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You're less likely to get caught lying in so short a time, Kend.
Do you have publicly financed election campaigns? That's what we need here. That would reduce a lot of corruption in the government.
Kend, you want drunks with guns on their hips?
Just giving you the raspberries.
The correct definition of a word is the current definition. Language is a living thing, people don't talk the way dictionaries are written, dictionaries are written according to the way people talk. The current definition of "capitalism" is what Thom would concede to be "free enterprise". Thom has a very narrow, very specific definition of capitalism known, apparently, only to himself - and therefore completely irrelevant.
This quibbling over semantics is just a waste of time. You gotta, in order to have a discussion, agree on what terms mean. If he says "capitalism" only applies only to the relatively passive economic activity of investors then fine. We just have to find another word for what the rest of the world calls "capitalism" and move on with the discussion.
SHFabian -- Why do not think it will happen this time?
Loren -- Does anyone confront Sen Cantwell with the question of how many more jobs there would be if all those products they are importing were made in the state of Washington? It sounds like the dockworkers, like Walmart workers, are accelerating the race to the bottom.
Fabian, I'm puzzled by the closing sentence of your last post: "The important thing is to keep (what's left of) the middle class from paying any attention to the consequences of these policies (primarily, poverty)." From paying attention to the consequences... is that really what you intended to say? Or are you speaking from Reagan's point of view? If you're not referring to Reagan's agenda, please enlighten me as to how the middle class is better off ignoring the consequences of these abusive policies; policies whose architects they were dumb enough to vote for. - Aliceinwonderland
The measure in question is so new it has yet to be assigned a bill number. Here is the official summary (http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/chairman/release/?id=7cd1c188-87f...) and here is the full text (http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/TPA%20bill%20text.pdf). Until it is numbered, the proposal is known as "TPA-2014."
Membership of the Senate Finance Committee is here: http://www.finance.senate.gov/about/membership/, 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans. The fact the measure is passing out of committee means a majority on the committee supports it, but I was unable to find a record of the committee vote.
An opponent -- or at least an opponent last year -- was Sen. Sherrod Brown, but unless memory fails me he was the lone voice of reason on the entire committee.
I know one of the anti-Working Class Democrat senators is Washington state's Maria Cantwell, whose rationale is the state benefits enormously from free trade. (This is a partial truth -- but only to the extent the related jobs, mostly in shipping, are unionized. By contrast, non-union workers at Seattle-Tacoma [Sea-Tac] International Airport are amongst the worst paid people in the state.) Like her senatorial partner Patty Murray, Cantwell is a Barack-the-Betrayer-type Democrat who orates like a progressive or a semi-progressive when in Washington state, then votes like a fascist in Washington D.C., TPA-2014 being a case in point.
Meanwhile free trade has abolished hundreds of thousands of living-wage jobs in the state -- the real numbers are virtually impossible to obtain -- which in turn has forced all these displaced workers into low-income, often minimum-wage jobs. (Yes Washington state has the highest U.S. minimum wage, but its $9.32 an hour is not a living wage, especially in Seattle, which has one of the nation's highest living costs. Hence the success of Kshama Sawant and the Socialist Alternative Party with its demand for a $15 minimum wage.)
Hope this helps everybody: best I can do on short notice, especially with it Friday night and all my former D.C. sources either dead or retired.
DAnne we also don't have fixed election dates so they are called and about 75 days it's over so less time for corruption. I don't know how you can stand them tell lie after lie for a year before the election.
Democrats have neither bowed down nor caved. They have been 100% complicit. Democrats have passed more right-wing legislation than Republicans. It took Bill Clinton to wipe out the Great Society branch of the New Deal, and with rare exception, our re-defined liberals applauded, raising the banner for the bourgeousie alone (note: This is right-wing ideology, not left). Clinton still found enough time to begin dismantling Social Security, targeting the disabled (note: We pay into Social Security retirement AND disability.), which lib media virtually ignored. And Big Bill gave us NAFTA, which (in a nut shell) essentially uses our tax dollars to cover the costs of shipping out our jobs. Throughout, liberal media has successfully, subtly, worked to divide the poor and middle class, the "masses," leaving the facts about US poverty out of the media. Since Reagan, we have redistributed several trillion taxpayer dollars to the top, always with the lie that it is "vital to job creation." (Results: We now have a fraction of the jobs, at worsening wages.) Today, Democrats want to slash meager food stamp aid to the elderly, disabled and poor. The middle class is fine with that, no problem. Now, this is a very important point for reasons that maybe only history buffs understand. This isn't the first time in our history when the richest few took control of the US, to the great harm of the country. Each time in the past, the poor and middle class ultimately united to push back, to everyone's benefit. That can't happen this time. There's nothing we can do about it now.
