IWT: ... anyone who’s dealt with help lines in India have found the 4 out of 5 times the voice at the other end of the line

I never did understand why these call-centers were not manned from Indian reservations in the US and the business made tax-free. 

Instead of in India ...

Hey! Someone’s actually familiar with David Ricardo’s writings on comparative advantage versus actual advantage.

However, anyone who’s dealt with help lines in India have found the 4 out of 5 times the voice at the other end of the line:
a) Speaks English so atrociously it might as well be a foreign language.
b) The connection is usually so bad it makes ANY comprehension impossible.
c) The “support” person inevitably has no idea what the fuck they are doing or how to help you.
d) They see THEIR job as to get rid of you.

So…they are hired because they are cheap. And it has been a public relations disaster for the firms that use them.

No comparative advantage there.  Ricardo’s argument was that even when a nation wasn’t as a efficient at making something, like, say women’s shoes, as another nation, that OTHER nation made something SO efficiently, like jet planes, that it was cheaper to trade jet planes for women’s shoes than to have its own domestic industry.

THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Hulk: I believe my comment mentioned THE DECLARATION regarding human rights rather than the Constitution - the article talks about THE DECLARATION.

You are very right to bring up this point. Elenore Roosevelt was one of the sponsors of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For which the US voted its acceptance in 1948 and since has blithely “forgot” to implement into law. The Senate has repeatedly, since 1948, refused to implement certain articles of the Declaration. So Congress has done nothing. 

If one looks through this Declaration, one will find most of what is lacking in the American Constitution as well as Bill of Rights. (Though they both served as background for its writing and an American will find many articles invoke similar rights that they have.)

Which is why many fulminate when Americans think and say that their democracy is the “World’s Greatest”. Look at the above linked document and see the sad facts. The US is lacking in many articles as regards what it could and should be implemented as suggested by the Universal Declaration.

AN EXAMPLE

If one would like an interesting comparative analysis of the UN’s Universal Declaration and our Bill of Rights, one need only analyze both and see which is more wanting. 

For instance, read Article 23 of the UN Declaration:
 

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Is that really the case uniformly across the US?

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.</blockquote

Is the WalMart case not indicative of inherent discrimination in the Distribution Industry that may be widespread? American women in general have lower wages in the same job classes – just look at the Bureau of Labor Statistic data in the matter.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

Do American corporations not discriminate (when they attribute hallucinating compensation, bonuses and stock options to a comparatively select few) against both blue- and white-collar workers lower down in the hierarchy?

Meaning this: Why should “remuneration” include bonuses and stock-options for some but not for others? And if not, is this not discrimination?

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Is this the case in some states that try hard to forbid unionization in public services?

DAVID RICCARDO

{felicity: Assuming that you’re correct and we’re in, or headed for, a service directed work force, the same criteria used in determining wages would apply. }

Not all labor is alike in its “dislocatability”.

It is easy to dislocate some work to the Far East, whilst difficult to dislocate other work. Fortunately, services imply a highly “localized” labor-force - which gives the advantage to local labor.

The exception to this rule is telephone hot-lines that have you (in the US) talking to someone in India and me (in France) to someone in Morocco.

In terms of manufacturing, the result is a mixed bag of some production that is easily de-localized and other that is not. That which can be de-localized has been and that which remains will likely remain.

Our only recourse is to alleviate tax amortization schedules for high-tech product-line innovations that might bring some “nimble-finger” production back to the US. (Which is a policy-tactic that has been largely overlooked in the US.)

MY POINT

We are turning into a Services Industries nation because of David Riccardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage. For most services, world labor cannot compete with our indigenous variety.

But, as I have said: The services industry is one were the requisite competence is more a matter of brain-work than brawn-work. Which is, btw, why women compete so well in that industry.

Why shouldn’t the rank and file benefit from sharing net-after-tax profit? Who reserved them for management?

Why indeed, but actually we do, however indirectly.

Of course, unions never asked for a cut of the profit-pie, so they never got one.

Wages and benefits are directly tied to corporate profits are they not? Union contract negotiations are always tough struggles with the company claiming hardship and the union noting the profits paid to upper management in many guises.

A company not profitable cannot increase either wages or benefits, thus however indirectly, they are certainly tied to profits.

It would, of course, be nice if we lived in a socialist society wherein the workers owned the means of production directly, and I fervently hope my grandkids live to see such occur here.

What determines differences in wages is largely a matter of personal and class power.

