Hopeless... this country is hopeless.

I posted this on a local newspaper discussion board in a thread about the budget talks. An asshole had complained about being taxed to death....

"Americans pay Federal taxes at the lowest level since 1950. Americans pay the lowest rate of taxes compared to GDP than any developed country except Mexico. Local, state, and Federal taxes as a percent of income is down 4% since 1990. The top 1% average income is $410,000 a year. The lowest 27% make less than $25,000 a year. The top 1% owns 43% of the wealth in this country. The lowest 80%... (not a typo).. own 7% of the wealth. The top 1% received 80% of the added wealth generated in this country since 1980. And the income disparity is getting worse. The top 400 earners pay an income tax effective rate of 16%.... down from 26% in 1992.

Just a few facts for the people like you who are defending the concentration of wealth - and the super-rich - in the US.

Let me make it simple... a mass-consumption economy like ours cannot survive if the vast majority of people don't have enough money to buy the stuff we make and sell. The super-rich have a much larger stake in the survival of our economy, and they need to pay a larger share of the burden of keeping that economy running."

The asshole posted this in return....

"What I want is to get liberal freaks like you out of my life and out of my wallet. What I want is to eliminate Social Security and Medicare tax. What I do in my life is my business. If you want to be a tatooed, face pierced, dope smoking loser I don't give a damn. Just get the fuk out of my business.
If in the course of regaining my God given individual liberty it means bloated, inefficient, socially destructive entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare go away then so be it."

Ergo my subject line... "Hopeless.. this country is hopeless." People like him vote, and Lib Dems will stay home in droves in the upcoming elections.

this is exactly what the tea party wannabees in my area believe....until it hits them in the face that they are screwing themselves...their kids...their parents.


But THEY don't belong to the unwashed masses.for some reason it's "OK" for them to receive Medicaid for THEIR kids.(I have no problem).
It's NOT ok for their brown neighbor to receive it.


Trying to talk sense to them is like talking to a wall.

We HAVE to vote....especially for Democratic Congressional candidates.

proud of it all. I really think there is a failure of communication within their brains and some studies are bearing that out, which portions of their brains dominate their thought processes and hence produce rigid behavior/thoughts.

We cannot reason well enough to survive and have outgrown our useful animal instincts.

been directed by our useful animal instincts. Just capitalism, for example, is a good example of using animal instincts IMO. Most things in life are really driven by animal instincts. Now, we need to retool for the 21st century, but as you say, "We cannot reason well enough to survive and have outgrown our useful animal instincts."

I think that was an astute comment you made with very deep meanings.

Excellent!!!

And some non-wealthy folks share that sentiment. That's not a new observation and it certainly isn't evidence that we are doomed to extinction anytime soon.

nt

This LTTE appeared in my local newspaper yesterday:



http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/125108959.html

My favorite line was: "Don't force policy on me that I don't need. Health care? Ha. Fifty-five million U.S. citizens will not have health coverage. Boo-hoo. They don't have it now and they get care for free. Nothing will change that."

Reading this sort of sociopathic crap used to make me angry - now it just makes me sad. What kind of person would express views like that? Too bad if 55 million people don't have health insurance; just don't do anything that might affect MEEEE.

And the depressing thing is that this country is full of people like that.

It's become socially acceptable to be a cold-blooded, uncaring asshole.

But be sure to salute the flag and speak English.

will probably be the one pushing and shoving others out of the line so he can get his first.

The brain dead idiot who wrote that or the irresponsible press that printed that bit of insanity amplifying and giving it merit when it deserved none?

To their credit, however, today they printed a rebuttal to that LTTE:



http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/125183869.html

Still wish the rantings of lunatics weren't legitimized. But at least there is that. :)

emergence of this type of thinking. This is a nation gridlocked with ignorance, hatred and irrational religion ... not everyone, but I fear a fair percentage.

I sadly think we've seen the US at its best and now it will be a downhill trip.

We had a good run of it after WWII, but now it's pretty much falling apart. I think what we are witnessing is the result of runaway capitalism and greed creating sociopathic like behavior across the masses, corporations and politicians ... and religion.

only a good old-fashioned dose of 1933-level economic activity (national unemployment rate of 25%) will scare some sense into these folks.

in 2008 than having been propped back up. For one thing, it would have cleared house of some of the banksters, wall streeters and others. And "might" have brought about real change and scared "sense into these folks."

and unemployment of 25% would mean tremendous suffering for a lot of folks. Even though the tea-baggers are certifiable, I would not wish suffering upon them, even though suffering may be what they need to get 'scared straight.'

...and then another, and another, until someone's finally held responsible, and safeguards/regulations put back in place. Meanwhile, just more "austerity" for everybody except the top 10%.

over the history of the US most things came about as a result of a crisis, civil disobedience, natural disasters, etc. Often the US IMO has not been very proactive in finding solutions.

A few percent have tremendous leverage on the future of this country because money talks, has power and runs the country. As you said, "we'll soon have another financial crisis... ...and then another, and another, ..."

Most citizens are being reduced to serfdom and have little say in the process. And what surprises me is many are willing participants as they wrap themselves in the flag and thump the bible. They are putty in the hands of skilled manipulators.

Eventually the sh** will get the fan and then something will get done in crisis mode, as usual.

Because they don't see anyone in the democratic party representing them. All dems need to do is show they represent the people instead of big business.

Without one clear stand favoring the people over corporate power dems stay home. That is what happened in 2010 that can happen again in 2012. That's why I think it's important for the administration to not cave in to republican demands to cut services now.