Kend ~ I have no problem with no term limits... As long as we have vigorous Campaign Finance Reform and Move to Amend on the books first... Sounds like a great idea!
It was the Clinton Democrats, not the Republicans, who threw the poor off the cliff, making it cool to ignore real poverty in the US. It is lib Democrats who essentially hijacked Occupy and all it represents, turning it into a panderfest to the bourgeoisie (so the rest of us walked away, and Occupy died). The media marketed to libs have vigorously waved the Middle Class Only banner, standing in solidarity with all those whose incomes are over the $35k-$40k range. This is precisely what has kept this country locked into our downhill slide, steadily deteriorating. The middle class has embraced a range of poilitics and policies that have been phasing out the middle class entirely. Our years of anti-poor ideology and policies have taken a heavy toll on the country as well. The US was rated at #1 in overall quality of life when Reagan first took office. By the time that President Obama was elected, the overall quality of life had fallen to #20 -- as a direct result of our socioeconomic policies. We've been in similar economic messes before (Great Depression, etc.). Each time, the poor and middle class ultimately united to push back, to everyone's benefit. That won't happen this time.
I only point out that it is serf not surf because surfing here in California is a positive thing.
DAM -- Thanks for the editing. I ran into all kinds of problems going from Excel to Word, then table to text.
Interesting that Dem presidents always seem to go a little right in there second term. in Canada we have no term limits so our politications don't change as much. I wonder if would be different if you didn't have term limits.
Chuckle I am not sure that ACA is a good thing yet. time will tell though. I agree with Thom. He mentioned once that he still thinks America is going to end up with a Canadian style state by state single payer system. Like Romney started.
Based on everything I've seen over the past 40 yrs or so, yes, people will forget all about it by 2016.
It really depends on how many of his former employees end up in the Hudson River wearing cement boots.
There has been opposition, but I think we've reached the point where the poor and middle class are so deeply divided, pitted against each other, that we lose track of the policies and the politics chosen on our behalf. Consider how Democrats and much of the media marketed to libs have been promoting H. Clinton to run for president, and contrinue to adore Bill Clinton -- powerful anti-New Deal/Great Society supporters of NAFTA. Put "bold progressive" stickers on the lapels of any "free trade" pols, and they'll be heros to much of the middle class -- a middle class that has consistently voted for the agenda that is phasing out the middle class. In the 1980s, the Reagan Republicans set out to "dumb-down America," and it looks like they succeeded. The important thing is to keep (what's left of) the middle class from paying any attention to the consequences of these policies (primarily, poverty).
Johnnie D, I so appreciate your sentiments. I can't even find words that will do justice to the depth of my anger towards Obomba, over his attempts to fast-track the TPP. Ditto his endorsement of indefinite detention without trial, and murder-by-drone. Constitutional scholar my ass. Obomba hasn't upheld or protected jack shit, constitutionally speaking. His presidency has been a disaster. We The People are being raped, en masse. Been that way since the reign of that senile actor. - AIW
Does anyone know the names of the Democratic Senators involved in this bipartisan group in favor of fast-tracking more wealth to those who don't need it? I only know of Baucus. You may ask why does it matter?
I'm quite sure if voters in my district knew the content of the Ryan Budget Plans and the fact that our Tea Party House Rep. Thom Reed has voted yes on them, it would be the end of his government gravy train ride. With that logic in mind, the TPP is every bit as heinous as Ryan's fantasies. So let's expose the names and deeds of these deadbeats and replace them with third party candidates such as Kshama Sawats....as sandlewould suggests. But as sandlewould also pointed out, we need progressive voices like Thom's to overcome the corpse media and another equally hideous road block on repeal of free trade known as the Chamber of Fascist Commerce.