Lafayette - I’ll have to think about ‘things’ and
‘services.’  Other than that, all labor is equal. 
What determines the differences in the wages of some
kinds of labor and other kinds depends on the dearth
(or plethora) of people qualified to perform the
labor.

Most people are capable of sweeping streets, thus the
lower pay.  Most people are not capable of brain
surgery, thus the higher pay.  Assuming that you’re
correct and we’re in, or headed for, a service
directed work force, the same criteria used in
determining wages would apply.

E.J.,
Would like to agree on nearly every point.  Also in the mix of considerations is a healthy dose of suspicion of centralized power.  The current case wouldn’t be made so much for a foriegn ruler.  Rather a corporate or financial cartel which is embedded in or has co opted our government.
The result of their handiwork misdeeds and illegalities is state and property taxes, fees, fines, penalties, and un-accountability have skyrocketed, leaving communities of ordinary working people feeling helpless, disenfranchised and over burdened…as well as swindled.

ITW: And the way to prevent all that is unions.  They keep corporations and churches honest. 

Agreed. Americans lost their faith in unions, figuring they were not worth the money. Quite wrong, that notion. They are necessary bargaining tools for all classes of blue- or white-collar workers. They can actually protect jobs, if employed properly.

I maintain nonetheless that bonuses and stock-options are not the Private Preserve of Upper Management - which just thinks they are.

Why shouldn’t the rank and file benefit from sharing net-after-tax profit? Who reserved them for management?

Of course, unions never asked for a cut of the profit-pie, so they never got one.

felicity: A supporting truth of successful capitalism is that we create wealth by making things.

This is a very common modern misconception. We need not “make things” to generate wealth. We can “perform services” as well. In fact, in our economy the value of services performed is much greater than the value of products made.

This is new to America - but we must get used to it. Our future is no not in brawn-work but brain-work - which also has a higher added-value, meaning, in general, better wages. (Unless of course one is flipping hamburgers at a fast-food outlet, which is accounted as a “service industry”)

Herr robot:

I believe my comment mentioned THE DECLARATION regarding human rights rather than the Constitution - the article talks about THE DECLARATION.  I will excuse your mixed metaphor….... although one could reasonably argue that the Constitution’s protection of rights to free assembly would apply. Not to mention various federal and state laws even in Wisconsin that theoretically protect the terms of a contract - which the governor illegally overrode outside the Wisconsin constitution rules and procedures.

So complain to Jefferson - he wrote it not I.

Lafayette, July 5 at 9:27 am Link to this comment

Nice drama. You should be writing weepy scenarios for Hollywood.
******************

Wouldn’t that be great? I’d take in a lot more dosh!  Just heard 2 screenwriters on NPR demonstrating how the plots of “Die Hard!” and “Night at The Museum” are essentially the same.  Then they showed that “Casablanca” and, “The Matrix” are exactly the same!  Hilarious and true!

*********
Just the facts, Ma’am. Either we reform our school system to graduate children with the necessary work credentials - or, yes, we continue down the road to serfdom.

It is a gross immoral shame on Uncle Sam that we allow so much of the wealth to accumulate upwards (by means of erroneous taxation), whilst down the class ladder at the bottom people are treated like Roadkill on the Highway of Life.
*******

And we’ll never get anywhere if we teach our children that Humans just appeared because God said “I shall make me a MAN!”, picked up a God-sized handful of clay and breathed life into it.  Or that dinosaurs existed with humans. Or that the earth is only 6000 years old.

And the way to prevent all that is unions.  They keep corporations and churches honest.  Look how both have EMBRACED corruption now that there’s no third non-government actor to say “Stop action like the selfish shitheads you are….or else!”

Lafayette - Besides the cost and availability of
labor affecting our economy, the fact that
corporations, a little more than 40 years ago had the
ability to and did modernize, innovate, produce and
compete, but are now investing their capital in
financial entities.  (The GM executive who said that
GM makes cars so it can make car loans was telling
the truth.)

A supporting truth of successful capitalism is that
we create wealth by making things.  A startling
example of how far away corporations have strayed
from that truth is that large corporations for years
have been buying new and innovative technology not to
put it to use, but to bury it.

What the Declaration of Independence really said was “we the merchants and property owners of the American colonies want to be treated as full British citizens, with a right to represent ourselves in Parliament. Since Da King sees us as only employees, with no collective bargaining rights, canon fodder for the French and Indians, we say to you: F… Off.  We claim squatter’s rights, so kick us out if you can.”  Franklin and Jefferson essentially expressed these sentiments in the language of the Age of Enlightenment, but it meant the same thing.

