If China wants to play ball with the big boys, let them help out in Iraq and Afghanistan...
marques de sade
as military? Why are we killing ourselves over there, and they
have all these weaponry (not to mention people) just sitting there
going unused? C'mon China! All that tribal drumming didn't do jack
(old expression) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... You think
you can impress the USA with a little dance and a little
calligraphy... Send troops and weapons, bitches!!! We don't really
want to be there forever, although it looks like it... We just
can't finish what we started, because we don't practice Tai Chi
(californians might--but they're weird...and gay) or don't have a
tightly knit social fabric or even healthy cuisine, really. I mean
let's face it, we eat garbage... garbage in garbage out, I guess.
So how about it?! You know what they say: no guts, no glory...
octinomos
ps: if you're already helping, please disregard...
--
``In the Babylonian legends of creation the seven associate-gods, who are the creators in the Egyptian mythos, have been converted into the seven evil spirits of a later theology. And ... it is said of these seven evil spirits, 'The woman from the loins of the man they bring forth.' Thus the creation of woman is made to be the work of seven evil spirits,...'' -Gerald Massey
Ato_Zee
> We just
> can't finish what we started,
Because Bush and Blair stuck two fingers up to the
United Nations, who said that Iraq had no weapons of
mass destruction.
They started an illegal immoral war, using weapons
of mass destruction to kill over 100,000 innocent
civilians, men, women and children.
Why should the Chinese help out to stop
US and UK families losing their loved ones serving
in Iraq and Afghanistan?
If you start a war then be prepared for the
consequences.
The US has a history of wars, Korea, Vietnam,
eventually having to retreat because the cost
was too high.
Some don't learn from history, employ
scriptwriters to make a case for war, and PR
firms to sell it to a gullable public.
Cantor
Actually they solved the North Korea problem diplomatically. Instead
of jumping the gun like a teenager.
Tom
"Ato_Zee" <ato...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:X8zsk.86957$Ft5....@newsfe29.ams2...
>
> Because Bush and Blair stuck two fingers up to the
> United Nations,
That's one finger in American. The neo-cons don't speak any other
languages, even in gesture form.
> who said that Iraq had no weapons of
> mass destruction.
> They started an illegal immoral war, using weapons
> of mass destruction to kill over 100,000 innocent
> civilians, men, women and children.
> Why should the Chinese help out to stop
> US and UK families losing their loved ones serving
> in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Besides, in 2002 they decided they didn't need the rest of the world. Now
it appears that some cowardly surrender-monkey wants China to save them.
Why should China lift a finger? They're already getting everything they
want. They lent us all the money we wanted to pursue this stupid personal
vendetta between Bush and Saddam and now we owe them big time. The majority
of our deficit is debt to China. Any time China wants to wreck the US all
they have to do is call in that debt and our economy goes down the toilet.
Since we have off-loaded all our manufacturing to other countries, we'll
have no wealth-generating capacity left to recover. Not that the
multinational corporations that fund the neo-cons care. They're moving to
Dubai and Shanghai anyway. Like the man said, "Follow the money."
> Some don't learn from history, employ
> scriptwriters to make a case for war, and PR
> firms to sell it to a gullable public.
And may get their way again, if more people don't start doing something
besides worrying about whether Obama is a secret Muslim or having a snit
because they wanted Hillary to run instead. It's amazing how much nonsense
people will attend to in order to avoid facing reality.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson
"Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson replied,
"That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
DubGenius Acheron Slithersss
Listen, Little Man!
"Listen, Little Man!" is a book written by a truly great man named
Wilhelm Reich. I first read this book when I got out of high school at
the age of 17. Having never read a complete book throughout all of
school (I was always quite bright, though I certainly did not take
kindly to being forced to do things against my own will) this was the
first book I ever read from cover to cover. I have since become an
avid reader and I have read this book dozens of times. In fact, I
still read it frequently. I strongly believe this is one of the best
books ever written, it completely changed my life and helped make me
the man I am today. This book changed my life all because of one
single thing, the most important thing I have ever done in my life...
The book made me look at myself. For once in my life I saw myself as I
truly was... I have never been the same since, and at the young age of
21, though I am still living and learning, I can truly say I am free.
That is not to say I am completely free, but I am free to be honest
with myself. I am free to think for myself without asking "what will
my neighbor think of me?" I am free to fully live like I once did as a
child, as all children live before they are forced to become
"civilized." That is not to say I am free from cooperation and
responsibility, I am not insolent. It does mean I am free to go swing
on a swing, or to go play in the snow without reservation, and if some
"civilized" neighbor disapproves of my motility I know that they only
act that way because they are dead inside and cannot stand to see
others truly living (because they know deep down they could, and
should, be doing it too). Most importantly, I am free to be honest
with myself, and with others, and that, my friend, is the foundation
of true freedom. For that, I say thank you Wilhelm, thank you for
showing me what life and living truly is, thank you for showing me
what life is truly about, and thank you for caring about me at a time
when I didn't even care about myself. Thank you.
Your friend,
Christopher
What follows is a short excerpt from the book.
PREFACE
"Listen, Little Man!" reflects the inner turmoil of a scientist and
physician who had observed the little man for many years and seen,
first with astonishment, then with horror, what he does to himself;
how he suffers, rebels, honors his enemies and murders his friends;
how, wherever he acquires power "in the name of the people," he
misuses it and transforms it into something more cruel than the
tyranny he had previously suffered at the hands of upperclass sadists.
[...]
It was felt that the "common man" must learn what a scientist and
psychiatrist actually is and what he, the little man, looks like to
his experienced eye. He must be acquainted with the reality which
alone can counteract his ruinous craving for authority and be told
very clearly what a grave responsibility he bears in everything he
does, whether he is working, loving, hating, or just talking.
THEY CALL YOU Little Man, or Common Man. They say your day has dawned,
the "Age of the Common Man."
You don't say that, little man. They do, the vice presidents of great
nations, the labor leaders, the repentant sons of the bourgeoisie, the
statesmen and philosophers. They give you the future, but they ask no
questions about your past.
You've inherited a terrible past. Your heritage is a burning diamond
in your hand. That's what I have to tell you.
A doctor, a shoemaker, mechanic, or educator has to know his
shortcomings if he is to do his work and earn his living. For several
decades now you have been taking over, throughout the world. The
future of the human race depends on your thoughts and actions. But
your teachers and masters don't tell you how you really think and what
you really are; no one dares to confront you with the one truth that
might make you the unswerving master of your fate. You are "free" in
only one respect: free from the self-criticism that might help you
govern your own life.
I've never heard you complain: "You exalt me as the future master of
myself and my world. But you don't tell me how a man becomes a master
of himself, and you don't tell me what's wrong with me, what's wrong
with what I think and do."
You let the powerful demand power "for the little man." But you
yourself are silent. You provide powerful men with more power or
choose weak, malignant men to represent you. And you discover too late
that you are always the dupe.
I understand you. Because time and time again I've seen you naked in
body and soul, without your mask, political label, or national pride.
Naked as a newborn babe, naked as a field marshal in his underclothes.
I've heard you weep and lament; you've told me your troubles, laid
bare your love and yearning. I know you and understand you. I'm going
to tell you what you are, little man, because I really believe in your
great future. Because the future undoubtedly belongs to you, take a
look at yourself. See yourself as you really are. Hear what none of
your leaders or spokesmen dares to tell you:
You're a "little man," a "common man." Consider the double meaning of
these words "little" and "common"...
Don't run away! Have the courage to look at yourself!
"By what right are you lecturing me?" I see the question in your
frightened eyes. I hear it on your insolent tongue. You're afraid to
look at yourself, little man, you're afraid of criticism, and afraid
of the power that is promised you. What use will you make of your
power? You don't know. You're afraid to think that your self--the man
you feel yourself to be--might someday be different from what it is
now: free rather than cowed, candid rather than scheming; capable of
loving, not like a thief in the night but in broad daylight. You
despise yourself, little man. You say "Who am I that I should have an
opinion, govern my life, and call the world mine?" You're right: who
are you to lay claim to your life? I will tell you who you are.
You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was
once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he
recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions.
Under the pressure of some task which meant a great deal to him, he
learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness, endangered his
happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he
is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid
to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behinds illusions of
strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's
proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he
has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something,
the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an
idea, the less he believes in it.
Let me begin with the little man in myself.
For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of
your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to
take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the
barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the
Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your
Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well
end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in
winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This
I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again,
after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one.
Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out
what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to
blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say!
That's news to you, isn't it? Your liberators tell you that your
oppressors are Wilhelm, Nicholas, Pope Gregory XXVIII, Morgan, Krupp,
and Ford. And who are your liberators? Mussolini, Napoleon, Hitler,
and Stalin.
I say: Only you yourself can be your liberator!
At this point I hesitate. I claim to be a fighter for purity and
truth. But now, after resolving to tell you the truth about yourself,
I hesitate for fear of you and your attitude toward the truth. Truth
is dangerous when it concerns you. Truth can be salutary, but any mob
can preempt it. If that were not so, you would not be where you are.
My reason says: Tell the truth at any cost. The little man in me says:
It would be stupid to put yourself at the mercy of the little man. The
little man doesn't want to hear the truth about himself. He doesn't
want the great responsibility that has fallen to him, that is his
whether he likes it or not. He wants to go on being a little man, or
to become a little big man. He wants to get rich or become a party
leader or head of the VFW or secretary of a society for moral uplift.
But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work, for food
supply, construction, mining, transportation, education, scientific
research, administration, or what have you.
The little man in me says:
"You have become a great man, known in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia,
England, America, and Palestine. The Communists attack you. The
'saviors of cultural values' hate you. The sufferers from the
emotional plague persecute you. You have written twelve books and 150
articles about the misery of life, the misery of the little man. Your
work is taught at universities, other great, lonely men say you're a
very great man. You are ranked among the giants of scientific thought.
You have made the greatest discovery in centuries, for you have
discovered the cosmic life energy and the laws of living matter. You
have provided an understanding of cancer. You told the truth. For that
you have been hunted from country to country. You've earned a rest.
Enjoy your success and your fame. In a few years your name will be on
all lips. You've done enough. Take it easy. Devote yourself to your
work on the functional law of nature"
That's what the little man in me says, because he's afraid of you,
little man.
I was in close contact with you for many years, because I knew your
life through my own and wanted to help you. I remained in contact with
you, because I saw that I was indeed helping you and that you accepted
my help willingly, often with tears in your eyes. Only very gradually
did I come to see that you are capable of accepting help but not of
defending it. I defended it and fought hard for you, in your stead.
Then your leaders came and shattered my work. You followed them
without a murmur. After than I remained in contact with you in the
hope of finding a way to help you without being destroyed by you,
either as your leader or as your victim. The little man in me wanted
to win you over, to "save" you, to be regarded by you with the awe
that you have of "higher mathematics" because you have no inkling of
what it is. The less you understand, the greater your awe. You know
Hitler better than Nietzsche, Napoleon better than Pestalozzi. A king
means more to you than Sigmund Freud. The little man in me aspires to
win you over, as you are ordinarily won over, with the tom-tom of
leadership. I am afraid of you when the little man in me dreams of
"leading you to freedom." You might discover yourself in me and me in
yourself, take fright, and murder yourself in me. For this reason I am
no longer willing to die for your freedom to be an indiscriminate
slave.
You don't understand. I am aware that "freedom to be an indiscriminate
slave" is anything but a simple idea.
In order to progress from the status of faithful slave to a single
master and become an indiscriminate slave, you must first kill the
individual oppressor, the tsar for instance. You cannot commit such a
political murder without revolutionary motives and a lofty ideal of
freedom. Accordingly, you found a revolutionary freedom party under
the leadership of a truly great man, let's say Jesus, Marx, Lincoln,
or Lenin. This truly great man is dead serious about your freedom. If
he wants practical results, he has to surround himself with little
man, with helpers and executants, because the task is enormous and he
can't handle it all by himself. Besides, you wouldn't understand him,
you'd ignore him if he didn't gather little big men around him.
Surrounded by little big men, he gains power for you, or a bit of
truth, or a new and better faith. He writes testaments, issues laws to
ensure freedom, counting on your help and serious willingness to help.
He lifts you out of the social muck you had sunk into. In order to
keep all the little big men together and not to forfeit your
confidence, the truly great man is compelled, little by little, to
sacrifice the greatness he had achieved in profound spiritual
solitude, far from you and your daily tumult, yet in close contact
with your life. In order to lead you, he must let you worship him as
an unapproachable god. You would have no confidence in him if he went
on being the simple man he was, if, for instance, he lived with a
woman out of wedlock. Thus it is you who create your new master.
