taxation without representation). The same thing is happening now on a more convoluted level with lobbyists (powerful) writing our laws and tax code.

Your logic is somewhat confusing to me is all I'm saying. I don't think Americans HATE rich. They just don't like being lied to, cheated, deceived, and exploited. In the very same way that takes place in our justice system.

Who wouldn't want to be rich beyond their wildest dreams? The conservative misconception is that liberals hate money. It's not the money liberals hate.... it's the devious means in which some of the rich people obtain their wealth.

 

[FA_Q2]

they also understood that equal opportunity was paramount, and, equal outcome would not and should not ever be assured.






you can do a lot with numbers as presented the way you did. You are assuming that becasue there is more people in jail now, than there was 40 years ago it is due to some mass scale of injustice.


can you relate to me how that is, exactly?






when a person makes an issue of the earning power and riches of another, absent particular crimes used to amass such, in a society that is upwardly mobile that provides the same playing field for all, what is it then?


Who is stopping others from becoming the beneficiary of same?

Do you know the great thing about numbers. They don't lie. However, it's the interpretation of the numbers that matters. If crime had gone up by 1,250% in 40 years, that could account for the higher prison numbers. And if the population of the US had risen by the same percentage, that would also explain the increase in the number of people in prision. Neithe of those things is true. And no combination of a higher population and an increase of the crime rate can account for those numbers. So, it's something else, isn't it?

Perhaps you would care to offer an alternate theory.

That's easy - the asinine war on drugs. A HUGE section of that prison populous was put there on drug charges. A crime that is essentially hurting no one but yourself.