Since then, with the passage of time, the US of A adopted a Constitution with amendments that, subject to future interpretations, said property rights do not take precedent over the rights of the individual.  Over the decades and scores, the general population saw the Declaration of Independence as a good thing, as applying to all of us, rich, poor, landed, un-landed.  In point of fact, our Revolution really wasn’t.  It was a revolt of a politically marginalized upper middle class who couldn’t take it anymore. So they killed the idea of a King for a life time, substituting the election of a king every 4 years.  I wonder when the current segment of our citizenry who see themselves as mainstream America, the Middle class, will begin to realize that history is repeating itself.

Sabagio Mauraeno

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM

ITW: Yeah, throw those lazy union guys out of work and get some cheap Chinese and Mexican workers to labor in unsafe conditions, exploiting children and letting people die at a young age the way they did in the 19th and 18th centuries!

Nice drama. You should be writing weepy scenarios for Hollywood.

Just the facts, Ma’am. Either we reform our school system to graduate children with the necessary work credentials - or, yes, we continue down the road to serfdom.

And, as we are perpetually discussing on this forum, we reform key Public Services to give Jack ‘n Jill America - at the very least - a decent national health care and education for their kids.

POST SCRIPTUM

It is a gross immoral shame on Uncle Sam that we allow so much of the wealth to accumulate upwards (by means of erroneous taxation), whilst down the class ladder at the bottom people are treated like Roadkill on the Highway of Life.

Both cases of course were anti-Democratic.  It’s very telling that an article that pretends the British didn’t have an elected parliament somehow thinks that the secretive coup that led to the present constitution—not one of the people who framed the constitution was elected to do so—or the military victory AGAINST the elected government of the Confederacy somehow represent forces of Democracy?

quote:
“The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation to create a stronger federal government, not a weak confederate government. Perry’s view was rejected in 1787, and again in 1865.”

Why do Americans simply lack the capacity to comprehend that in the 1770s Britain had an elected parliament headed by a prime minister?  It’s like the stupidity and ignorance is programed into their DNA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom

quote:
“their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy.”

Yeah, throw those lazy union guys out of work and get some cheap Chinese and Mexican workers to labor in unsafe conditions, exploiting children and letting people die at a young age the way they did in the 19th and 18th centuries!

That’s GREAT for America!  Don’t automate to expand capcacity—ship it off to be hand-assembled by people who work for $2/hour in sweatshops we’d close down here, and meanwhile throw those lazy union bums out of work!

And cut off their unemployment too.  Then let’s all go to church and thank God for his beneficence feel all proud of ourselves for doing His work….

What a bunch of selfish, short-sighted bullshit!

UN- AND SEMI-SKILLED LABOR

ITW: We no longer have an industrial base because the corporate Republican mind-set deemed that CORPORATIONS could prosper if we stripped our nation of industry as a way to kill unions.

The above aint necessarily so.

No corporate executive in his right mind would want to eviscerate their company of competent talent. They company would go under immediately.

The above comment is blind to an historical factor that has come boldly to fruition these past thirty years. It is the fact that since the demise of the Iron Curtain, the world’s Supply of cheap un- and semi-skilled labor has doubled.

The consequence of this simple fact is that, over time (it’s been 60 years since WW2), our own average work-hour costs has increased greatly. This has been goodness for American laborers, affording them a hitherto unparalleled lifestyle.

However, slowly, slowly - beginning in the early 1990s - Far East un- and semi-skilled labor rates started to assume more and more of the production in the US. To the point today where, for the most common manufactured items, one asks automatically for the “China price”.

This phenomenon has occurred not because of Top Management but despite management’s desire to keep manufacturing in the US. You cannot make and sell a simple widget in the US at US labor-costs today. American consumers will prefer the China Price to the Uncle Sam Price – so, no, let’s not blame Top Management.

If the Walton family is worth billions, it is because they caught this trend early and rode the tiger of Far East imports to America of cheap goods – of which Americans can’t seem to get enough.

MY POINT

We are obliged as a nation to race up the skills ladder. We are not the only developed country in that race. Which is why we must absolutely make the reforms in secondary and tertiary education that will produce highly skilled-individuals who are wanted today.

And, many will say that even a highly skilled programmer in India is cheaper than the American variety – which is true. But that is not the only criterion. Try developing software with India and you’ll see the difference … labor factor costs are not the only criteria for developing products.