Exalted to the rank of the new master, the great man loses his
greatness, which consisted in integrity, simplicity, courage, and the
closeness to the realities of life. The little big men who derive
their prestige from the great man, take over the leading positions in
finance, diplomacy, government, the arts and sciences--and you stay
where you have always been all along, in the muck! You continue to go
about in rags for the sake of the "socialist future" or the "Third
Reich." You continue to live in mud huts daubed with cow dung. But
you're proud of your Palace of People's power . . . Until the next war
and the downfall of the new masters.
In far countries little men have closely studied your longing to be an
indiscriminate slave. It has taught them how to become little big men
with very little mental effort. These little men were not born in
mansions, they rose from your ranks. They have gone hungry like you,
suffered like you. And they have found a quicker way of changing
masters. For a hundred years truly great thinkers made unstinting
sacrifices, devoted their minds and lives to your freedom and well-
being. The little men from your own ranks have found out that no such
effort is needed. What truly great thinkers had achieved in a century
of hardship and earnest thought they have managed to destroy in less
than five years. Yes, the little men from your own ranks have found a
shortcut--their method is more blatant and brutal. They tell you in so
many words that you and your life, your children and family, count for
nothing; that you are a feeble-minded flunky to be treated as it suits
them. They promise you not individual but national freedom. They say
nothing of self-respect but tell you to respect the state. They
promise you not a personal greatness but national greatness. Since
"individual freedom" and "individual greatness" mean nothing to you,
while "national freedom" and "national greatness" stimulate your vocal
cords in very much the same way as bones bring the water to a dog's
mouth, the sound of these words makes you cheer. None of these little
men pays the price that Giordano Bruno, Jesus, Karl Marx, or Lincoln
had to pay for genuine freedom. They don't love you, little man, they
despise you because you despise yourself. They know you through and
through, much better than Rockefeller or the Tories know you. They
know your worst weaknesses, as you ought to know them. They have
sacrificed you to a symbol, and you have given them the power over
you. You yourself have raised up your masters and you go on supporting
them although--or perhaps because--they have cast of all masks. They
have told you plainly, "You are and always will be an inferior,
incapable of responsibility." You call them guides or redeemers, and
shout hurrah, hurrah.
I'm afraid of you, little man, very much afraid, because the future of
mankind depends on you. I'm afraid of you because your main aim in
life is to escape--from yourself. You're sick, little man, very sick.
It's not your fault; but it's your responsibility to get well. You'd
have shaken off your oppressors long ago if you hadn't countenanced
oppression and often given it your direct support. No police force in
the world would have had the power to crush you if you had an ounce of
self-respect in your daily life, if you were aware, really aware, that
without you life could not go on for one hour. Has your liberator told
you this? He called you "Workers of the World," but he didn't tell you
that you and you alone are responsible for your life (and not for the
honor of the fatherland).
You've got to realize that you have raised up your little men to be
oppressors, and made martyrs of your truly great men; that you have
never given a moment's thought to them or to what they have done for
you; that you haven't the faintest idea who brought you the true
benefits of your life.
[...]
I tell you, little man, you've lost all feeling for the best that is
in you. You've stifled it. And when you find something worthwhile in
others, in your children, your wife, your husband, your father or
mother, you kill it. Little man, you're small and you want to stay
small.
How, you ask me, do I know all this? I'll tell you.
I have known you, shared your experiences; I've known you in myself.
As a physician I've freed you from what is small in you; as an
educator I've often guided you in the path of integrity and openness.
I know how bitterly you resist your integrity, what mortal fear comes
over you when called upon to follow your own, authentic nature.
You are not always small, little man. I know you have your "great
moments," your "flights of enthusiasm" and "exaltation." But you lack
the perserverance to let your enthusiasm soar, to let your exaltation
carry you higher and higher. You're afraid to soar, afraid of heights
and depths. Nietzsche told you that long ago, far better than I can.
He wanted to raise you up to be a superman, to surpass the merely
human. His superman became your Fuhrer, Hitler. And you have remained
what you were, the subhuman.
I want you to stop being subhuman and become "yourself." "Yourself." I
say. Not the newspaper you read, not your vicious neighbor's opinion,
but "yourself." I know and you don't, what you really are deep down.
Deep down, you are what a deer, your God, your poet, or your
philosopher is. But you think you're a member of the VFW, your bowling
club, or the Ku Klux Klan. And because you think so, you behave as you
do. This too was told you long ago, by Heinrich Mann in Germany, by
Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos in the United States. But you
recognize only the heavy weight champion and Al Capone. If given your
choice between a library and a fight, you'll undoubtedly go to the
fight.
You plead for happiness in life, but security means more to you, even
if it costs you your backbone or wrecks your whole life. Since you
have never learned to seize upon happiness, to enjoy it and safeguard
it, you lack the courage and integrity. Shall I tell you, little man,
what kind of man you are? You listen to commercials on the radio,
advertisements for laxatives, toothpaste, shoe polish, deodorants, and
so on. But you are unaware of the abysmal stupidity, the abominable
bad taste of the siren's tones calculated to catch your ear. Have you
ever listened closely to a nightclub entertainer's jokes about you?
About you, about himself, and your whole wretched world. Listen to
your advertisements for better bowel movements and learn who and what
you are.
Listen, little man! Every single one of your petty misdeeds throws a
light on the wretchedness of human life. Every one of your petty
actions diminishes the hope of improving your lot just a little more.
That is ground for sorrow, little man, for deep, heartbreaking sorrow.
To avert such sorrow you make silly little jokes. That's what you call
your sense of humor.
You hear a joke about yourself and you join in the laughter. You don't
laugh because you appreciate humor at your own expense. You laugh at
the little man without suspecting that you are laughing at yourself,
that the joke is on you. And all the millions of little men fail to
realize that the joke is on them. Why have you been laughed at so
heartily, so openly, so maliciously, down through the centuries? Have
you ever noticed how ridiculous the common people are made to look in
the movies?
I will tell you why you are laughed at, little man, because I take you
seriously, very seriously.
Invariably you miss the truth in your thinking. You remind me of the
whimsical sharpshooter who purposely misses the bull's eye by a hair's
breadth. You disagree? I'll prove it.
You could have become the master of your existence long ago if your
thinking aimed at the truth. I'll give you an example of your
thinking:
"It's all the fault of the Jews," you say. "What's a Jew?" I ask.
"People with Jewish blood," you say. "How do you distinguish Jewish
blood from other blood?" The question baffles you. You hesitate. Then
you say, "I meant the Jewish race." "What's race?" I ask. "Race?
That's obvious. Just as there's a Germanic race, there's a Jewish
race." "What are the characteristics of the Jewish race?" "A Jew has
black hair, a long hooked nose, and sharp eyes. The Jews are greedy
and capitalistic." "Have you ever seen a southern Frenchman or an
Italian side by side with a Jew? Can you distinguish between them?"
"No, not really . . ." "Then what's a Jew? His blood picture is the
same as everyone else's. His appearance is no different from that of a
Frenchman or an Italian. On the other hand have you ever seen any
German Jews?" "They look like Germans." "What's a German?" "A German
is a member of the Nordic Aryan race." "Are the Indians Aryans?"
"Yes." "Are they Nordics?" "No." "Are they blond?" "No." "See? You
don't even know what a Jew or a German is." "But Jews do exist!" "Of
course Jews exist. So do Christians and Mohammedans." "That's right. I
meant the Jewish religion." "Was Roosevelt a Dutchman?" "No." "Why do
you call a descendant of David a Jew if you don't call Roosevelt a
Dutchman?" "The Jews are different." "What's different?" "I don't
know."
That's the kind of rubbish you talk, little man. And with such rubbish
you set up armed gangs that kill ten million people for being Jews,
though you can't even tell me what a Jew is. That's why you're laughed
at, why anybody with anything serious to do steers clear of you.
That's why you're up to your neck in muck. It makes you feel superior
to call someone a Jew. It makes you feel superior because you feel
inferior. You feel inferior because you yourself are exactly what you
want to kill off in the people you call Jews. That's just a sampling
of the truth about you, little man.
When you contemptuously call someone a "Jew," your sense of your own
littleness is relieved. I discovered that only recently. You call
anyone who arouses too much or too little respect in you a Jew. And as
if you'd been sent down to earth by some higher power, you take it on
yourself to decide who is a Jew. I contest that right, regardless of
whether you're a little Aryan or a little Jew. No one but myself is
entitled to say what I am. I am a biological and cultural mongrel and
proud of it; in mind and body, I am a product of all classes and races
and nations. I don't pretend to be racially or socially pure like you,
or a chauvinist like you, petty fascist of all nations, races, and
classes. I'm told that you didn't want a Jewish engineer in Palestine
because he was uncircumcised. I have nothing more in common with
Jewish fascists than with any other fascists. I am moved by no
feelings for the Jewish language, Jewish religion, or Jewish culture.
I believe in the Jewish God no more than in the Christian or Indian
God, but I know where you get your God. I don't believe that the Jews
are God's "chosen people." I believe that someday the Jewish people
will lose themselves among the masses of human animals on this planet
and that this will be a good thing for them and their descendants. You
don't like to hear that, little Jewish man. You harp on your
Jewishness because you despise yourself and those close to you as
Jews. The Jew himself is the worst Jew hater of all. That's an old
truth. But I don't despise you and I don't hate you. I simply have
nothing in common with you, at any rate no more than with a Chinese or
a raccoon, namely, our common origin in cosmic matter. Why do you stop
at Shem, little Jew, why not go back to protoplasm? To my mind, life
begins with plasmatic contraction, not with rabbinic theology.
[...]
Twenty-two years, twenty-two long, eventful, anguished years have
passed since I began to teach you that what matters is not individual
therapy but the prevention of psychic disorders. And again you're
behaving as you've behaved for thousands of years. For twenty-two long
fearful years I taught you that people succumb to madness of one kind
or another or live in misery of one kind or another because they have
become rigid in body and soul and because they are capable neither of
enjoying love nor of giving it, because their bodies cannot, like
those of all other animals, convulse in the act of love.
Twenty-two years after I first told you so, to tell your friends that
the essential is not the cure but the prevention of psychic disorders.
But you go on behaving as you've behaved for thousands of years. You
state the great aim, without mentioning how it's to be attained. You
don't mention the love life of the masses. You want "to prevent
psychic disorders"--that much it's permissible to say--without going
into the disaster of people's sexual lives--that is forbidden. As a
physician, you're still up to your neck in the swamp.
What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying
without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That's what
you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You're a coward.
You want the raisins out of my cake but you don't want the thorns of
my roses. Haven't you too, little psychiatrist, been cracking silly
jokes about me? Haven't you ridiculed me as "the prophet of bigger and
better orgasms"? Have you never heard the whimpering of a young wife
whose body has been desecrated by an impotent husband? Or the
anguished cry of an adolescent bursting with unfulfilled love? Does
your security still mean more to you than your patient? How long will
you go on valuing your respectability above your medical mission? How
long will you refuse to see that your pussyfooting procrastination is
costing millions of lives?
You value security before truth.
When you hear about my orgone, you don't ask, "What can it do to cure
the sick?" No. You ask, "Is he licensed to practice medicine in the
state of Maine?" Don't you realize that though you and your wretched
licenses can obstruct my work a little, you can't stop it; that I have
a worldwide reputation as the discoverer of your emotional plague and
the investigator of your life energy; that no one is entitled to
examine me unless he knows more than I do?
You fritter away your freedom. No one has ever asked you, little man,
why you haven't been more successful in winning freedom, or if you
have won it, why you have quickly lost it to a new master.
"Did you hear that? He has the gall to cast doubt on democracy and the
revolutionary upsurge of the workers of the world. Down with the
revolutionary, down with the counter-revolutionary! Down!"
Take it easy, little Fuhrer of all democrats and of the world
proletariat. I am convinced that your real prospects of attaining
freedom depend more on the answer to that one question than on ten
thousand resolutions of your party congresses.
"Down with him! He has insulted the nation and the vanguard of the
revolutionary proletariat! Down with him! Stand him up against the
wall!"
All your cries of "Up" and "Down" won't bring you one step closer to
your goal, little man. You have always thought you could safeguard
your freedom by standing people "up against the wall." You'd do better
to stand yourself up to a mirror . . .
"Down! . . ."
Take it easy, little man. I don't mean to insult you, I'm only trying
to show you why you've never been able to win freedom, or to preserve
it for any length of time. Doesn't that interest you all?