The OP is from Washington State, where in 2010 they elected a Democratic Governor, a Democratic Senator, and more Democrats to the House than Republicans. Yet the OP demands that liberals do not vote, and only right wing nuts do vote. The facts are a problem for that particular promotion.

I personally know liberals who didn't vote in 2000 or 2004 figuring why bother who voted in 2008 and are thinking of not voting again because they feel why bother? And we do need moderates to vote. Or else lose seats

Numbers broader than anyone's personal knowledge show that liberals turned out substantially unchanged in ratio in 2010 compared to 2008. Moderates much less and conservatives much more. Everyone is guessing about 2012, and one is no better than another, but to use personal or internet stories to aver a huge liberal abandonment is baseless, and not borne out by the 2010 numbers despite similar claims then that the left was abandoning Dems. Data are consistent - Obama's support was and is stronger amongst liberal Dems than moderate Dems, and it was the decline in moderate turnout much more than liberal that lost us so many seats.

Why? I have no idea. I'm definitely not on the far left of the party and gladly accept the moderate tag, and Obama and the erstwhile Dem Congress did little to lose my support for the midterms. While fully acknowledging this is both anecdotal and subjective, my disappointments with him have been where I am most left-leaning. Did not fight for a single payer or even universal Medicare option, too wishy-washy on DADT and equal marriage rights, etc. Even from my moderate Dem perch I can understand why the Dems and Obama COULD be losing support on the further left more than from those like me, but at least so far no data shows he is.

any threats from outside. The failure of the US will be from within as the ignorant seize more and more power, and fools like this vote them into office, and others stay home and get the warm feeling of pissing in their pants.

Things are never never hopeless.

home? Where do you live, and why did you let it get that way? In 2010, my State elected all of our Democrats again, as did the rest of our region. Here in Oregon, we had record breaking turnout, highest for a midterm in a couple of decades. The Republicans put nuts up for election, and they all lost because liberals turned out to vote. The voters 'like' your quoted poster failed. So I do not buy into your predictions, nor do I believe that poster will bother to vote, nor do I think he's got much in his 'wallet' at all.
Why would you put any ounce of stock in such nonsense? I sure don't.

decided they didn't want to pay all that money for insurance. Or until they're eating cat food in their old age.

Not many of the 80% have enough money to live on today, raise kids, pay for college, and stash away the $1 million we'll need for our 'golden years'. I also like how so many say they need a tax cut, but I guess, like this guy, won't blink at paying some insurance company $25000 a year for medical insurance.

"Conservatives only support Conservative Principles until they are subject TO those Principles in an unforeseen manner."

can wipe their own butts or tie their own shoes, much less get on to the intertubes, is truly paradoxical. That LTTE is so devoid of anything resembling thought or logic that it would embarrass a great ape and many of the other higher primates.

You don't need a majority of hard-core, mouth breathing, brain-damaged idiots and the religulously insane to destroy a country, just a critical mass of about 30-35% or so. Enough propaganda will scare a sufficient number of the rest of the sheeple to give the lunatics a simple majority.

Push some baseless fears and runaway. Seems to me this OP works in favor of the right. Liberals voted in droves in 2010. Moderate centrists stayed home or voted as they usually do, for the Republicans.
The fact that the OP's state elected Democrats in 2010 should point to something this side of 'hopeless' one would think. People commenting on the internet are not the metric, winning elections is the metric, and it has been some many years since they won the OP's state or mine next door, or CA next door to us. Frankly, I do not care if the righty nuts post righty nut stuff all the live long, if we win the elections. And we won in Washington State, no matter how the OP frames the despair of reading a nasty post. Hopeless! We keep winning elections, and because of a random post, it is all hopeless.
Not purchasing the product being promoted here.

and the Dems are going to take WA again, too.

But...

I've been attending the Dem caucuses, and the enthusiasm for Inslee and all the rest is undiminished.

Obama, however, is another story. Dems have told me that they cannot vote for him again. At the caucuses.

The question is not whether the Dems will take WA... the question is whether the Dems will take the US. And the picture ain't all that good.

never known him to vote. He talks a big game but when it comes down to showing up to vote he's nowhere to be found.

They're brats. Like spoiled teenagers.
They want opportunity and freedom but don't want to pay for it and don't want any rules to play by.

Sure. Who wouldn't? It's not realistic.

dumb to survive. nt

smart, brave and honest enough to lead this great Country out of our terrible predicament. What would it take to find and elect that individual?

Unfortunately there are two problems.

One, such a person would never be allowed by TPTB to ever have a chance of being elected POTUS, and two, if by some fluke someone like that were elected, the MIC/PTB would take them down instantly. No would-be boat rocker has forgotten what happened to JFK and RFK.

Even in apartheid South Africa their PTB/MIC were afraid of Nelson Mandela on some level. Our PTB/MIC fears nothing. They have already done it at least twice and know they can get away with it.

...needs to have every penny he has confiscated and redistributed, anything that can't be taken be destroyed, and then he himself needs to spend the rest of his life in prison.

hosting Masterpeice Theater when they Did "The Last Place on Earth" which was story of the race for the South Pole. Mighty England lost the prize to small upstart Norway. In conclusion he said it is the fate of all empires to eventualy fail and slowly fade, Greeks Romans Spanish Ottomans English etc.

So as will the US, I'm not celebrating it, but there it is. Nobody is too big to fail.

say, " Why the hell don't you go live there and get off my roads and out of my schools etc. etc.