Much of the snazzy technology that goes into making an iPad or iPod was developed in the US. The product was designed and engineered in the US. But, it is not made in the US.

POST SCRIPTUM

It is ineluctable - we must replace brawn-work with brain-work.

But it is any more crazy than the 52% of Americans, in a fit of pique, who kept away from the mid-term polls in disgust because Obama didn’t know how to walk-on-water and pull America out of the worst Recession since the 1930s? Thus allowing the Replicants to confiscate control of the HofR.

I agree that voting is a duty regardless of ones opinion of the process or the major party candidates. That leads Lafayette to once again seek to absolve Obama and the Democrats from any responsibility for allowing the illegalities and unregulated business practices to continue unto the cliff. As he notes the job is “so very difficult” that we should not blame Obama for his obscene allegiance to the very people who criminally sank our economy either.

Sorry , with all due respect to your opinion, Obama has rewarded the very crooks with appointments within his administratin and withheld the scrutiny of Justice from investigating and prosecuting his wealthy buddies. After all, he will need those large checks to wage his billion dollar campaign for re-election .

Oh yes, so sorry. I forgot. The SubPrime Mess was not “our fault” but that of those “Nasty Banksters”.  Yep, it was the Nasty Banksters who convinced us we could make a quick cool hundred thou flipping a condo on no money down and a predatory loan.

That you now perpetuate the myth that the victim is the criminal is seriously sad and ,frankly , sickening. Further it is a damnable lie. The relatively few “flippers” who took advantage of the housing bubble and perhaps lost their relatively small profits pale in comparison to the billions of dollars our financial community made by outright lying about the manufactured and loaded crap they pushed. That these same Shylocks bet against their own investment suggestions makes not a dent in your arrogant assumptions.

Over one million homes have been lost and estimates say that another two million foreclosures are yet possible, and Lafayette pompously, arrogantly and with great insensitivity as well, seeks to blame the homeowner. Sorry sir, that shit dont fly.

Still painting a free association of workers as “the bad guys”?
Do you think ALL the unions in America today pack the power and influence of ONE WalMart corporation, which has destroyed towns all across America and has managed to keep from being unionized?

We no longer have an industrial base because the corporate Republican mind-set deemed that CORPORATIONS could prosper if we stripped our nation of industry as a way to kill unions.  And it worked! The power of unions was broken.
Now we have a jobless recovery.  The corporations and banks that sank us are doing just fine, but unemployment, which went from “normal” in 2001 to excessive by 2009, while topping out at under 10%, hasn’t come down.

NOT ONE JOB HAS BEEN CREATED BY KILLING THE UNIONS, BY PAYING STIMULUS BRIBES TO BANKS AND GM, OR BY KEEPING INSANELY LOW TAX RATES FOR CORPORATIONS AND THE WEALTHY IN PLACE!

America has ALWAYS been most prosperous when unions were STRONG and stood up for workers.  We will sink into 3rd world status until Americans unionize again.

“Freedom” to the tea party is freedom to starve if you weren’t lucky enough to be born well-off.

CRAZY IS AS CRAZY DOES

ED: Now, the debate is shadowed by worries that if a willful faction does not get what it wants, it might bring the nation to default.

This is, well, crazy.

Yes, of course. But it is any more crazy than the 52% of Americans, in a fit of pique, who kept away from the mid-term polls in disgust because Obama didn’t know how to walk-on-water and pull America out of the worst Recession since the 1930s? Thus allowing the Replicants to confiscate control of the HofR.

Do these same Americans have the slightest idea of how devastated the economy was by the SubPrime Mess, which they had aided and abetted by their cheap-credit Binge Spending?

That they have had diminishing savings rates since 1980 and negative rates over the past two years - when they have been paying off the debt accumulated from their consumer binging in previous years. (See the historical trend here.)

Which means what? Ipso facto – that they spend beyond their means.

Bunch of cry-babies … they got what they deserved: “The TeaParty Show”.

Enjoy!

POST SCRIPTUM

Oh yes, so sorry. I forgot. The SubPrime Mess was not “our fault” but that of those “Nasty Banksters”.  Yep, it was the Nasty Banksters who convinced us we could make a quick cool hundred thou flipping a condo on no money down and a predatory loan.

You betcha! It was NOT OUR FAULT! We are THE VICTIMS!

Medical dictum: A patient has few means of recovery until they understand full well how sick they are.

The author of this narrow and needy piece doesn’t know their history… and neither do most commenting, myself included.