"Do--o--own . . ."
[...]
You come running to me and ask: "Dear, good, great, Doctor! What
should I do? What should we do? My whole house is collapsing, the wing
is whistling through the cracks in the walls, my child is sick and my
wife is miserable. I'm sick myself. What should I do? What should we
do?"
"Build your house on granite. By granite I mean your nature that
you're torturing to death, the love in your child's body, your wife's
dream of life, your own dream of life when you were sixteen. Exchange
your illusions for a bit of truth. Throw out your politicians and
diplomats!
Take your destiny into your own hands and build your life on rock.
Forget about your neighbor and look inside yourself! Your neighbor,
too, will be grateful. Tell your fellow workers all over the world
that you're no longer willing to work for death but only for life.
Instead of flocking to executions and shouting hurrah, hurrah, make a
law for the protection of human life and its blessings. Such a law
will be a part of the granite foundation your house rests on. Protect
your small children's love against the assaults of lascivious,
frustrated men and women. Stop the mouth of the malignant old maid;
expose her publicly or send her to a reform school instead of the
young people who are longing for love. Don't try to outdo your
exploiter in exploitation if you have a chance to become boss. Throw
away your swallowtails and top hat, and stop applying for a license to
embrace your woman. Join forces with your kind in all countries; they
are like you, for better or worse. Let your child grow up as nature
(or 'God') intended. Don't try to improve on nature. Learn to
understand it and protect it. Go to the library instead of the prize
fight, go to foreign countries rather than to Coney Island. And first
and foremost, think straight, trust the quiet inner voice that tells
you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't entrust it to
anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE YOURSELF! Any
number of great men have told you that."
[...]
In view of all this, I'm bidding you goodbye, little man. I will serve
you no more, I refuse to let my concern for you torture me slowly to
death. You can't follow me to the distant places I'm bound for. You'd
be scared to death if you so much as suspected what the future has in
store for you--because undoubtedly you're in the process of inheriting
the earth, little man! My remote solitudes are a part of your future.
But for the present I don't want you as a traveling companion. As a
traveling companion you may be all right in a club car, but not where
I'm going.
"Kill him! He despises the civilization that I, the little man in the
street, have built. I'm a free citizen of a free democracy. Hurrah!"
You're nothing, little man! Nothing whatever! You didn't build this
civilization, it was built by a few of your more decent masters. Even
if you're a builder, you don't know what you're building. If I or
someone else were to say, "Take responsibility for what you're
building," you'd call me a traitor to the proletariat and flock to the
Father of all Proletarians, who does not say such things.
You're not free, little man, and you haven't the faintest idea what
freedom is. You wouldn't know how to live in freedom. Who brought the
plague to power in Europe? You little man! And in America? Think of
Wilson!
"Listen to him! He's accusing me, the little man! Who am I? What power
have I to interfere with the President of the United States? I do my
duty and obey orders. I don't meddle with politics."
When you drag thousands of men, women, and children to the gas
chambers, you're only obeying orders. Is that right, little man? And
you're so innocent you don't even know that such things are happening.
And you're only a poor devil, whose opinion counts for nothing, who
hasn't even got one. And who are you, anyway, that you should meddle
with politics? I know, I know! I've heard all that many times. But
then I ask: Why don't you do your duty in silence when a wise man
tells you that you and you alone are responsible for what you do, or
tries to persuade you not to beat your children, or pleads with you
for the thousandth time to stop obeying dictators? What becomes of
your duty, your innocent obedience, then? No, little man, when truth
speaks, you don't listen. You listen only to bluster. And then you
shout Hurrah! Hurrah! You're cowardly and cruel, little man; you have
no sense of your true duty, which is to be a man and to preserve
humanity. You imitate wise men so badly and bandits so well. Your
movies and radio programs are full of murder.
You will drag yourself and you meanness through many centuries before
becoming your own master. I'm bidding you goodbye in order to work
more effectively for your future, because when I'm far away you can't
kill me, and you respect my work more in the distance than close at
hand. You despise anything that's too close to you! That's why you put
your proletarian general or marshal on a pedestal: then, however
contemptible he may be, you can respect him. And that's why great men
have given you a wide berth since the dawn of history.
"That's megalomania. The man is stark raving mad!"
I know, little man, you're very quick to diagnose madness when a truth
doesn't suit you. You regard yourself as "normal"!
You've locked up all the lunatics and the world is run by normal
people. Then who's to blame for all the trouble? Not you, of course;
you only do your duty, and who are you to have an opinion of your own?
I know. You don't have to say it again. It's not you I'm worried
about, little man! But when I think of your children, when I think how
you torment the life out of them trying to make them "normal" life
yourself, I almost want to come back to you and do what I can to stop
your crimes. But I also know that you've taken precautions against
that by appointing commissioners of education and child care.
I with I could take you on a little tour of the world, little man, to
show you what you, as the "apostle and embodiment of the people," are
and have been, in the present and in the past, in Vienna, London, and
Berlin. You'd find yourself everywhere and recognize yourself without
difficulty, regardless of whether you're a Frenchman, a German, or a
Hottentot, if only you had the courage to look at yourself.
"He's insulting me, he's desecrating my mission!"
I'm not insulting you, little man, and I'm not desecrating your
mission. I'll be only too glad if you show me I'm wrong, if you prove
that you're capable of looking at yourself and recognizing yourself,
if you can give me the same kind of proofs as I'd expect of a mason
who's building a house. I'd expect him to show me that the house
exists and is fit to live in. And if I prove that instead of building
houses he merely talks about his "mission to build houses," this mason
will hardly be entitled to accuse me of insulting him. In the same
light, it's up to you to prove that you are the apostle and the
embodiment of man's future. It's no use trying to hide like a coward
behind the "honor" of the nation, or of the proletariat, because
you've already shown too much of your true nature.
[...]
A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE. I can't tell you what your future will be. I
have no way of knowing whether you'll ever get to the moon or to Mars
with the help of the cosmic orgone I have discovered. Nor can I know
how your space ships will take off or land, whether you will light
your houses with solar energy, or whether you will be able to talk
with someone in Australia or Baghdad through a slit in the wall of
your room. But I can tell you what you will definitely not do in five
hundred or five thousand years.
"Would you listen to that! He's a crank! He can tell me what I won't
do! Is he a dictator?"
I'm not a dictator, little man, though, what with your smallness, I
might easily have become one. Your dictators can tell you only what
you can't do in the present without ending up in a gas chamber. They
can no more tell you what you will do in the distant future than they
can make a tree grow faster.
"But where do you get your wisdom, you intellectual servant of the
revolutionary proletariat?"
From your own depths, you eternal proletarian of human reason!
"Listen to that! He gets his wisdom from my depths! I haven't got any
depths. And what kind of individualistic talk is this, anyway!!"
Oh yes, little man, you have depths, but you don't know it. You're
afraid, mortally afraid of your depths; that's why you neither feel
them nor see them. That's why your head swims when you look into the
depths, why you reel as if you were on the edge of a precipice. You're
afraid of falling and losing your "special character." Because, try as
you will to find yourself, it's always the same cruel, envious,
greedy, thieving little man that turns up. I wouldn't have written
this long appeal to you, little man, if you didn't have depths. And I
know these depths in you, little man, because in my work as a
physician I discovered them when you came to me with your affliction.
Your depths are your great future. And that is why I can tell you what
you will certainly not do in the future. A time will come when you
won't even understand how you were able, in these four thousand years
of unculture, to do all the things you have done. Now will you listen
to me?
"Why shouldn't I listen to a nice little utopia? In any case, nothing
can be done about it my dear Doctor. I'll always be the little man of
the people with no opinion of my own. And anyway, who am I to . . . ?"
Just be still! You're hiding behind the myth of the little man,
because you're afraid of getting into the stream of life and of having
to swim--if only for the sake of your children and grandchildren.
All right. The first of all the many things you will not do in the
future is to regard yourself as a little man with no opinion of his
own, who says, "Anyway, who am I to . . . ?" You have an opinion of
your own and in the future you will regard it as a disgrace not to
know it, not to express it and stand up for it.
"But what will public opinion say about my opinion? I'll be crushed
like a worm if I express my own opinion!"
What you call "public opinion," little man, is the aggregate of all
the opinions of little men and women. Every little man and every
little woman has inside him a sound opinion of his own and a
particular kind of unsound opinion. Their unsound opinions spring from
the fear of the unsound opinions of all the other little men and
women. That's why the sound opinions don't come to light. For
instance, you will no longer believe that you "count for nothing." You
will know and proclaim that you are the mainstay and foundation of
this human society. Don't run away! Don't be afraid! It's not so bad
to be a responsible mainstay of human society.
"What then must I do in order to be the mainstay of society?"
Nothing new or unusual. Just go on doing what you're already doing:
till your field, wield your hammer, examine your patient, take your
children out playing or to school, write articles about the events of
the day, investigate the secrets of nature. You're already doing all
these things, but you think they're unimportant and that only what
Marshal Medalchest or Prince Blowhard says or does is important.
"You're a dreamer, Doctor. Don't you see that Marshal Medalchest and
Prince Blowhard have the soldiers and the arms needed to make war, to
mobilize me for their war, and to blow my field, my factory, my
laboratory, or my office to pieces?"
You get yourself mobilized, your field and your factory are blown to
pieces, because you shout hurrah hurrah when they mobilize you and
blow your factory and field to pieces. Prince Blowhard would have
neither soldiers nor arms if you really knew that a field was for
growing wheat and a factory for making furniture or shoes, that fields
and factories were not made to be blown to pieces, and if you stood
foursquare behind your knowledge. Your Marshal Medalchest and your
Prince Blowhard don't know these things. They themselves don't work in
a field, factory, or office. They think you work not to feed and
clothe your children but for the grandeur of the German or the
Workers' Fatherland.
"Then what should I do? I hate war; my wife cries her heart out when
I'm drafted, my children starve when the proletarian armies occupy my
land, corpses pile up by the millions . . . All I want to do is till
my field and play with the children after work, love my wife at night,
and dance, sing, and make music on holidays. What should I do?"
Just go on doing what you've been doing and wanting to do all along:
work, let your children grow up happily, love your wife at night. If
you stuck to this program knowingly and single-mindedly there would be
no war. Your wife wouldn't be fair game for the sex-starved soldiers
of the Workers Fatherland, your orphaned children wouldn't starve in
the streets, and you yourself wouldn't end up staring glassy-eyed at
the blue sky on some far off "field of honor."
"But supposing I want to live for my work and my wife and my children,
what can I do if the Huns or Germans or Japanese or Russians or
somebody else marches in, and forces me to make war? I have to defend
my house and home, don't I?
Right you are, little man. If the Huns of any nation attack you,
you've got to pick up your gun. But what you fail to see if that the
"Huns" of all nations are simply millions of little men like yourself
who persist in shouting hurrah, hurrah when Prince Blowhard (who
doesn't work) calls them to the colors; little men like yourself who
believe that they count for nothing and ask, "Who am I to have an
opinion of my own?"
If once you knew that you do count for something, that you do have a
sound opinion of your own, that your field and factory are meant to
provide for life and not for death, then, little man, you yourself
would be able to answer the question you've just asked. You wouldn't
need any diplomats. You'd stop shouting hurrah, hurrah and laying
wreaths on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (I know your unknown
soldier, little man. I got acquainted with him when I was fighting my
mortal enemy in the mountains of Italy. He's the same little man as
yourself, who thought he had no opinion of his own.) Instead of laying
your national consciousness at the feet of your Prince Blowhard or
your marshal of the world proletariat to be trampled on, you'd oppose
them with your consciousness of your own worth and your pride in your
work. You'd be able to get acquainted with your brother, the little
man in Japan, China, and every other Hun country, to give him your
sound opinion of your function as a worker, doctor, farmer, father,
and husband, and convince him in the end that to make war impossible
he need only stick to his work and his love.
"That's all very well and good. But now they've made these atom bombs.
A single one of them can kill hundreds of thousands of people!"
