Global Democratic Revolution

[Prince Planet]

Not to mention that losing one's job seems to be en vogue in the US right now

What are you referring to? Unemployment is currently hovering slightly above its historical average and has declined over the last 6 months, albeit very modestly.

[Almaci]

Bush talking about freedom and democracy would be a hoot if it wasnt so tragic.
This is a president who as a governor ordered the assasinations of children, mentally retarded and foreign nationals, and for the record I support the death penalty as a last resort for those who cannot be helped or where vengeance is warranted.
Who became president with less votes then his opponent.
Who continues to sideline democraticaly elected leaders and throws a hissy fit whenever democracy works against him.
Who doesnt care about democracy and global accountability if it doesnt serve his and his friends needs(Kyoto protocol, steel tarifs, letting the lumber industry take care of forest preservation, complete disregard for the UN etcetera).
He is the most unilateralist leader of a modern country I have ever witnessed.

While preaching freedom and democracy, he and his cabinet sideline his detractors and opponents, pass laws that stiffle free speach and make it an offense to talk about the lapses in security wich still exist to this day.

Bought and used by a quarter billion of special intrest money that went to his 2000 campaign and it looks like more will be coming for his re election campaign.
You honestly think those corporations do that simply becouse they support his policies?

Nice example, MS is under investigation and found guilty, MS gives Bush campaign a couple of million, Bush gets elected apoints Ashcroft and one of the first things Ashcroft does is drop restrictions that were to be placed on MS and drop the planned request for hunderds of millions of dollars from MS as reparations and fines for their bussuines practices.

Oh BTW is Ken Lay in prison yet?

[Prince Planet]

and for the record I support the death penalty as a last resort for those who cannot be helped or where vengeance is warranted.

Of course. You're still a Turk at heart.

[PaCrappa]

I wish I was as motivated as Almaci when it came to trying to talk sense into a bunch of wet behind the ears dipsticks who learned everything they know in a classroom(that their parents paid for) or from mass media.

Almaci, you sir, are the man and I mean it. If I get over to Europe any time soon I want to look you up. I have a hugely politically active friend in Luxembourg and I imagine that you and he would have plenty to talk about. Please keep fighting the good fight. You are a marvel of patience and understanding.

This is the only political post I can express on Armistice Day.

Sincerely,
Pa

[Tracer]

Not to mention that losing one's job seems to be en vogue in the US right now

The government to should do like FDR and take that 87 Billion and fund (large) interior construction projects. I for one would like to see a nation rail network not unlike the rail in Western Europe. Is it totally nessisary? No, but just like the Hoover Dam provides alot of electrisity, this would be a huge conservation effort, not to mention it would provide jobs, albeit hard ones, it's still work. Heck, so large a project means you could probably loosen the immigration from Mexico. The influx of working people and thier families would creat other jobs to sustain them. I would take that kind of work since I can't really make ends right now.

[Almaci]

I wish I was as motivated as Almaci when it came to trying to talk sense into a bunch of wet behind the ears dipsticks who learned everything they know in a classroom(that their parents paid for) or from mass media.

Almaci, you sir, are the man and I mean it. If I get over to Europe any time soon I want to look you up. I have a hugely politically active friend in Luxembourg and I imagine that you and he would have plenty to talk about. Please keep fighting the good fight. You are a marvel of patience and understanding.

This is the only political post I can express on Armistice Day.

Sincerely,
Pa

Heh, feel free to drop by, that goes for all of ya no matter where you are on the political spectrum btw.
National holiday over here, thanks for the liberation thingy guys, I really mean that.

[Kenshin]

I for one would like to see a nation rail network not unlike the rail in Western Europe.

Bush would just say that bullet trains would make an easy target for terrorism, and individuals driving in cars are better for national security...

[Diff-chan]

Who became president with less votes then his opponent.

Why don't people get that this fact is irrelevant? The Electoral College is the system that we have in America. It's the system we have had since the beginning. The Electoral College does not give a fuck about who gets more votes. Let me say it again, capitalize it, and bold it: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO GETS MORE VOTES. And this is not something that was Bush made sure was the case so he would win, it is the way the election has been carried out since day one.

If *more votes* was all that mattered than states like California or New York would completely drown out a place like Wyoming. Wyoming has a population of 500,000 people. Who's gonna visit it if the Electoral College wasnt there?

The EC was designed as a compromise so that each state and areas with vastly differing attitudes and desires can be represented in government. If you really don't understand that, just please stop talking about it because it's a ridiculous statement to make and anybody who knows an ounce about the American government would know how stupid an argument that is to make against Bush.

And you know, Al Gore would've fucking became President if he won his goddamn HOME STATE of Tennessee. Who the fuck loses their home state? Just the idea of that is ridiculous to me. Even Mondale won his home state in 1984. The fact that people from Al Gore's own state, the state where he was raised, the state that he served, did not want him as President should tell you a lot about how vote worthy he was.

As for the Lumber Industry thing, you know that the lumber industry has a vested interest in preserving and re-growing tracts of forest right? If they cut all that shit down and sell it then they wouldn't have any more left to sell. Forests have grown in areas where they control the wood supply and quite frankly they have the potential for doing a much better job than the government can in terms of preservation and tree growth. Government spending is bad spending, at least compared to what can be done privately. This is a common, basic fact of economics. When the government is in control of the forests you get these huge diesel fires that are caused by improper maintenance and ultimately... lack of funds to fully tend to the forest.