But I would dare say: although ‘the people’ without a voice have made some progress over two hundred plus years since the inception of this ethnocentric, slave built nation… those with the prestige and owning the means of production still run the show… and those who must work for a living, haven’t a voice unless it is their job to speak.

bernardo la paz, the ‘winners’ were the corporate stake holders and those who received fat checks lubricating the war machine.

The losers, is everyone else ( the slaves / chattel / you and most reading this ).

Our founders didn’t set us up to fail, robot, but we’ve done a pretty good job ourselves. Hitler convinced the German people that Jews were responsible for their problems and like lemmings, Germans followed their Fuhrer to the near destruction of their country killing millions of innocents along the way.

Our leaders convinced us that 19 pathetic individuals were the vanguard of a near irresistible force that threatened our very lives. So we gave up our constitutional rights, wasted trillions of dollars borrowed from China, Japan, and generations of Americans yet unborn. And, of course we killed hundreds of thousand of innocent people including over four thousand brave Americans who also became victims of the big lie.

And still we believe those who will promise us anything to win our support and votes. The bankers did it, but they were too big to fail so we had to bail them out. Our federal, state and local governments have no money, but we must protect the financial well being of those who work for those governments. So what if there is no money, get it from the wealthy. Failing that the Fed can create money and bail us out.

Where Rome had gladiatorial competition to entertain the masses, we bring our wars into the living rooms of the citizens. For those who wonder what the government is doing we have CSPAN and debates about when and how high the debt limit should go.

And the show goes on.

robot, July 4 at 6:22 pm:

‘Hulk2008, where in the constitution does it say that collective barganing is a “right”?  Liberty is a right that is taken away when people are mandated to join a union. ...’

</blockquote>
Rights of association, assembly, speech; right to make and enforce contracts.

With these rights, clearly a set of employees can make a contract which each other to form a union for the purposes of collective bargaining, and the union can make a contract with the employer which excludes other persons and unions from employment with that employer.

Hence, so-called ‘Right To Work’ laws are an unjust and excessive intrusion of government power into private business relations.

Big B.  Perhaps you are right, but I like many others did not start off with a silver spoon.  I could not afford to go to college.  I did not get a scholarship because I didn’t apply.  To Make a long story short, I worked my way through college and worked very hard for many years afterward.  I now make a comfortable living and own a home.  I did not over extend myself with debt.  I don’t own lavish clothes or cars, but I live comfortably. 

I have achieved what I consider “the American dream”, don’t try to tell me that the dream is dead.  Don’t tell me that the system is set up for failure.  I am proof that it use to be possible. 

If our founders set it up for us to fail, they screwed up because they gave us the way to change it.  All we have to do is believe in our ability to do so and do it. 

—————————————————————————
There is a deep laid plot against both your civil and religious liberties.  Whitfield

U.S. Justice Department clears Florida redistricting amendments

http://www.tampabay.com/news/us-justice-department-clears-florida-redistricting-amendments/1172887

This nation has become exactly what it was designed and destined to be, just an extension of the nations that our ancestors hailed from. Places where oligarchs ruled with inpunity, and a massive uneducated and ignorant populace did the bidding of those old “masters of the universe” with the faint and unreasonable hope that they, someday, might enjoy a better life.

The system has always worked to benefit the already advantaged. It was set up by the advantaged for this purpose. Anybody in this nation that still believes this is the land of (equal) opportunity is fucking kidding themselves. Our modern CEO’s are the new kings, the politians they buy to rule over us, their regents. And we, of course, play the serfs in this neverending cycle.

anarcessie, I guess that proves my point that government is overstepping their bounds. The governor had no right to override the people’s will.  I will look into it more, but I thought it was an amendment to the Florida Constitution. 

Hulk2008, where in the constitution does it say that collective barganing is a “right”?  Liberty is a right that is taken away when people are mandated to join a union. 

How about the taxpayers rights?  When the unions buy the lawmakers to the detriment of the taxpayer, shouldn’t someone protect them? 

http://labornotes.org/node/513

‘Florida withdrew anti-gerrymandering amendments shortly after Rick Scott took office

You might remember that Scott was sworn in Jan. 4. On Jan. 5, he named Kurt Browning as his pick for secretary of state. On Jan. 7, the state department—where Browning hadn’t yet formally taken over—withdrew a request that the U.S. Department of Justice “preclear” the amendments. ...’

I guess it all depends….