Use your head, little man! Do you think Prince Blowhard makes atom
bombs? No, they're made by little man who shout hurrah, hurrah instead
of refusing to make them. You see, little man, it all boils down to
one thing, to you and your sound or unsound thinking. And you, the
most brilliant scientist of the twentieth century, if you were not a
microscopically little man, you'd have thought in terms of the world
and not of any nation. Your great intellect would have shown you how
to keep the atom bomb out of the world; or if the logic of scientific
development made such an invention inevitable, you'd have brought all
your influence to bear to prevent it from being used. You're caught in
a vicious circle of your own making, and you can't get out of it
because your thought and vision have taken the wrong direction. You
comforted millions of little men by telling them your atomic energy
would cure their cancer and rheumatism, though you were well aware
that this was impossible, that you had devised an instrument of murder
and nothing else. You and your physics have landed in the same blind
alley. You know it, but you won't admit it. You're finished! Now and
for all time! You know it, I've told you so very plainly. But you keep
silent, you go on dying of cancer and a broken heart, and on your very
deathbed you cry out, "Long live culture and technology!" I tell you,
little man, that you've dug your own grave with your eyes open. You
think the new "era of atomic energy" has dawned. It has dawned all
right, but not in the way you think. Not in your inferno but in my
quiet, industrious workshop in a far corner of America.
It is entirely up to you, little man, whether or not you go off to
war. If you only know that you're working for life and not for death!
If you only knew that all little men on this earth are exactly like
yourself, for better or worse.
Someday ( how soon depends exclusively on you ) you'll stop shouting
hurrah, hurrah. You'll stop telling fields and operating factories
that are slated for destruction. Someday, I say, you'll no longer be
willing to work for death but only for life.
"Should I declare a general strike?"
I'm not so sure. Your general strike is a poor weapon. You'll be
accused--and rightly so--of letting your own women and children
starve. By going on strike you will be demonstrating your high
responsibility for the weal or woe of your society. Striking is not
working. I've told you that someday you would work for life, not that
you'd stop working. If you insist on the word "strike," calling it a
"working strike." Strike by working for yourself, your children, your
wife or woman, your society, your product, or your farm. Make it plain
that you have no time for war, that you have more important things to
do. Outside every big city on earth, mark off a field, build high
walls around it, and there let the diplomats and marshals of the earth
shoot each other. That's what you could do, little man, if only you'd
stop shouting hurrah, hurrah and stop believing that you're a nobody
without an opinion of your own . . .
It's all in your hands, little man: not only your hammer or
stethoscope but your life and your children's lives. You shake your
head. You think I'm a utopian, if not a "Red."
You ask me, little man, when you will have a good, secure life. The
answer is alien to your nature.
You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you
than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public or
partisan opinion; when the mood of Beethoven's or Bach's music becomes
the mood of your whole life--you have it in you, little man, somewhere
deep down in a corner of your being; when your thinking is in harmony,
and no longer in conflict, with your feelings; when you've learned to
recognize two things in their season: your gifts and the onset of old
age; when you let yourself be guided by the thoughts of great sages
and no longer by the crimes of great warriors: when you cease to set
more store by a marriage certificate than by love between man and
woman; when you learn to recognize your errors promptly and not too
late, as you do today; when you pay the men and women who teach your
children better than politicians; when truths inspire you and empty
formulas repel you; when you communicate with your fellow workers in
foreign countries directly, and no longer through diplomats; when
instead of enraging you as it does today, your adolescents daughter's
happiness in love makes your heart swell with joy; when you can only
shake your head at the memory joy; when you can only shake your head
at the memory of the days when small children were punished for
touching their sex organs; when the human faces you see on the street
are no longer drawn with grief and misery but glow with freedom,
vitality, and serenity; when human bodies cease to walk this earth
with rigid, retracted pelvises and frozen sex organs.
You ask for guidance and advice, little man. For thousands of years
you have had guidance and advice, good and bad. Not bad advice but
your own smallness is to blame for your persistent wretchedness. I
could give you good advice, but in view of the way you think and are,
you wouldn't be able to convert it into action for the benefit of all.
If, for instances, I advised you to put an end to all diplomacy and
replace it by your professional and personal brotherhood with all the
shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, mechanics, engineers, physicians,
educators, writers, administrators, miners, and farmers of England,
Germany, Russia, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Palestine,
Arabia, Turkey, Scandinavia, Tibet, Indonesia, and so on; to let all
the miners work out the best way of preventing human beings all over
the world from suffering from cold; to let the educators of all
countries and nations determine the best way of safeguarding the
world's children against impotence and psychic disorder in later life;
and so on. What would you do, little man, if confronted with these
self-evident truths?
Assuming for the moment that you didn't have me locked up as a "Red,"
you would reply in person or through some spokesman of your party,
church, trade union, or government:
"Who am I to replace diplomatic relations between countries by
international relations based on work and social achievement?"
Or: "There's no way of overcoming the discrepancies in the economic
and social development of the various countries."
Or: "Wouldn't it be wrong to associate with the fascist Germans or
Japanese, the Communist Russians, or the capitalistic Americans?"
Or: "What interests me first and foremost is my Russian, German,
American, English, Jewish, or Arab fatherland."
Or: "It's all I can do to manage my own life and get along with my
garment workers' union. Let someone else worry about the garment
workers of other countries."
Or: "Don't listen to that capitalist, Bolshevist, fascist, Trotskyite,
internationalist, sexualist, Jew, foreigner, intellectual, dreamer,
utopian, fake, crank, lunatic, individualist, and anarchist! Where's
your American, Russian, German, English, or Jewish patriotism?"
You would undoubtedly use one of these statements, or another of some
sort, as an excuse for shirking your responsibility for human
communication.
"Am I then utterly worthless? You don't give me credit for one ounce
of decency. You make hash out of me. But look here. I work hard, I
support my wife and children, I try to lead a good life, I serve my
country. I can't be as bad as all that!"
I know you're a decent, industrious, cooperative animal, comparable to
a bee or an ant. All I've done is to lay bare the little man in you,
who has been wrecking your life for thousands of years. You are great,
little man, when you're not mean and small. Your greatness, little
man, is the only hope we have left. You're great when you attend
lovingly to your trade, when you take pleasure in carving and building
and painting, in sowing and reaping, in the blue sky and the deer and
the morning dew, in music and dancing, in your growing children, and
in the beautiful body of your wife or husband; when you go to the
planetarium to study the stars, to the library to read what other men
and women have thought about life. You're great when your grandchild
sits on your lap and you tell him of times long past and look into the
uncertain future with his sweet, childlike curiosity. You're great,
mother, when you lull your baby to sleep; when with tears in your eyes
you pray fervently for his future happiness; and when hour after hour,
year after year, you build this happiness in your child.
You're great, little man, when you sing the good, warmhearted folk
songs, or when you dance the old dances to the tune of an accordion,
because folk songs are good for the soul, and they're the same the
world over. And you're great when you say to your friend:
"I thank my fate that I've been able to live my life free from filth
and greed, to see my children grow and to look on as they first began
to babble, to take hold of things, to walk, to play, to ask questions,
to laugh and to love; that I've been able to preserve, in all its
freedom and purity, my feeling for the springtime and its gentle
breezes, for the gurgling of the brook that flows past my house and
the singing of the birds in the woods; that I've taken no part in the
gossip of malicious neighbors; that I've been happy in the embrace of
my wife or husband and have felt the stream of life in my body; that I
haven't lost my bearings in troubled times, and that my life has had
meaning and continuity. For I have always hearkened to the gentle
voice within me that said, 'Only one thing matters: live a good, happy
life. Do your heart's bidding, even when it leads you on paths that
timid souls would avoid. Even when life is a torment, don't let it
harden you.'"
When on quiet evenings after the day's work I sit om the meadow
outside the house with my beloved or my child, alert to the breathing
of nature, then a song that I love rises up in me, the song oh
humanity and its future: "Seid umschlungen, Millionen . . ." And then
I implore this life to claim its rights and change the hearts of cruel
or frightened men who unleash wars. They do it only because life has
escaped them. And I hug my little boy, who says to me, "Father! The
sun has gone away. Where has the sun gone? Will it come back soon?"
And I say, "Yes, my boy, the sun will come back soon with its kindly
warmth."
I have come to the end of my appeal to you, little man. I could have
gone on indefinitely. But if you've read my words attentively and
candidly, you will be able to recognize the little man in you even in
connections I haven't mentioned. For one and the same state of mind is
at the bottom of all your mean actions and thoughts.
Regardless of what you've done and will do to me, of whether you
glorify me as a genius or lock me up as a madman, of whether you
worship me as your deliverer or hang or torture me as a spy, your
affliction will force you to recognize sooner or later that I have
discovered the laws of living energy and have given you an instrument
with which to govern your lives with the conscious purpose which thus
far you have applied only to the operation of machines. I have been a
faithful engineer to your organism. Your grandchildren will follow in
my footsteps and become wise engineers of human nature. I have opened
up to you the vast realm of the living energy within you, your cosmic
essence. That is my great reward.
And to the dictators and tyrants, the crafty and malignant, the
vultures and hyenas, I cry out in the words of an ancient sage:
I have planted the banner of holy words in this world.
Long after the palm tree has withered and the rock crumbled,
long after the glittering monarchs have vanished like the dust of
dried leaves,
a thousand arks will carry my word through every flood:
It will prevail.
[End]
What you've just read is only a small glimpse of the power of the book
"Listen, Little Man!" by Wilhelm Reich. The book is 127 jam packed
pages of honesty filled with wit and wisdom. The book is also filled
with brilliant illustrations by famous cartoonist and writer William
Steig. What you've just read was only about 30 pages, if you liked
what you read, there is 100 more pages where that came from. If you so
wish, you can click here to purchase the book from Amazon.com. It
costs as little as 5 dollars if you buy it used, in my opinion the
book is priceless and beyond commodification.
Click here to purchase the book from Amazon.com
FINAL WORDS FROM CHRISTOPHER
Hello friend, I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did. This book
taught me many things, to look at myself honestly, to be honest with
others, to give freely, to live life and much more. I think the most
important thing it taught me is to stop hiding behind the myth of the
little man. No matter who you are, there are times when you get a hint
that you are not just a little man. Even if it is only in a dream,
there is a part of you which knows you could be something great. Trust
that part of yourself! You are not "just" a little man!
"And first and foremost, think straight, trust the quiet inner voice
that tells you what to do. You hold your life in your hands, don't
entrust it to anyone else, least of all to your chosen leaders. BE
YOURSELF! Any number of great men have told you that."
Take care my friend,
Christopher
"Only one thing matters: live a good, happy life. Do your heart's
bidding, even when it leads you on paths that timid souls would avoid.
Even when life is a torment, don't let it harden you."
- Wilhelm Reich, "Listen, Little Man!"
Listen Little Man Translation by Ralph Manheim © 1974 by Mary Boyd
Higgins as Trustee of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust Fund
Images © William Steig
All rights reserved
© 2007 ListenLittleMan.com
marques de sade
wrote:
>If you start a war then be prepared for the
>consequences.
friends help friends in need... or is that not part of chinese
philosophy?
Bassos
"Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:QIudnRgdnJeYQy_V...@comcast.com...
>> mass destruction.
>> They started an illegal immoral war, using weapons
>> of mass destruction to kill over 100,000 innocent
>> civilians, men, women and children.
>> Why should the Chinese help out to stop
>> US and UK families losing their loved ones serving
>> in Iraq and Afghanistan?
>
> Besides, in 2002 they decided they didn't need the rest of the world.
Methinks you are off by about 1500 years or so ?
Btw, reading the urantia book, maybe in stages, could not hurt.
(well, maybe a bit, but then again, pantarei)
> Now it appears that some cowardly surrender-monkey wants China to save
> them.
>
> Why should China lift a finger? They're already getting everything they
> want. They lent us all the money we wanted to pursue this stupid personal
> vendetta between Bush and Saddam and now we owe them big time. The
> majority of our deficit is debt to China. Any time China wants to wreck
> the US all they have to do is call in that debt and our economy goes down
> the toilet.
We would not want to do that.
Influence pays of big time.
Didn't you see us hold the olympics, while we still are invading tibet ?
The russians think they can learn from us by invading georgie, but we are
way ahead.
> Since we have off-loaded all our manufacturing to other countries, we'll
> have no wealth-generating capacity left to recover. Not that the
> multinational corporations that fund the neo-cons care. They're moving to
> Dubai and Shanghai anyway. Like the man said, "Follow the money."
Well, america controls the middle east at least, right ?
>> Some don't learn from history, employ
>> scriptwriters to make a case for war, and PR
>> firms to sell it to a gullable public.
>
> And may get their way again, if more people don't start doing something
> besides worrying about whether Obama is a secret Muslim or having a snit
> because they wanted Hillary to run instead. It's amazing how much
> nonsense people will attend to in order to avoid facing reality.
Dibs on a completely irrelevant comment about nothing particularly
interesting by Joe *whatzhizfaze*, that will lett Mac Cain win.
