ACORN

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Unfortunately, some clever charlatans saw this opportunity to take the lead, feed the frustration with piles of bullshit, and turn the TEA party into another political tool, without most of these good people even knowing they'd been had.

Name a half-dozen of these, nationally.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Larry Elder's latest column, on Obama with a side order of ACORN's philosophy at the top.

We have a Socialist for a President, Socialists among his most fervent supporters, Socialists among some of his unappointable attempts at appointments. It quacks like a duck -- and even Redux, Donkey Party hack extraordinaire, cannot wave it away except solely to his own satisfaction. The rest of us, possessed of the faculty of sight and reluctant to suffer any wool-pulling, know better.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Larry Elder's latest column, on Obama with a side order of ACORN's philosophy at the top.

We have a Socialist for a President, Socialists among his most fervent supporters, Socialists among some of his unappointable attempts at appointments. It quacks like a duck -- and even Redux, Donkey Party hack extraordinaire, cannot wave it away except solely to his own satisfaction. The rest of us, possessed of the faculty of sight and reluctant to suffer any wool-pulling, know better.

Well, if a conservative columnist at WND like Larry Elder says Obama is a socialist.....it must be so.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Name a half-dozen of these, nationally.

Astroturf organizations:
Washington insider/lobbyist/former Congressman Dick Armey and Freedom Works
Washington inside/lobbyist Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Prosperity
all of the above run by lobbyists with corporate interests at their very core have funded many Tea Party events

Those not funded by the above have been funded by the Koch Family Foundation - ultra libertarians with a free market agenda

Then of course you have Hannity and Beck and Fox News aggressively promoting the Tea Party not simply reporting on it

and of course....Sarah Palin

[TheMercenary]

When taxes are spread evenly across all earners the tax system will be fair.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Redux, inasmuch as Larry Elder knows more about economics than you do, and always writes thoughtfully and with reference to the real -- I'll take Larry over a hack like yourself any day of the week and four times on Sundays.

That's why I keep sneering at the things you write.

If you listened to him and such as him, why, you'd actually be educated. As it is, your ideology demands you never use a faculty for wisdom -- or the the friends you have in that circle would disown you.

Those not funded by the above have been funded by the Koch Family Foundation - ultra libertarians with a free market agenda

Since when is that a description of charlatanry? You're beyond belief, Redux: you don't want the way that works for human beings??? Fella, you don't want anything that's actually good for free, adult humans.

The Nazis and the Communist revolutionaries strongly resembled you in that. You're a parlor pink, blaring away on the Internet, which makes you marginally less dangerous than they. The Communists lost their fellow-travelers... eventually. Socialism has not yet lost you.

and of course....Sarah Palin

Ah yes, the fashionable boogiewoman for the Left this month. But no charlatan. In fact, frank enough to be refreshing. Your sort mooed and bellowed like cows under lightning when Reagan did the same thing -- and he did a hell of a lot more good than the whole herd of you. In the end, the mooing and bellowing classes don't do much, either towards good or towards evil. But they are certainly annoying to watch.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Redux, inasmuch as Larry Elder knows more about economics than you do, and always writes thoughtfully and with reference to the real -- I'll take Larry over a hack like yourself any day of the week and four times on Sundays.

That's why I keep sneering at the things you write.

If you listened to him and such as him, why, you'd actually be educated. As it is, your ideology demands you never use a faculty for wisdom -- or the the friends you have in that circle would disown you.

UG.

Tell me how a health care system in which 200 million are covered by the private sector is socialism.

Or how a progressive tax system similar to every other western democracy and that been in place in the US since the income tax was first initiated is all of a sudden socialism.

Or how a temporary short-term bank bailout that has be repaid for the most part is socialism.

Why wasnt Social Security and Medicare socialism under Reagan and the Bushes.

Or a national secuity policy that is not all that different from Bush's.

Since when is that a description of charlatanry? You're beyond belief, Redux: you don't want the way that works for human beings??? Fella, you don't want anything that's actually good for free, adult humans.

The Nazis and the Communist revolutionaries strongly resembled you in that. You're a parlor pink, blaring away on the Internet, which makes you marginally less dangerous than they. The Communists lost their fellow-travelers... eventually. Socialism has not yet lost you.

Tell me how the Dick Armey's Freedom Works or the Koch Family Foundation's Americans for Prosperity funding of the Tea Party is populism and not an intent to protect their own corporate interests?

You've been asto-turfed, dude. A smart guy like you? Shame on you.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Redux, dear boy, have you never understood it takes people to be corporate? It's what humans do. Apparently it's something you don't.

The "corporate interest" is essentially the human interest. Certain invidious sorts combine as a chorus of concealment on that point.

It doesn't work any too well.

Tell me how Federal ownership of 61% of GM isn't socialism, the ownership (in various guise) of the means of production by the State? How many of the European nations spent time under Socialism? There are damned few that didn't, you know... Liechtenstein. Andorra. Maybe Luxembourg?

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Redux, dear boy, have you never understood it takes people to be corporate? It's what humans do. Apparently it's something you don't.

The "corporate interest" is essentially the human interest. Certain invidious sorts combine as a chorus of concealment on that point.

It doesn't work any too well.

Tell me how Federal ownership of 61% of GM isn't socialism, the ownership (in various guise) of the means of production by the State? How many of the European nations spent time under Socialism? There are damned few that didn't, you know... Liechtenstein. Andorra. Maybe Luxembourg?