Dear robot:

Progressives don’t claim the forefathers were “racists” at least by today’s interpretation.  They were men of The Enlightenment - contemporaries of the likes of Voltaire abd Rousseau.  Basically they were wealthy theorists and businessmen - FEW of whom would willingly give up ownership of their own slaves.

They regarded “slaves” and “freemen” as if they evolved on different planets. Actual “abolition” was to be a concept for a new century. It had far more to do with commerce and competition among the colonies than the races who populated those colonies.

Ironically the Delaration might make modern sense reviewing its text in light of recent Republican governors who have deprived unions and their members of rights like collective bargaining….. not to mention those of immigrants.

The author states “Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy.” 

It was not unintended, it was stated! The tea party wants government to go back to the constitutional responsibilities only.  When Presidents whether it be Bush or Obama or the congress overlook the limitations of the constitution (eg.  the patriot act, Universal healthcare) we all lose.  Our elected officials have been playing fast and loose with our liberties.  We need a government that will create an environment where the rules are to serve the needs of the governed, and not the benefit of corporations. Neither Oil Companies, typically associated with republicans,  nor GE or George Soros typically associated with Democrats should have an advantage over Joe the plumber.  In my opinion a rich person should not be treated better or worse than any other citizen.  All men are created equal but the rich should pay more in taxes?  Really?  They should just pay their fair share.  The idea that the rich somehow came about there wealth unjustly needs to be addressed.  If they were playing by the rules, are they the criminal, or the politician that established the rules in that manner?  I suggest to you that the criminal is the politician. 

We need to change the constitution to limit the congress’s ability to establish the unfair conditions, otherwise we will be forever fighting this fight.  The republicans and democrats are the same…...the only difference is the wealthy people who get rich depending who is in office.  (GE vs Exxon)

In Florida, we passed a constitutional amendment that requires districts to be drawn using existing city, county lines, minimizing the gerimandering that has occurred in the past.  I suggest that all the other states pass such a measure. 
   

In addition the tea party is the next best thing to a third party.  Contrary to left wing propaganda, they are not all right wing conservatives (I grant you, the majority are conservatives) although they work with republican candidates.  They have selected representatives that are not part of the Washington insiders.  Supporting republicans that already have a small government/low tax policy only makes sense. 

We should not be at each others thoats, we need to unite and replace the corrupt government that we now have with a government that will give us back the liberty to thrive.  Then we can afford to assist people with their healthcare, education etc.  We are a very generous people when we are doing well. 

Let’s fix the real problem.  We need a government that treats all of it’s citizens the same.  The Declaration of independence says the pursuit of happiness, not the guarantee thereof.

If we are not careful, and if we do not find a way to come together, our enemies will surely take this opportunity to divide us. 

I propose a balanced budget, with an incentive to bring the overseas profits home.  Conditional cuts to future Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid benefits.  Complete overhaul of the tax code to a simplified sales tax.  If these actions bring about growth in the economy, the extra monies collected in tax revenue over the projected amounts will be dedicated to restoring the cuts made above.  If it works to spur the growth that we so badly need, everyone wins.

I notice that this author fails to mention the laws that they were trying to pass that the tea party was protesting.  EJ fails to identify that it was anti-slavery laws that the colonist were trying to pass.  That sure flies in the face of the progressive claim that they were racist. 

The founders knew that we need to unite for the strength of 13 would be far greater than each individual as well as 13 army/navy’s.  The constitution was written to limit the US governments control over the States.  It says that anything not specifically given to the federal government goes to the states, not to the individual. 

If you think that just because a politician calls themself a progressive means that they will not become tyranical, you fail to understand the nature of power.  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  They want to take out the people with money (the so called rich) because they have the funds to fight back.  Once they are gone, so will our freedoms.  They they will destroy anyone who opposes them and we will be back to slavery. 

If you give up your freedom, for security, you will soon have neither.

Jefferson wanted a freedom from monopoly clause in
the Bill of Rights. Why?

When they dumped the tea in Boston Harbor, it was the
tea of the East India Company (a trans-national
corporation)that basically ran Britain and disabled
the colonists from competing in their capitalism.

Today, we have our Wall Street Washington run by
corporate donors who have our representatives in tow.
Our elected reps represent them more than us:
taxation without representation.

This is our new revolution: separate money from
politics and business from state. End the broken
system of legalized bribery. The entire government
operates in a conflict-of-interest culture. That
means we are being led by the GOP into the
destruction of whatever democracy we had.