> During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai
> Stevenson "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson
> replied, "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
It is just that mandatory voting for illegal immigrants does not work, or
else...
Tom
"DubGenius Acheron Slithersss" <zevill...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:0555f84c-ca5f-4383...@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
> "Listen, Little Man!" is a book written by a truly great man named
> Wilhelm Reich.
A very bright man but one who was plagued by such delusions of grandeur and
fears of persecution that he brought about his own undoing. He wasn;t
nearly as great as he thought he was.
> I first read this book when I got out of high school at
> the age of 17. Having never read a complete book throughout all of
> school (I was always quite bright, though I certainly did not take
> kindly to being forced to do things against my own will) this was the
> first book I ever read from cover to cover. I have since become an
> avid reader and I have read this book dozens of times.
Have you read anything else?
> In fact, I
> still read it frequently. I strongly believe this is one of the best
> books ever written, it completely changed my life and helped make me
> the man I am today. This book changed my life all because of one
> single thing, the most important thing I have ever done in my life...
> The book made me look at myself. For once in my life I saw myself as I
> truly was... I have never been the same since, and at the young age of
> 21, though I am still living and learning, I can truly say I am free.
Lots of people think they are free at the ripe old age of twenty-one. It
takes a bit more experience to realize what a tool you actually are. Not as
much as you were at 17, probably, but a lot less than you could be, if you
disciplined yourself to read with an open mind some books that *don't*
flatter your current world view.
There is a very good reason why the military likes to recruit the 18 - 24
year-old crowd. They are more easily brainwashed into blind obedience than
older recruits.
> That is not to say I am completely free,
Then you cannot honestly say that you are "truly free"
> but I am free to be honest
> with myself.
Not if you claim to be "truly free" while knowing all the while that you're
not "completely free". That's being blatantly dishonest with yourself.
> I am free to think for myself without asking "what will
> my neighbor think of me?"
That may only be a sign of stupidity, not freedom.
> I am free to fully live like I once did as a
> child, as all children live before they are forced to become
> "civilized."
Are you back to pooping in your pants, then?
> That is not to say I am free from cooperation and
> responsibility,
Cooperation and responsibility arise from the question, "What will my
neighbor think of me?" That's the one you've decided to refuse to ask
yourself, remember? Or are you being dishonest with yourself about that
claim, too?
> I am not insolent. It does mean I am free to go swing
> on a swing, or to go play in the snow without reservation, and if some
> "civilized" neighbor disapproves of my motility I know that they only
> act that way because they are dead inside and cannot stand to see
> others truly living (because they know deep down they could, and
> should, be doing it too).
Or maybe they realize that you're too big for the swingset and are only
going to break it so that the little kids for whom it was designed won't get
a chance to play with it, you selfish pig. How insolent of you. It's also
quite insolent of you to presume that your disapporving neighbors must be
inferior to you if they express their feelings to you. I bet you're pretty
rude to those who do. Most presumptuous, arrogant, little post-adolescents
are.
No wonder you idolize a self-absorbed paranoid kook.
Tom
"Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:48b2f9c3$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:QIudnRgdnJeYQy_V...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Ato_Zee" <ato...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:X8zsk.86957$Ft5....@newsfe29.ams2...
>>>
>>> who said that Iraq had no weapons of
>>> mass destruction.
>>> They started an illegal immoral war, using weapons
>>> of mass destruction to kill over 100,000 innocent
>>> civilians, men, women and children.
>>> Why should the Chinese help out to stop
>>> US and UK families losing their loved ones serving
>>> in Iraq and Afghanistan?
>>
>> Besides, in 2002 they decided they didn't need the rest of the world.
>
> Methinks you are off by about 1500 years or so ?
No, I'm not. It's just that, as usual, you haven't a clue what I'm talking
about. You have completely failed to comprehend who "they" are. Here's a
hint: It's *not* the Chinese.
marques de sade
<dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>it appears that some cowardly surrender-monkey wants China to save them.
asking for more troops and more guns means i want to finish up by
winning. there's no mention of surrendering there.
marques de sade
<cant...@excite.com> wrote:
>Actually they solved the North Korea problem diplomatically. Instead
>of jumping the gun like a teenager.
was this before or after they tested the nukes...
Cantor
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:26:07 -0700 (PDT), Cantor
>
> >Actually they solved the North Korea problem diplomatically. Instead
> >of jumping the gun like a teenager.
>
> was this before or after they tested the nukes...
It was before the whitehouse dove into another international disaster.
marques de sade
<cant...@excite.com> wrote:
>On Aug 25, 4:16=A0pm, jesucris...@netscape.net (marques de sade) wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:26:07 -0700 (PDT), Cantor
>>
>> <canto...@excite.com> wrote:
>> >Actually they solved the North Korea problem diplomatically. Instead
>> >of jumping the gun like a teenager.
>>
>> was this before or after they tested the nukes...
>
>It was before the whitehouse dove into another international disaster.
you have a vivid imagination...
Bassos
Then your cleverness was far too great for my mediocre mind.
Please enlighten me, if 'they' did not refer to the chinese, who did it
refer to ?
Comm
"Cantor" <cant...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:4297c8dd-6ab0-4810...@z72g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Actually, Eisenhower secretly threatened to nuke them and that ended that
war. It's no secret now.
Comm
"marques de sade" <jesuc...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:48b2f64e....@news.sysmatrix.net...
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:16:27 GMT, "Ato_Zee" <ato...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>If you start a war then be prepared for the
>>consequences.
>
> friends help friends in need... or is that not part of chinese
> philosophy?
HELL no it's not. Read "Art of War". The USA under the influence of
neocons started an illegal war. Oh how fucking right I was about
EVERYTHING. The first blunger was Reagan and his delusions about evil
empires. Now we have a RICH RICH Russia, just as big and strong, in
alliance with Iran, too. Fucking moron Reagan. The conservatives worship
him.
Conclusion again (I reached this one before). The fucking Anglos are STUPID
people, they completely lack foresight. TIME FOR A CHANGE.
VOTE OBAMA. He'll drill - oh, he'll have to when push comes to shove.
Either that, or the economy might stop cold. Nationwide, if people just
stayed home 3 days they'd BREAK the fucking country. Nothing would move or
happen.
Comm
> Couldn't we like use China's help in Iraq and Afghanistan as far
> as military? Why are we killing ourselves over there, and they
> have all these weaponry (not to mention people) just sitting there
> going unused? C'mon China! All that tribal drumming didn't do jack
> (old expression) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... You think
> you can impress the USA with a little dance and a little
> calligraphy... Send troops and weapons, bitches!!! We don't really
> want to be there forever, although it looks like it... We just
> can't finish what we started, because we don't practice Tai Chi
> (californians might--but they're weird...and gay) or don't have a
> tightly knit social fabric or even healthy cuisine, really. I mean
> let's face it, we eat garbage... garbage in garbage out, I guess.
> So how about it?! You know what they say: no guts, no glory...
Why should they help the USA fight an illegal war? China sells weapons to
anyone that wants them, and that includes Iran. China lends us money to go
do stupid shit in Iraq and elsewhere. We owe them trillions.
Vote for Obama. Just one thing, he better DRILL and force the oil companies
to DRILL (nationalize them if he has to) or he WILL lose and we'll end up
with McShit. Sure, air compressor car, fuel cell car, all that, but right
now MOST cars need GAS to run. Telling people to fill the tires with air
won't do it. He'll LOSE on that one issue if he doesn't tell the Greens to
fuck off. Declare the Green fanatics terrorists and be done with it.
We now have a machine that can scrub carbon from the air. The Greens don't
like that either, oh no, the fucking retards are now against just digging in
the ground for the stuff. MORONS. We have the fuel cell, almost read to go
and it runs on water and emissions are only water. The Greens don't like
that either. They want us to go back to Lil House on the Praire. I HATE
the Greens. They are economic terrorists.
As for England - and the Bishop of Cantebery - lord have mercy. That
FUCKING MORON doesn't want just one law for all Brit citizens. He wants
Sharia law to be ok. How NUTS is that?
I give up. The Western world is FINISHED. It's just SO finished.
marques de sade
Tom
>>
>> No, I'm not. It's just that, as usual, you haven't a clue what I'm
>> talking about. You have completely failed to comprehend who "they" are.
>> Here's a hint: It's *not* the Chinese.
>
> Then your cleverness was far too great for my mediocre mind.
Your mind isn't mediocre. It's pretty good. However, most of its energy is
wasted by having to prop up your ego. As a result, you have a hard time
paying attention to any voice but your own. It's you who makes your mind
mediocre even as you try to convince yourself that you're not.
> Please enlighten me, if 'they' did not refer to the chinese, who did it
> refer to ?
Context. All you have to do is look at my comments in context. However, it
appears you still need to be spoon-fed. "They" refers to the neocons who
defrauded their way into the White House and lied us into a war to enrich
themselves and their obscenely greedy supporters. It was in 2002 that the
incredibly stupid Iraq invasion took place. This is patently obvious to
just about everyone. Except you.
Bassos
>
> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
> news:48b45d90$0$191$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:AbidnYAl9aCEvS7V...@comcast.com...
>>>
>>>> Methinks you are off by about 1500 years or so ?
>>>
>>> No, I'm not. It's just that, as usual, you haven't a clue what I'm
>>> talking about. You have completely failed to comprehend who "they" are.
>>> Here's a hint: It's *not* the Chinese.
>>
>> Then your cleverness was far too great for my mediocre mind.
>
> Your mind isn't mediocre. It's pretty good. However, most of its energy
> is wasted by having to prop up your ego. As a result, you have a hard
> time paying attention to any voice but your own. It's you who makes your
> mind mediocre even as you try to convince yourself that you're not.
Wow.
So, how do i overcome this propping up my ego ?
>> Please enlighten me, if 'they' did not refer to the chinese, who did it
>> refer to ?
>
> Context.
It was in response to a sentence with a nice structure and all, and in
response to that sentence, simple grammar indicated it referred to the
chinese.
> All you have to do is look at my comments in context.
I like to look at experiences both in context, and simultaniously out of
context.
It makes life more interesting.
So, if your sentence meant something other than what the context in the post
indicated, it was limited.
This whole Oath of Harpocrates all over again.
(and you misquoted me by neglecting to include 17, you tease, you)
Think more about what could be meant by circumstances, it opens up a whole
new world of joy.
(not really directed at you tommie)
> However, it appears you still need to be spoon-fed. "They" refers to the
> neocons who defrauded their way into the White House and lied us into a
> war to enrich themselves and their obscenely greedy supporters. It was in
> 2002 that the incredibly stupid Iraq invasion took place. This is
> patently obvious to just about everyone. Except you.
You do know that Bush was re-elected after everyone knew his politics, right
?
Ze Fearz, ze fearz, zey rulez ze amerikaz.
(if you like i could come up with a list of things americains fear, starting
with appearance)
Will Barrack Osama, erm, Obama prevail ? (see what the media did there ?)
I saw the CNN bit about him, that looked promising. (he is by far the best
candidate, far better than hillary even)
The Democrats, having it let come to a bitter battle, divided the party.
So, silly americains will vote for the enemy before they would vote for the
winner in their clan they did not support.
Vengefull much ?
What will you do ?
(i vaguely remember you organizing some democrat thingy in 2004)
Tom
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:4OOdnRR3SLaLXinV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>> news:48b45d90$0$191$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>
>>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>> news:AbidnYAl9aCEvS7V...@comcast.com...
>>>>
>>>>> Methinks you are off by about 1500 years or so ?
>>>>
>>>> No, I'm not. It's just that, as usual, you haven't a clue what I'm
>>>> talking about. You have completely failed to comprehend who "they"
>>>> are. Here's a hint: It's *not* the Chinese.
>>>
>>> Then your cleverness was far too great for my mediocre mind.
>>
>> Your mind isn't mediocre. It's pretty good. However, most of its energy
>> is wasted by having to prop up your ego. As a result, you have a hard
>> time paying attention to any voice but your own. It's you who makes your
>> mind mediocre even as you try to convince yourself that you're not.
>
> Wow.
> So, how do i overcome this propping up my ego ?
Shut up.
>>> Please enlighten me, if 'they' did not refer to the chinese, who did it
>>> refer to ?
>>
>> Context.
>
> It was in response to a sentence with a nice structure and all, and in
> response to that sentence, simple grammar indicated it referred to the
> chinese.
Only when taken completely out of context. It's like you never read the
other sentences in the post or were unable to connect one to another. That
is a mistake I've observed you to make before. I think the reason for this
is that you like to cherry pick your facts to support some preconceived
notion you've latched onto. This means you can't really appreciate context
very well at all, especially if it contains something you're trying to
avoid.