The funny thing about Obama's involvement in all of this, not only will the Teapublican Party still despise him, even after signing such an anti-labor law, which they love, most of his base will too.....what the hell?
As a side note, back in 2010, Democrats lead by House member Gene Taylor pushed legislation to repeal NAFTA.....the Chamber of Republican Fascists beat it down.
So I say, expose the enemy of the working people by name and replace them with Democratic Socialists.
Like Loren Bliss says, "we still gotta try."
Says Sandlewould: "I would submit that anyone who votes for or 'fast tracks' the TPP, including Obama, is committing treason." And I agree, absolutely. This thought has occurred to me too, more than once. However I've much stronger feelings about the killing of our sovereignty being an act of treason than the overthrow of the government. What we are getting from this government is taxation without representation. Under such circumstances, I question whether overthrowing it would fit that definition, since our president's support of the TPP (ditto many members of Congress) is treasonous by design. - Aliceinwonderland
Wow! Like that's what we need, another "NAFTA." Sheesh! When will they ever stop screwing over the American people? When will they stop turning America into another third world country of surfs, where there is no quality of work of product? I've put up with this crap for thirty three years now, and I'm just so sick and tired of it. Unbelievable! President Obama should know better.
No, the definition is not mine. I made sure to link to the source in the first word of that post for the exact reason that nobody may imagine that I'm just making up a definition to suit myself. I found that definition on dictionary.reference.com and I don't claim that it is "the" definition, but it is close enough to the common usage to be some lexicographers' best attempt at "the" definition. So I admit that it might not be exactly or absolutely right, but it's close enough that I find it wrong of Thom to insist (especially since he never cited his own source) that such definition is absolutely wrong. In fact, the caller's usage of capitalism and capitalist are among several correct definitions of those words. To borrow a phrase from Danforth Quayle, both are "valid lifestyle choices" and Thom merely prefers different definitions, which are also correct. His preference is not the only right usage of those words, a concept I know he understands and appreciates as it applies to other subjects, when he isn't being pedantic.
Between numerous interruptions, the caller did state what he believes capitalism is and why he is a capitalist, and the fact is that the caller was not wrong this time, Thom was.
So do I. But I think that confidently proclaiming things that are wrong is best left to Republicans and I just mean to help him stop doing that.
dbengtson ~ Very well said! I might add that we might add that sentiment in the letters and emails we send to our congressmen on the TPP. Thanks again!
chuckle8 ~ You mentioned Chrysler twice. Not that I'm complaining. I'm a Chrysler man from way back to 1949. Point well taken though.
Loren Bliss ~ "Obamanation of a treaty." You are truly one of the most gifted political critics I've ever had the pleasure to read. Thanks for that one. I think it might get repeated around here.
Reed. Young ~ I have to differ with you. I heard the same phone calls. By your own definition--that an advocate of capitalism is a capitalist--does not apply in this situation. To be a legitimate advocate of anything you have to know what it is you believe in. As Thom so eloquently demonstrated to everyone, these fervent "capitalists" confused the word "capitalism" with just about everything under the sun except for "capital." Not that this is anything new in this country. We have "conservatives" who don't have a clue what the word conservative means. We have "Christians" who don't have a clue what Christ taught. We have people screaming to "support our troops" who don't have a clue what the troops are fighting for. We have racists who don't have a clue as to why they hate other races. We have defenders of Democracy and Freedom who can neither define the words or recognize when those conditions no longer exist. We have defenders of the Constitution who are clueless as to what is written in it.
I believe that the term they use to describe believing in things that you don't understand is "superstition." Thom called it a religion; and, as such, he is right. Personally, I admire the fact that he points out to people every chance he gets how they are being mislead by the commercial media into believing all manor of superstitious nonsense that makes them more gullible and susceptible to the vast exploitation that they experience without even knowing they are victims. Kudos, Thom! Kudos! Becoming emotionally aroused over catch phrases without any understanding of what they mean is a technique as old as time that has been used to divide, subjugate, and control the masses. What we sorely need are more leaders and teachers like Thom to shed light on this public darkness.