This is not an ideological issue: this is about the
survival of the middle class and the rejection of a
future aristocratic/theocratic/autocratic form of
feudalism. Time for a tea party, yes, but not the one
that is working for the Kochs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0_zA6xTco

This country is so deeply in debt that it is literally impossible for that debt to ever be repaid. Now a highly paid columnist from the elite Washington Post says that we “might bring the nation to default.”  We are already there. And the debt ceiling should never be raised under any circumstances and certainly not as a bargaining chip to get some meaningless decreases in the rate in which debt is being increased.

A penniless immigrant who attempts to eke out a livelihood with a homemade pushcart on a city street is expected to fork over 15% of her meager income in taxes with no deductions other than business expense. Oh wait a minute. We don’t allow penniless immigrants to do things like that anymore. We give them food stamps and free housing and pay for it with increased debt.

The biggest tax we pay is that of inflation—the expansion of the money supply—and who of us consented to that. We jail counterfeiters, unless of course they are part of the Fed.

In 1776, who would have dreamed that there was a difference between the public good and what was good for the people that made up the public. And who knew that one day there would be a “public sector” which comprised an army of bureaucrats living in relative luxury at the expense of the taxpaying public.

And what about the “Blessings of Liberty?” Who could have guessed, back then, that one day, a “robust” American government would trample the principles of liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights

Again, the arguments are going in circles on TD and the myopic view renders victory to the hegemony… for so many lack an objective view of history and their position in it.

So, I’ll just post this and say: “Happy Independence Day.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1MazfmZYxw&sns=fb

Logically, a third major party would be subjected to the same forces that have affected the existing parties, and would be corrupted in the same ways.

I realize I have said this before.  I shall try to reduce such remarks to code numbers, and have a machine post them.

A PARTY WITHIN THE PARTY

BP: And I’m talking about a third party that captures not only the Presidency, but also makes significant inroads in Congress, State legislatures, and Governors.

Most of us, here, would likely agree - even if all that above would appear tantamount to a Minor Miracle in today’s America.

Unfortunately third-party politics in America has never really worked. Why?

Because we have a “first past the post” vote counting system, meaning “winner takes all”. Which assures a stable two-party system but unfortunately casts third-parties to the wilderness. Meaning a two-party system that becomes ossified.

Also, we have a gerrymandering system that does not even look like a salamander, its namesake. It is an hodge-podge of districts that favor whichever of the two parties it is designated to favor.

We’d have to overcome the above two hurdles for a third-party to work ... and that would take a vote in Congress that is very keen to maintain the status quo. This too favors a two-party system.

So, short of a revolution, what do we do? Here’s a possible solution: We open a Social Democrat Wing of the presently boneheaded Democrat Party. A what?

Yes, a “Social” Democrat Party constituted of individuals who are not afraid of uttering the awesome six-letter word without lightening necessarily striking them. Such a party would espouse and promote a Progressive Agenda.

For it to work, nonetheless, it would be necessary to convince Middle America (Jack ‘n Jill Sixpack) that “social democracy” means a government system of Public Services that serves all the nation’s citizens equitably. (Uh, oh ... we will be told, the “horror of BigGovernment!”)

The prime example of which is a Public Option National Health Care system. And that’s just for starters.

Still, not much bigger than now, but certainly more focused on the more common needs of the population ... and the M-I-C be damned.

Lafayette, the Constitution was drafted to form a republic, not a democracy. 

If anyone took the time to hear the three minutes of debate I included in my initial post ( I know, most of you old scared farts are too lazy and narrow-minded to look beyond your remote control and local rag of a newspaper ).. but in there you will hear two of the many arguments and points which are missing from the dialogue and the mass consensus.

The reality is:

The rich will rule over the poor, as they always have and always will.  The ‘illusion’ of rule by the masses is just that, an illusion.

If you can attain independence in the consummation of energy, in production and in food, YOU HAVE TASTED FREEDOM ON THE EARTH.

If not, be glad with your slave position.  Or has anyone realized that in England, just last century, folks went from being labeled ‘subjects’ to being labeled ‘citizens.’

And you think you are free stateside?  ahahahahaa…. you too have fallen for the program!

Undeclaration

It was a good idea     once
inalienable rights and the abolition
of tyranny     but
we’ve mucked it up,    this great
American Experiment
our own inbred aristocracy madder
that noon-baked Englishmen with
crimes and usurpations running amok,
torn bodies and new hatreds in every
casbah     tentacles
in every pocket and a
knife at every throat
and we wage slave
descendants of the free
the not so free
sinking in the refuse of yesterday’s bargains
punch clocked and jackbooting our way
to the fossil record at the speed of credit
with no payments ‘till January—
a toxic spoor of ruined
places, broken lives and gulags.