>> However, it appears you still need to be spoon-fed. "They" refers to the
>> neocons who defrauded their way into the White House and lied us into a
>> war to enrich themselves and their obscenely greedy supporters. It was
>> in 2002 that the incredibly stupid Iraq invasion took place. This is
>> patently obvious to just about everyone. Except you.
>
> You do know that Bush was re-elected after everyone knew his politics,
> right ?
Wrong. A lot of people still don't know his politics. Like you, many
people make their decisions primarily based on emotion and irrational belief
rather than informed rationality.
> Ze Fearz, ze fearz, zey rulez ze amerikaz.
See?
> (if you like i could come up with a list of things americains fear,
> starting with appearance)
>
> Will Barrack Osama, erm, Obama prevail ?
That's the neocon appeal to fear and irrationality. "You shouldn't vote for
somebody whose name sounds sort of like the name of somebody you're afraid
of, and you're afraid of him because we didn't catch him when we had a
chance, so that we could scare you again later."
> I saw the CNN bit about him, that looked promising. (he is by far the best
> candidate, far better than hillary even)
>
> The Democrats, having it let come to a bitter battle, divided the party.
Maybe you should have waited a day to make that comment. I saw Hillary's
speech and the Democratic Convention last night. Did you? Anybody who
voted for Clinton and now won't vote for Obama can no longer claim to be a
Democrat.
> What will you do ?
> (i vaguely remember you organizing some democrat thingy in 2004)
No, I didn't organize anything for 2004. I am moderately active in Obama's
campaign, although I'm not taking anything like a leadership role.
Bassos
>
> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
> news:48b540f3$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:4OOdnRR3SLaLXinV...@comcast.com...
>>>
>>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>>> news:48b45d90$0$191$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>
>>>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:AbidnYAl9aCEvS7V...@comcast.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>> Methinks you are off by about 1500 years or so ?
>>>>>
>>>>> No, I'm not. It's just that, as usual, you haven't a clue what I'm
>>>>> talking about. You have completely failed to comprehend who "they"
>>>>> are. Here's a hint: It's *not* the Chinese.
>>>>
>>>> Then your cleverness was far too great for my mediocre mind.
>>>
>>> Your mind isn't mediocre. It's pretty good. However, most of its
>>> energy is wasted by having to prop up your ego. As a result, you have a
>>> hard time paying attention to any voice but your own. It's you who
>>> makes your mind mediocre even as you try to convince yourself that
>>> you're not.
>>
>> Wow.
>> So, how do i overcome this propping up my ego ?
>
> Shut up.
That is a panace.
Interaction demands the quitting of the shutting up.
>>>> Please enlighten me, if 'they' did not refer to the chinese, who did it
>>>> refer to ?
>>>
>>> Context.
>>
>> It was in response to a sentence with a nice structure and all, and in
>> response to that sentence, simple grammar indicated it referred to the
>> chinese.
>
> Only when taken completely out of context.
Ah, thanks for agreeing with me.
>>> However, it appears you still need to be spoon-fed. "They" refers to
>>> the neocons who defrauded their way into the White House and lied us
>>> into a war to enrich themselves and their obscenely greedy supporters.
>>> It was in 2002 that the incredibly stupid Iraq invasion took place.
>>> This is patently obvious to just about everyone. Except you.
>>
>> You do know that Bush was re-elected after everyone knew his politics,
>> right ?
>
> Wrong. A lot of people still don't know his politics.
You really want to beat this dead horse ?
>> Ze Fearz, ze fearz, zey rulez ze amerikaz.
>
> See?
I see plenty.
In the above thingy i see you not getting it.
>> (if you like i could come up with a list of things americains fear,
>> starting with appearance)
>>
>> Will Barrack Osama, erm, Obama prevail ?
>
> That's the neocon appeal to fear and irrationality. "You shouldn't vote
> for somebody whose name sounds sort of like the name of somebody you're
> afraid of, and you're afraid of him because we didn't catch him when we
> had a chance, so that we could scare you again later."
Why did you feel the need to explain what i wrote ?
>> I saw the CNN bit about him, that looked promising. (he is by far the
>> best candidate, far better than hillary even)
>>
>> The Democrats, having it let come to a bitter battle, divided the party.
>
> Maybe you should have waited a day to make that comment. I saw Hillary's
> speech and the Democratic Convention last night. Did you? Anybody who
> voted for Clinton and now won't vote for Obama can no longer claim to be a
> Democrat.
I admit i did not see hillary speak, i base my opinion on reports.
>> What will you do ?
>> (i vaguely remember you organizing some democrat thingy in 2004)
>
> No, I didn't organize anything for 2004. I am moderately active in
> Obama's campaign, although I'm not taking anything like a leadership role.
You do agree that having Obama as a president could be, erm, well,
interesting ?
marques de sade
<dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Shut up.
lead by example...
mika
> "Tom" wrote:
> >Shut up.
>
> lead by example...
Your comment makes no sense. Perhaps you, like Bassos, do not
comprehend the meaning of "context". Here is Tom's comment along with
the question he was responding to, which you conveniently snipped:
> Tom wrote:
> > Bassos wrote:
> >
> > So, how do i overcome this propping up my ego ?
>
> Shut up.
.
Tom
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:I5WdnZ5yF8Kb6CjV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>> news:48b540f3$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>
>>
>> Shut up.
>
> That is a panace.
You mean "panacea". If you would ever try it, you'd see it works. But you
won;t because yammering is the only way you have of trying to make yourself
seem important.
> Interaction demands the quitting of the shutting up.
No it doesn't, but you're far too ignorant to understand that.
>>> It was in response to a sentence with a nice structure and all, and in
>>> response to that sentence, simple grammar indicated it referred to the
>>> chinese.
>>
>> Only when taken completely out of context.
>
> Ah, thanks for agreeing with me.
Then we agree that you were completely misinterpreting what I wrote.
However, being a silly ass whose ego won't allow him to admit what a silly
ass you are, you have to pretend you're being clever. That's OK. I'm sure
there are a few other silly asses who will be glad to play pretend with you.
> You really want to beat this dead horse ?
Apparently you do.
> I admit i did not see hillary speak, i base my opinion on reports.
Try basing them on reality instead.
> You do agree that having Obama as a president could be, erm, well,
> interesting ?
No matter who gets elected, it will be interesting. I think Obama's
leadership is more likely to produce a change in America's direction that
will be better for the world in general, though. It's already done so,
actually. For example, since his visit to Iraq, the Iraqis have finally
gotten up the courage to demand the withdrawal of American troops according
to the timeline Obama advocates.
Ato_Zee
> For example, since his visit to Iraq, the Iraqis have finally
> gotten up the courage to demand the withdrawal of American troops
> according
> to the timeline Obama advocates.
And when they leave the fanatics will take over, civil war will
break out, the dominant groups will start ethnic clensing
of the weak and less able to defend themselves.
It won't be a democracy.
Comm
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:21:34 -0400, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>>VOTE OBAMA.
>
> obama shmobama...
Vota Obama! He's better than McCain on everything except on one issue:
drilling in our own backyard for oil.
Tom
You cannot force democracy on any country. It has to arise from the people
themselves. The civil war broke out several years ago and the ethnic
cleansing of various regions has already taken place. It is fatuous to
claim that we're going to prevent what has already happened.
The plain fact is that the elected Iraqi government, the one the US
currently claims to be defending, feels confident that it can handle the
affairs of its own people without any help from American troops. If they
felt they would be immediately overthrown and suffer some enormous
bloodbath, they are highly unlikely to demand that their safety net be
removed. Even if they weren't so sure, it's their country, not yours.
If the Iraqis want a democracy and a peaceful country, they'll have one.
It's not up to us. It's up to them.
The neocons were eager to criticize what they called "nation-building" in
the Balkans, but they seem even more eager to engage in a much more blatant
attempt at it in Iraq. The difference? The Balkans don't have a shitload
of oil. What the neocons want is not a free Iraq, but a profitable Irexxon.
Tom
"Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:yu2dnXSzkajzMSvV...@earthlink.com...
>
> "marques de sade" <jesuc...@netscape.net> wrote in message
> news:48b4a264...@news.sysmatrix.net...
>> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:21:34 -0400, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>VOTE OBAMA.
>>
>> obama shmobama...
>
> Vota Obama! He's better than McCain on everything except on one issue:
> drilling in our own backyard for oil.
As it currently stands, turning every potential oilfield over to Big Oil
would not benefit the American oil consumer at all. The oil companies
uniformly refuse to commit to reserving that oil for domestic use. Instead,
they fully intend to sell it on the international market. How does selling
our oil to China help America's energy problems?
So it's completely understandable that Obama would not be in favor of
incurring more environmental damage to our country in order to further
enrich only a handful of oil magnates.
I think that eventually President Obama will agree to drilling for the last
drops of oil in American ground, but only if it provides real benefit to the
American people instead of merely increasing the already obscenely swollen
profits of Shell and Exxon.
Erwin Hessle
> I think that eventually President Obama will agree to drilling for the last
> drops of oil in American ground, but only if it provides real benefit to the
> American people instead of merely increasing the already obscenely swollen
> profits of Shell and Exxon.
What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know. Unless they are
being spent overseas, then they are either spent or invested within
the US economy, which benefits the American people a lot more than
letting the government steal them and waste them on useless
unproductive crap would.
Besides which, the profits of the oil companies are not "obscenely
swollen"; that's just the emotional language of socialism hoodwinking
the gullible. To state the obvious, oil companies make large profits
because they are large companies. In percentage terms over an extended
period of time, which is the correct way to look at it, those profits
are modest.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Comm
"Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Forget all that. China is presently drilling off the Gulf. Russia is buying
up everything and anything carbon. They intend to USE it. Fuck the Greens.
China and Russia both could care less what the stupid Greens say with their
pseudoscience.
WE need to drill there too and in ANWR and McCain will do that, he better do
it. Obama better change his mind. This government can force those oil
companies to drill by simply nationalizing them. Force them.
If every single American stayed home for one week, that would break the USA,
utterly and totally break it. That would also send a fucking message to
these bastards, both sides.
As to The Environment? There currently is a carbon scrubber that can
eliminate carbon from air. Greens oppose it on some nutbag grounds. There
is the fuel cell. Greens oppose that on nutbar grounds. They are anti
human, they want us to go back to a pre-industrial age. That's nutbag.
The greens need to be swept away, declared terrorists and be done with them.
Let the gov nationalize oil and bring that god damned price DOWN. Way way
down. A continuation of the New Deal, which Obama stands for, would be
good.
HG
Finland declared independence from Russia December 6th, 1917.
January 27th, 1918, the Finnish Civil War broke out.
The war was horrifyingly brutal, with nasty atrocities all over the place.
Are you saying that our country would have been better off if the Russians
had never left...?
HG
Tom
"Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> I think that eventually President Obama will agree to drilling for the
>> last
>> drops of oil in American ground, but only if it provides real benefit to
>> the
>> American people instead of merely increasing the already obscenely
>> swollen
>> profits of Shell and Exxon.
>
> What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
> They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
> Unless they are
> being spent overseas, then they are either spent or invested within
> the US economy, which benefits the American people a lot more than
> letting the government steal them and waste them on useless
> unproductive crap would.
Yes, the yacht sales have been just great, but health care for the people
put out of work by having had their jobs shipped to India, China, and Mexico
is still pretty much gone. Yachts are way more productive than sick
people, I suppose.
> Besides which, the profits of the oil companies are not "obscenely
> swollen";
They are the highest profits ever seen in the history of the whole fucking
world. Chevron, for example, made $18 billion in profit last year, which is
a 9% jump in profits from last year, new record that beats the record set
last year, which beat the record of the year before and which beat the
record of the year before that. Exxon posted similar record-breaking
numbers. In addition, these record profits were accompanied by more that $8
billion dollars in *government subsidies*.
> that's just the emotional language of socialism hoodwinking
> the gullible.
Government subsidies are simply socialism for the rich. So, if it's a
choice between socialism for the rich or socialism for everybody, I choose
everybody. As for "hoodwinking the gullible", no one is more guity of this
than the neocons. The all-time champions of big-lie smear politics,
election-rigging, and bogus claims about WMD's and terrorist plots are quite
clearly the neocon thugs.
> To state the obvious, oil companies make large profits
> because they are large companies. In percentage terms over an extended
> period of time, which is the correct way to look at it, those profits
> are modest.