The government to should do like FDR and take that 87 Billion and fund (large) interior construction projects. I for one would like to see a nation rail network not unlike the rail in Western Europe. Is it totally nessisary? No, but just like the Hoover Dam provides alot of electrisity, this would be a huge conservation effort, not to mention it would provide jobs, albeit hard ones, it's still work. Heck, so large a project means you could probably loosen the immigration from Mexico. The influx of working people and thier families would creat other jobs to sustain them. I would take that kind of work since I can't really make ends right now.

Except of course that FDR's improvement projects, lovely though they were, did not end the Great Depression. World War II did that. And didn't we have a nationwide rail system like... 150 years ago?

[Stone]

The government to should do like FDR and take that 87 Billion and fund (large) interior construction projects. I for one would like to see a nation rail network not unlike the rail in Western Europe. Is it totally nessisary? No, but just like the Hoover Dam provides alot of electrisity, this would be a huge conservation effort, not to mention it would provide jobs, albeit hard ones, it's still work. Heck, so large a project means you could probably loosen the immigration from Mexico. The influx of working people and thier families would creat other jobs to sustain them. I would take that kind of work since I can't really make ends right now.

Alright, this sort of stuff doesn't work. Saying it did, though, why go through the time and expense of creating a project, like a rail system, if we're simply looking to funnel tax dollars to people without jobs? That rail system requires paying architects, government planners, officials, the cost of developing a plan, the time - lots of additional expenses. We spend $35 billion dollars, and create 1 million $30k a year jobs.

Why don't we just use an economic instrument that already exists to funnel money? We could create an oversight comission that would join up with McDonalds, say. We pay McDonalds, which then pays people to stand around. The government foots the bill, and we're transmitting money to people with less overhead and less complexity. We give McDonalds $35,000. McDonalds turns around and hires a worker for $34,990/year.

Why just McDonalds, though? Not fair for McDonalds to be the one handling that money flow (and taking a reasonable cut, of course, a cut significantly less than what the government would have incurred had it run its own public works projects). How about we use McDonalds, WalMart, and Electronics Boutique, we pay three companies to create government jobs? Even fairer, right, a more even distribution.

But what about the small businesses? Can't we use them as instruments to redistribute tax dollars? We give "Mom and Pop's Liquor and Nachos" $35k a year, and they hire a sales clerk. Let's just give money to every business in the country, and we'll force them to spend the money on creating new jobs.

Alright, so we're giving money to every business in the nation and forcing them to create new jobs. But, wait, we're also collecting money from every business in the form of taxes. Instead of collecting money, and then giving it back later, why don't we just...collect less money?

Ahh, so, brilliant, we're collecting less money from businesses, they have more money, which means they can deal with it when we say "IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU NOT TO CREATE MORE JOBS WITH THIS MONEY WE'RE LETTING YOU KEEP." Money is staying in the economy, and going where we want it to go - it's becoming new jobs.

---here's the cognitive leap---

What if we don't force them to create jobs? What if we just hope that they'll take the money they have, and spend it. As they spend it, they buy more stuff, and since everyone (or just the business owners) are buying more stuff, everyone needs more stuff - more stuff than companies can currently produce.

How will we get out of this mess?

I guess companies will hire more people, to produce more stuff, so the people with more money (everyone) can buy the things they want. We've got more jobs, more money, less rules, and less money being lost to tax collectors, government oversight committees, government waste, and about 18 million other things.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH tax cuts am sexy.

[Almaci]

Railsystem, so did we, thing is ourse is still world class and up to new tech with bullet trains traveling at cruise speeds of 200 miles per houre and in many places no need to even own a car becouse the infrastructure is there to make it redundant.

Im more then familiar with the electoral college system and ive explained many times why its not a democratic system and why the US system is severly broken(as explained several times before the vote of a single Brooklyn jew or Florida cuban American is worth more then the vote of 2 million California republicans, its just one example of whats wrong and why power is screwed against the majority of people in the US)


As for the lumber industry, its like any other industry, short term profits are more important then long term goals, shareholders want to see profits TODAY, not in 80 years when they are long dead.
its why the fishing industry needs heavy regulation to stop overfishing.
Ill give another example of recent industry self regulation as evidence that it does not work.

Companies that test and grow geneticaly modified crops in the US are legaly forced to grow unmodified crops(of the same kind) around the modified ones to act as a buffer so in case the crops are found to have bad effects in the long run, these buffers are to insure the modified crops cant infect or crossbreed with other vegetation and spread that way, the unmodified crops that act as a buffer are after harvesting to be destroyed.

Even tough the law requires companies like Monsanto etcetera to do this the government has left it to the industry itself to make sure it happens and has apointed no one to control it.

A recent study unsurprisingly found that very few companies had the buffer zone as required by law.
the industry was trusted that they would follow up on law and regulate itself, it didnt work.

Oh and stone, youre a retard.
Public service jobs are designed to help everyone, a railsystem is something that the US NEEDS, the US economy still for a large part relies on the rail system, its been dilapitading tough and once it becomes beyond repair the effects will be felt troughout the US.
Taxes and public works should benefit the masses, what you are LOVING benefits the priviliged.