We had a bad run but it’s time
to come clean,
to admit our failure   to
examine the bloody Manifest
of our imagined Destiny.

Time to Repent
for mass graves and wars of false premise,
for all those dictators, our murky turkeys lurking
in every hot satrapy with trained goons keeping
bloody order and a quota of disappeared.

Time to admit
it was all a mistake
made in the bravado of our youth and
rejoin the Commonwealth
Stop seeing stars and turn in our
bloody stripes
be British again
take tea and healthcare   claim
our place       lordless
in the house of commons where
Empire is only a memory
best forgotten.

                        Al Markowitz

I think E. J. Dionne would do well to read history from some better source than the Tea Party.  As it is we have a case of the blind leading the blind.

We need a viable third party to shake up the status
quo. And I’m talking about a third party that captures
not only the Presidency, but also makes significant
inroads in Congress, State legislatures, and Governors.

Rick Perry has broached the idea of secession for Texas.  In 1861, secession was seen as treason and those who advocated as traitors.

Now this willing traitor is talking about running for President and re-writing the Constitution.

Remember: There is NEVER ANY justification for treason.

(unless you win)

WE, THE SHEEPLE

NDHP: Calling this republic a democracy is a joke… mistake

Why? Explain you’re logic as to why it should not be.

Remember the definition of democracy, which seems to have escaped you as it did your namesake:
Democracy = a form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through elected representatives.

If we, the sheeple, feel that we no longer “exercise power”, then we change (democratically) our Elected Representatives. Until then, we must accept the present outcome as corresponding to the expression of our democratic will.

You refuse steadfastly to understand that we, the sheeple, are victims because we have naively allowed what has happened to us - by those manipulating their positions of power.

We need only take that power back by means of a Progressive Agenda constituted of higher taxation of the rich and more spending on Public Services for “all of this nation’s citizens”.

HISTORY AS A PROPER PERSPECTIVE

ED: Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy.

Harking back to a past is not always good form when contending with the future. Our founding fathers were concerned with constructing a nation, not taxation or even sharing the wealth. Both of these notions, now upon us, came much later in our development as a country.

They were (supposedly) Good Christians and if they had any Moral Backbone at all it was from their religion - which they specifically left out of the Constitution. (Except to say that the state will not hinder its establishment.)

We seem presently to be torturing the Constitution (and our history as a nation) to find some seminal foundation to argue for the mitigation of taxes. This is brainless and wrongheaded - of the kind one would expect from puerile tea-baggers.

MY POINT

This issue devolves to this very simple consideration: Is it morally acceptable that the economic wealth in the generation of which we all participate be garnered by a select minority of our people?

Please, someone, justify this notion. Whilst you are at it, justify the fact that 20% of American households garner 93% of the wealth. (Don’t believe it? See here.)

By what cogent reason do we accept that such a warped distribution of income generate such wildly exaggerated wealth? It was preordained by God? The constitution? That’s life!?

It should not be because such a distribution is profoundly unfair and deeply unjust.

POST SCRIPTUM

Does anybody know someone who, all alone on a deserted island, became a millionaire or billionaire? Nobody has worked that miracle - not even Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

For riches to be amassed first is required that they be generated economically by Consumer Demand of a large population. Then is necessary that some people be allowed to accumulate their unfair share by means of incredibly low taxation upon marginal income and capital gains - both at stratospheric levels. 

Which is what Reckless Ronnie schemed to do and got away with - right under our noses. Whilst we Americans swallowed hook, line and sinker that with lesser taxation the funds kept would some how - miraculously - trickle down to the rest of us at the bottom.

Now pull the other leg ....

And *who alive today*

So much has to be seen and spoken of in historical context.  And how alive today can clearly do this other than objective historians ( who can find one? ).

Calling this republic a democracy is a joke… mistake #1.  And this adds to the false narrative in light of history’s rendition, whether the upper class likes it or if the lower class understands it.

What is evident is the communist manifesto and the several planks alive and well already in existence stateside ( don’t take my word for it, read it and see for yourselves ).  For example: public education, not to benefit the lower class, but to indoctrinate that class.  Another example: centralized credit system ( central bank ).

Here is a decent short debate regarding the Constitution and how just two ( of hundreds of points of views and interpretations exist ) sides of the discourse.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/george-will-the-constitution-is-an-anti-evolutionary-device/