SO you cant explain how the essentially private health care system in the US...the payback (at a profit) by nearly every bailed out bank that received TARP funds....a tax system that hasnt change in the last year from what it has been for 90 years, are all examples of socialism?

Ah...so the corporate interest is always in the best interest of the people.

And if they abuse workers, pollute the environment, put questionable products on the market, sell dubious financial instruments.....its all in the best interest of the people.

Who needs govt regulation? How about the people!

BTW, govt regulation was not a creation of the Obama administration.

You essential have one issue of what some of the most narrow minded might consider socialism... the GM bailout.

And you know as well as I, the bail-out was not done in the name of the workers, but to prevent the collapse of the country's largest private employer....on a temporary basis and which is slowly being repaid.

Seriously, dude. Where is all this socialism you, Elder, Beck, Limbaugh and the Tea Baggers are always screaming about?

Damn...you ran away again.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The "corporate interest" is essentially the human interest. Certain invidious sorts combine as a chorus of concealment on that point.

Corporations are not human. They are 'fictitious persons'. They do not have families to care for, so they do not require good schools, affordable health care. They do not breathe, eat, or drink so they do not have to care about safe air, food, or water.

If the world became a toxic stew of chemicals, all that would be left would be cockroaches, Exxon, GM, BP and all the others. This would probably piss off the cockroaches.

Corporations can be 'programmed' to 'care', but in many cases the mantra of 'maximizing profits' means focusing on short term gains at the expense of long term issues like the environment, financial and political stability, etc.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The point that is escaping you gentlemen is that corporations consist only of humans, trying to work in concert to maintain and increase wealth, not only theirs but of others as well. With families, health care benefit plans, and retirements, and so on. With knowledge and deep consideration, you really can't part the corporate from the human. Such knowledge and consideration is the more lacking the farther Left you go.

This wealth-making is no dishonorable thing, save among the economically illiterate -- in which body I do not number myself, all right?

I wish you would stop mentally masturbating about me running away: I know more about socialism than you do, and I know how capital-S Socialism would come to the capitalist and libertarian United States. The only way it could survive would be to come by claiming to be something else. That is precisely the claim you are making, and the Administration as well. So you're a tool for liars and economic illiterates (this is necessary to become a socialist) and proponents of legalized thieving, aren't you? I know you cannot admit any of that, but this does not mean the libertarian capitalists can't see it, and we do.

Once we get the present passel of idiots voted out of Washington, we can relieve some of our worries. And prosper. Mr. Obama thinks and says we should, well, ration our prosperity. Whaaat? There's pure-quill Socialism, right there before your purblind eye, and you can't recognize it, Redux.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

..I wish you would stop mentally masturbating about me running away: I know more about socialism than you do, and I know how capital-S Socialism would come to the capitalist and libertarian United States.

Dude....the libertarian United States? What world (or what century) are you living in?

We havent had a political/economic system resembling a libertarian United States since the 19th century Guilded Age of monopolies, robber barons, and worker exploitation.

And, you still havent answered the question about how Obama's health care reform or bank bailouts (which btw was a Bush program and mostly repaid) or a progressive tax policy or govt regulation of the private sector are capital-S Socialism.

Or even how the GM bailout, in which the workers are not employees of the "state", was not done to benefit workers nor envisioned as a permanment govt holding, is capital-S Socialism.

And, I am still waiting for your explanation of how gun control legislation leads to genocide. You've been running away from that one for more than six months now.

[Undertoad]

You're wasting your time with UG. He's a colorful and sophisticated writer, but he's not a very strong reader. He has not been shown to digest and comprehend others' posts in order to have a conversation, much less a reasonable argument or debate. Your point of view is irrelevant to him; he feels he cannot learn from anyone and is only here to lecture. He's as closed a book as you'll find. And that's why his shit can safely be ignored. And that's what I recommend.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

You're wasting your time with UG. He's a colorful and sophisticated writer, but he's not a very strong reader...

I am of the belief that colorful and sophisticated writing should at least be acknowledged.

It is far more creative than simply snipping and pasting and flooding discussions by attempting to pass someone else's ideological writings off as factual.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I can comprehend reasonable arguments. That mostly means I can't really follow Redux's thinking, as I do not believe it to be honest, and only occasionally informed.

For an instance, he tells us progressive taxation is somehow not Socialist, capital S. There is no socialist economy that doesn't feature progressive taxation. Yet he blandly insists that this socialistic policy is somehow not socialist. Can't buy that one.

The Gilded Age, despite its many sins, was also quite the period of economic growth. Fretting about economic growth, being sure it must somehow be inherently bad, seems another mental bad habit of socialists, and it sure seems to have bothered Redux.

I am also certain that when I compose the case for gun control as a necessary precondition for genocide and hence intimately connected with it, that the case I make, regardless of when I make it, will persuade everyone. Everyone. Even Redux will have an epiphany. It's simply that good and that carefully examined. Oh, it's also put together by Redux's coreligionists; did he know that? He really should not try to line up sixteen different rationalizations and miserable excuses for not crediting it, for he cannot do this and maintain intellectual honesty. Disliking me is no excuse whatsoever. There are dead folks out there who got that way because guns were denied them -- while not to others. The nature and affiliations of those others become important to the matter.