A moderate increase in profits is acceptable, but when the profit margins of
these huge multinational corporations are setting all-time records year
after year while being given tax breaks and giveaways far and away greater
that those given to anyone else, then yes, I call them "obscenely swollen"
profits.
Tom
>
> Forget all that. China is presently drilling off the Gulf.
There you go believing Dick Cheney again. When are you going to realize
that the man is a pathological liar? There is absolutely no Chinese oil
drilling going on in the Gulf. The claim is utter nonsense. Remember how
he told you that he had proof that Saddam Hussein had "mobile biological
facilities" that can be used to produce deadly germ agents for terrorist
attack? He was lying. Remember how he told you that Saddam "had an
established relationship with al-Qaeda"? He was lying. Remmeber how he
told you that Mohamed Atta met in Prague with Iraqi intelligence before
9-11? He was lying. Remember how he told you that he had "no financial
interest in Halliburton" when he actually was received a deferred salary
from them and owned almost a half-million shares of their stock? He was
lying.
And here you are, still swallowing every load of shit he shovels.
This stupid lie about China drilling in the Gulf has been refuted by
Republican Senator Mel Martinez, who said the claim was "akin to urban
legends". Jorge Pinion, from the University of Miami's Center for
Hemispheric Policy, says that drilling proponents "are using China as a
bogeyman." Sinopec, China's nationalized oil company, has an agreement with
Cuba leasing for an onshore site but no actual drilling has taken place.
Cuba has similar leases with several other countries. Nobody is drilling
there now.
Cheney made this bogus claim on June 11 at a Chamber of Commerce gathering
and was immediately refuted. Having been caught out in yet another lie,
Cheney retracted his claim the next day. Hardly anybody on the right-wing
rant circuit even noticed the retraction. So it goes with the Republican
Noise Machine.
> WE need to drill there too and in ANWR and McCain will do that, he better
> do it. Obama better change his mind. This government can force those oil
> companies to drill by simply nationalizing them. Force them.
I suggest that you ask somebody in the McCain campaign if he's going to
nationalize the oil companies. You're hallucinating.
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Aug 28, 11:31 am, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> I think that eventually President Obama will agree to drilling for the
> >> last
> >> drops of oil in American ground, but only if it provides real benefit to
> >> the
> >> American people instead of merely increasing the already obscenely
> >> swollen
> >> profits of Shell and Exxon.
>
> > What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>
> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
government highway robbers, and it means when they do come to spend it
in the US, they have more of it to spend.
> > Unless they are
> > being spent overseas, then they are either spent or invested within
> > the US economy, which benefits the American people a lot more than
> > letting the government steal them and waste them on useless
> > unproductive crap would.
>
> Yes, the yacht sales have been just great, but health care for the people
> put out of work by having had their jobs shipped to India, China, and Mexico
> is still pretty much gone.
Boo fucking hoo. Less than one hundred years ago, back to the
beginning of the human race, there was pretty much no healthcare
available for anybody, anywhere. And now it's such a great moral crime
that people aren't being handed this unprecented level of healthcare
on a plate? What's more, the vastly improved standard of healthcare
arising in the last one hundred years certainly didn't arise through
government organisation and control. Sure, go ahead and subject the
country to this level of government management if you like, but don't
come crying to me when billions more people die early in the future
because the government stifled innovation. If we'd listened to people
like you a hundred years ago, we'd still be there.
And don't forget, all those jobs going to India, China and Mexico
result in a hell of a lot more poor people over there getting better
healthcare, and if you want to get all moral on me then you'll have to
explain why those people are less deserving of it, because they have a
shittier deal than the poor in the U.S. do. Saying that the U.S.
government should look after U.S. people is no response - why
shouldn't they just look after the rich and powerful U.S. people who
got them elected?
See, that's the problem when you try to support things with moral
arguments - you always end up talking total shit.
> They are the highest profits ever seen in the history of the whole fucking
> world. Chevron, for example, made $18 billion in profit last year, which is
> a 9% jump in profits from last year, new record that beats the record set
> last year, which beat the record of the year before and which beat the
> record of the year before that. Exxon posted similar record-breaking
> numbers.
As I said, they are big companies. It is not surprising when big
companies make big profits. Given economic growth and inflation, it is
equally unsurprising when profit records keep getting broken. This is
all merely brainless propaganda.
> In addition, these record profits were accompanied by more that $8
> billion dollars in *government subsidies*.
What kind of argument is this? It's you socialists who want the
government to tax us to death, but you don't want the government to
subsidise anything with those taxes? What else do you propose they do
with it?
And again, oil production is a highly long term and capital intensive
endeavour. Single year profits are meaningless, because there may well
be other years with big losses where capital spending had to be
maintained but revenues fell. As I told you, you need to look at
profits over at least a ten year cycle with these companies.
> Government subsidies are simply socialism for the rich.
Great. So the next time Obama promises subsidised healthcare, you'll
be the first to criticise him for it, I presume?
> So, if it's a
> choice between socialism for the rich or socialism for everybody, I choose
> everybody.
This is doublethink. You can't "choose everybody". It's either
everybody, or it's choice. Make your mind up.
> As for "hoodwinking the gullible", no one is more guity of this
> than the neocons.
Big fucking deal. You can't divide the world into socialists and
"neocons". This is yet more scaremongering socialist propaganda.
> A moderate increase in profits is acceptable, but when the profit margins of
> these huge multinational corporations are setting all-time records year
> after year
Care to present some of those record breaking "profit margins" you're
alleging to exist?
> while being given tax breaks and giveaways far and away greater
> that those given to anyone else, then yes, I call them "obscenely swollen"
> profits.
More typical socialist doublethink. "Make oil prices cheaper! But
don't subsidise oil companies to allow them to deliver it more
cheaply." If oil production isn't profitable, nobody will do it, and
if it weren't for the subsidies it would be even more expensive. A
pound says you'll take expensive oil over no oil at all any day of the
week.
If oil prices upset you, don't buy oil. If you do buy oil, then the
value you place on it is clearly greater than the price you're being
asked to pay, or at least no less from the price, so you have
absolutely no grounds for complaint. If oil company profits upset you,
don't buy stuff from them; all the money they get is from people like
you paying them willingly. Either way, quit your whining.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Tom
> On Aug 28, 12:49 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>>
>> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
>
> Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
> government highway robbers,
By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company highway
robbers.
I can apprecdiate that you'd prefer poorhouses and prisons to financial aid
for indigents and universal medical care. After all, if God had meant them
to be rich and powerful enough to be healthy and have homes, they would have
been born into rich families in the first place.
Besides, just because they don't pay any taxes doesn;t mean they don't want
the government to spend a lot of money. That's why the $200 billion budget
surplus each year that America enjoyed when Clinton was president have
become the $410 billion deficit we have now. It's not the the neocons
didn't spend money; it's just that they didn't collect it from their
friends. And spent most of it on projects that they handed to their
friends' corporations via no-bid contracts.
>> > Unless they are
>> > being spent overseas, then they are either spent or invested within
>> > the US economy, which benefits the American people a lot more than
>> > letting the government steal them and waste them on useless
>> > unproductive crap would.
>>
>> Yes, the yacht sales have been just great, but health care for the people
>> put out of work by having had their jobs shipped to India, China, and
>> Mexico
>> is still pretty much gone.
>
> Boo fucking hoo.
I don;'t propose crying about it. I propose we don't let them steal any
more. You apparently *like* being ripped off. It's the masochistic streak
in you, I suppose. A well-beaten dog is loyal to the whip hand.
> Less than one hundred years ago, back to the
> beginning of the human race, there was pretty much no healthcare
> available for anybody, anywhere.
And now America is the only industrialized country that doesn't have it.
It's time to grow up and join the modern human race.
> And don't forget, all those jobs going to India, China and Mexico
> result in a hell of a lot more poor people over there getting better
> healthcare,
Not yet. That's why the corporations are going over there. It's way
cheaper. That's how you get those record profits, after all.
> and if you want to get all moral on me then you'll have to
> explain why those people are less deserving of it,
That's just plain stupid to try to say that A has to lose a job if B gets
one. There's plenty of work to go around. There's no shortage of demand
for products and therefore no reason why people everywhere can't work at a
job that pays a decent wage. It's merely a question of where the robber
barons can rip people off the most.
>> They are the highest profits ever seen in the history of the whole
>> fucking
>> world. Chevron, for example, made $18 billion in profit last year, which
>> is
>> a 9% jump in profits from last year, new record that beats the record set
>> last year, which beat the record of the year before and which beat the
>> record of the year before that. Exxon posted similar record-breaking
>> numbers.
>
>As I said, they are big companies.
They are big parasites.
>> In addition, these record profits were accompanied by more that $8
>> billion dollars in *government subsidies*.
>
> What kind of argument is this? It's you socialists who want the
> government to tax us to death,
Nobody's taxing you to death. Quit whining. Asking the rich to pull their
fair share isn't socialism.
>> Government subsidies are simply socialism for the rich.
>
> Great. So the next time Obama promises subsidised healthcare, you'll
> be the first to criticise him for it, I presume?
I don't mind subsidizing things that benefit a genuine need and a genuine
national interest. I do object to subsidizing bloated mega-corporations
that make record profits and won't pay their fair share back into the system
that supports them.
>> So, if it's a
>> choice between socialism for the rich or socialism for everybody, I
>> choose
>> everybody.
>
> This is doublethink. You can't "choose everybody".
Yes I can. Show me why not.
>> As for "hoodwinking the gullible", no one is more guity of this
>> than the neocons.
>
> Big fucking deal.
Then quit whining about being hoodwinked, as if you're not being hoodwinked
right now.
> You can't divide the world into socialists and
> "neocons".
Why not? You do.
> This is yet more scaremongering socialist propaganda.
See? To your way of thinking, if you don't agree with the neocons, you must
be a socialist.
> > A moderate increase in profits is acceptable, but when the profit
> > margins of
> > these huge multinational corporations are setting all-time records year
> > after year
>
> Care to present some of those record breaking "profit margins" you're
> alleging to exist?
I already did. Pay attention.
"Chevron, for example, made $18 billion in profit last year, which is
a 9% jump in profits from last year, new record that beats the record set
last year, which beat the record of the year before and which beat the
record of the year before that. Exxon posted similar record-breaking
numbers."
> More typical socialist doublethink. "Make oil prices cheaper! But
> don't subsidise oil companies to allow them to deliver it more
> cheaply."
But they're *not* using those subsidies to lower prices. They're using them
to increase their profits at a record rate. In addition, the oil companies
are not the one's responsible for the drastic price rises we've seen lately.
That's a matter of deregulated speculation markets, the brainchild of Phil
Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor, who devised the "Enron Loophole"
that led us directly into that energy debacle, the collapse of the mortgage
industry, and our current gasoline prices.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/24/enron-loophole-keeps-oil-speculation-unleashed/
Dennis Kemmerer
[snip]
Boo fucking hoo. Less than one hundred years ago, back to the
beginning of the human race, there was pretty much no healthcare
available for anybody, anywhere.
----------
Over the past hundred years, the average male life expectancy has increased
by about 50%, from just over 50 years to just over 75 years, due to medical
advances and the availability of healthcare
(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html).
But, don't let any of that get in the way of your simple-minded rant.
[snip]
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> news:25909d2a-a488-4d0a...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> Boo fucking hoo. Less than one hundred years ago, back to the
> beginning of the human race, there was pretty much no healthcare
> available for anybody, anywhere.
>
> ----------
>
> Over the past hundred years, the average male life expectancy has increased
> by about 50%, from just over 50 years to just over 75 years, due to medical
> advances and the availability of healthcare
> (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html).
So you're agreeing with me, then? Yay for you. Let me know when you
have something to add to the discussion.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> news:25909d2a-a488-4d0a...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Aug 28, 12:49 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> >>news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> > What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
> >> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>
> >> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
>
> > Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
> > government highway robbers,
>
> By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company highway
> robbers.
Ah yes, those "thieving oil company highway robbers" that these poor
people of yours keep willing giving their money to.
> I can apprecdiate that you'd prefer poorhouses and prisons to financial aid
> for indigents and universal medical care. After all, if God had meant them
> to be rich and powerful enough to be healthy and have homes, they would have
> been born into rich families in the first place.
>
> Besides, just because they don't pay any taxes doesn;t mean they don't want
> the government to spend a lot of money. That's why the $200 billion budget
> surplus each year that America enjoyed when Clinton was president have
> become the $410 billion deficit we have now. It's not the the neocons
> didn't spend money; it's just that they didn't collect it from their
> friends. And spent most of it on projects that they handed to their
> friends' corporations via no-bid contracts.
Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
said?
> >> > Unless they are
> >> > being spent overseas, then they are either spent or invested within
> >> > the US economy, which benefits the American people a lot more than
> >> > letting the government steal them and waste them on useless
> >> > unproductive crap would.
>
> >> Yes, the yacht sales have been just great, but health care for the people
> >> put out of work by having had their jobs shipped to India, China, and
> >> Mexico
> >> is still pretty much gone.
>
> > Boo fucking hoo.
>
> I don;'t propose crying about it. I propose we don't let them steal any
> more. You apparently *like* being ripped off.
What are you smoking? You're the socialist, here, you're the one who
admits wanting the government to steal your money and waste it. For
you to accuse someone else of liking being ripped off is frankly
bizarre.
> > Less than one hundred years ago, back to the
> > beginning of the human race, there was pretty much no healthcare
> > available for anybody, anywhere.
>
> And now America is the only industrialized country that doesn't have it.
> It's time to grow up and join the modern human race.
Yeah, you might want to get out of America once in a while and see how
it works in these foreign utopias you've imagined. Try the free health
"care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
Then, try getting denied life-saving cancer drugs because the
government has decided they aren't very good value for money. If this
is what happens in your "modern human race" - which it doesn't, since
you don't know what you're talking about - you can keep it, thanks
very much.
> > And don't forget, all those jobs going to India, China and Mexico
> > result in a hell of a lot more poor people over there getting better
> > healthcare,
>
> Not yet.
Ah, I see, so it's the possibility of Indians, Chinese and Mexicans
getting better healthcare in the future that upsets you so much?
> > and if you want to get all moral on me then you'll have to
> > explain why those people are less deserving of it,
>
> That's just plain stupid to try to say that A has to lose a job if B gets
> one. There's plenty of work to go around. There's no shortage of demand
> for products and therefore no reason why people everywhere can't work at a
> job that pays a decent wage.
Of course there is a reason, otherwise nobody would be unemployed.
What kind of nonsense is this?
The root of your problem is that you appear to think that the role of
government is to steal my money and give everyone else a living with
it. And then you complain that people who oppose this are somehow
immoral. That's just weird.
> It's merely a question of where the robber
> barons can rip people off the most.
Ah yes, reverting to the language of feudalism never fails to drum up
some support for socialist propaganda.
> They are big parasites.
No, parasites steal things - you give you money to these people
freely. If you don't like it, you'd do well to remember that you're
bringing it all upon yourself.
> >> In addition, these record profits were accompanied by more that $8
> >> billion dollars in *government subsidies*.
>
> > What kind of argument is this? It's you socialists who want the
> > government to tax us to death,
>
> Nobody's taxing you to death.
No thanks to folks like you.
> Quit whining. Asking the rich to pull their
> fair share isn't socialism.
Yes it is, because you have a socialistic view of "fair", which
involves the "rich" subsidising the poor. It's impossible, for
instance, for you to sensibly argue that everybody paying the same
absolute amount of tax dollars is any less "fair" without resorting to
a socialist ideology.
> >> Government subsidies are simply socialism for the rich.
>
> > Great. So the next time Obama promises subsidised healthcare, you'll
> > be the first to criticise him for it, I presume?
>
> I don't mind subsidizing things that benefit a genuine need and a genuine
> national interest.
Uh huh. And you get to decide what is or is not "a genuine need and a
genuine national interest", I suppose? That's socialism.
> I do object to subsidizing bloated mega-corporations
> that make record profits and won't pay their fair share back into the system
> that supports them.
"I object to things that conflict with my socialist ideology". You
just want people to be free to conform to your socialistic vision. So
much for the land of the free!
> >> So, if it's a
> >> choice between socialism for the rich or socialism for everybody, I
> >> choose
> >> everybody.
>
> > This is doublethink. You can't "choose everybody".
>
> Yes I can. Show me why not.
Obviously because by forcing your socialistic agenda onto people you
take their choice away.
> >> As for "hoodwinking the gullible", no one is more guity of this
> >> than the neocons.
>
> > Big fucking deal.
>
> Then quit whining about being hoodwinked, as if you're not being hoodwinked
> right now.
I'm not a "neocon", so this is a complete non-sequitur.
> > You can't divide the world into socialists and
> > "neocons".
>
> Why not? You do.
Evidence, please.
> > This is yet more scaremongering socialist propaganda.
>
> See? To your way of thinking, if you don't agree with the neocons, you must
> be a socialist.
No, to my way of thinking, if you act like a socialist, you are one.
> > > A moderate increase in profits is acceptable, but when the profit
> > > margins of
> > > these huge multinational corporations are setting all-time records year
> > > after year
>
> > Care to present some of those record breaking "profit margins" you're
> > alleging to exist?
>
> I already did. Pay attention.
>
> "Chevron, for example, made $18 billion in profit last year, which is
> a 9% jump in profits from last year, new record that beats the record set
> last year, which beat the record of the year before and which beat the
> record of the year before that. Exxon posted similar record-breaking
> numbers."
So what's the profit margin? You've quoted me a profit number, and you
quoted me a percentage increase from the prior year. Where is the
profit margin that you allege is within this paragraph? You do know
what a profit margin is, don't you?
> > More typical socialist doublethink. "Make oil prices cheaper! But
> > don't subsidise oil companies to allow them to deliver it more
> > cheaply."
>
> But they're *not* using those subsidies to lower prices. They're using them
> to increase their profits at a record rate. In addition, the oil companies
> are not the one's responsible for the drastic price rises we've seen lately.
> That's a matter of deregulated speculation markets, the brainchild of Phil
> Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor,
Oh, so now the oil companies aren't to blame? Make your damn mind up.
> who devised the "Enron Loophole"
> that led us directly into that energy debacle, the collapse of the mortgage
> industry, and our current gasoline prices.
The "Enron Loophole" arose out of a culture where as long as you stuck
to the letter of the rules, then you were acting appropriately. See,
that's the kind of thing that happens when you subject everything to
rules-based governmental control. Again, you only have yourself to
blame for that.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Dennis Kemmerer
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
----------
[plonk]
marques de sade
>
>"marques de sade" <jesuc...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>news:48b4a264...@news.sysmatrix.net...
>> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:21:34 -0400, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>VOTE OBAMA.
>>
>> obama shmobama...
>
>Vota Obama! He's better than McCain on everything except on one issue:
>drilling in our own backyard for oil.
you have to have experience for a job like president...
Tom
"Dennis Kemmerer" <d...@suespammers.org> wrote in message
news:WGKtk.21029$uE5....@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com...
Oh, that's no way to treat Erwin. He really is listening, you know. It's
just that he's quite competent at defending whatever position he elects to
take. Use the opportunity to sharpen your skills. Don't expect
capitulation from a shadow boxer.
Tom
> On Aug 28, 7:31 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>> news:25909d2a-a488-4d0a...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > On Aug 28, 12:49 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>>
>>> >>news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> >> > What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
>> >> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>>
>> >> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
>>
>> > Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
>> > government highway robbers,
>>
>> By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company highway
>> robbers.
>
> Ah yes, those "thieving oil company highway robbers" that these poor
> people of yours keep willing giving their money to.
Do they have a viable alternative? That's the point of a monopoly, to
control a vital resource and make everyone pay to get it. They have no
choice but to buy it from you, unless they depose you and force you to
relinquish control. That's what the alternative energy movement is up to.
It is *not* necessary to let those thieves keep robbing you in order to get
the energy you need to keep you from being at the mercy of the dark and the
cold. Their profits will evaporate when you no longer need what they own.
>> Besides, just because they don't pay any taxes doesn;t mean they don't
>> want
>> the government to spend a lot of money. That's why the $200 billion
>> budget
>> surplus each year that America enjoyed when Clinton was president have
>> become the $410 billion deficit we have now. It's not the the neocons
>> didn't spend money; it's just that they didn't collect it from their
>> friends. And spent most of it on projects that they handed to their
>> friends' corporations via no-bid contracts.
>
> Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
> said?
That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to do
with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
>> > Boo fucking hoo.
>>
>> I don;'t propose crying about it. I propose we don't let them steal any
>> more. You apparently *like* being ripped off.
>
> What are you smoking?
A very good cigar. My wife bought it for me for my birthday.
> You're the socialist, here,
Your imagination is running away with you. You apparently think that
anybody who objects to being ripped off by oil companies must be a
socialist. I'd have thought you knew me better than that, after all this
time.
> you're the one who
> admits wanting the government to steal your money and waste it.
*You* assume it's all stolen and wasted. Not me. I pay my taxes willingly,
so it's not stolen, and while I think it's often spend inefficiently, it's
not all wasted. If the government is competent, it spends the money it
collects in a more responsible way. The trick is to devise a competent
government.
The current US government is especially incompetent. So I mean to change
it. If enough of my compatriots agree, change will be implemented. If the
next batch doesn't get it right, we'll change it again. That's how democracy
is supposed to work.
>> And now America is the only industrialized country that doesn't have it.
>> It's time to grow up and join the modern human race.
>
> Yeah, you might want to get out of America once in a while and see how
> it works in these foreign utopias you've imagined.
I don't imagine any "foreign utopias". As we have both noted in other
threads, one doesn't have to get everything right in order to get some
things right. The US health care system is the most inequitable of any
industrialized nation. In that regard, we are not doing as well as others.
We can do better.
> Try the free health
> "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
> first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all. You don't
have to be perfect to be better than nothing. We can do better.
>> > And don't forget, all those jobs going to India, China and Mexico
>> > result in a hell of a lot more poor people over there getting better
>> > healthcare,
>>
>> Not yet.
>
> Ah, I see, so it's the possibility of Indians, Chinese and Mexicans
> getting better healthcare in the future that upsets you so much?
Not a bit. However, the only reason the robber barons are investing there
is that they haven't organized their labor yet and demanded it. They will.
It's an inevitable phase of economic evolution. Eventually, the robber
barons are going to run out of people who will be complaisant about being
ripped off. However, until then, they will keep moving on to the next
victim. We can stop them here or we can stop them there. It's merely a
matter of where we choose to draw the line.
>> > and if you want to get all moral on me then you'll have to
>> > explain why those people are less deserving of it,
>>
>> That's just plain stupid to try to say that A has to lose a job if B gets
>> one. There's plenty of work to go around. There's no shortage of demand
>> for products and therefore no reason why people everywhere can't work at
>> a
>> job that pays a decent wage.
>
> Of course there is a reason, otherwise nobody would be unemployed.
> What kind of nonsense is this?
The "nonsense" is in the way you are conceiving of the situation. People
want stuff. The more stuff they can get, the better. Thus. if we had an
equitable way to get stuff to everybody. we'd all have jobs doing so.
Nobody would be unemployed and everybody would have stuff. The problem is
that "free markets" are based on the idea that you keep stuff from people in
order to get them to pay more for it. There's no cooperation. It's all
competition. On the other hand, if everybody gets and nobody pays, nobody
ever has any reason to get anything to anybody else. The balance is
precarious. Regulation must occur to keep competition and cooperation from
overwhelming one another. This is beyond capitalism or socialism. The
global economy has not yet emerged. We're still in the nascent stages of
it. I don't expect things to settle down for another hundred years or so.
Until then, arguments like yours and mine are going to continue.
>> It's merely a question of where the robber
>> barons can rip people off the most.
>
> Ah yes, reverting to the language of feudalism never fails to drum up
> some support for socialist propaganda.
If you act like a feudal lord, you get called one.
>> They are big parasites.
>
> No, parasites steal things -
You say "no" then you agree with me. They steal things. Government
subsidies one doesn't deserve or need is theft. Grabbing up a natural
resource of the people and then making them pay to get it back is theft.
>> >> In addition, these record profits were accompanied by more that $8
>> >> billion dollars in *government subsidies*.
>>
>> > What kind of argument is this? It's you socialists who want the
>> > government to tax us to death,
>>
>> Nobody's taxing you to death.
>
> No thanks to folks like you.
Exactly thanks to people like me, who demand accountability from their
government.
>> Quit whining. Asking the rich to pull their
>> fair share isn't socialism.
>
> Yes it is, because you have a socialistic view of "fair", which
> involves the "rich" subsidising the poor.
No it's not because I have the view that doesn't allow the rich to rip off
the poor merely because the rich have the power to do so. You, on the other
hand, feel that anyone has the right to shit on anybody else simply because
they can. You might as well argue that murder and burglary should be legal
if your mean enough to get away with it. That way lies the distant,
animalistic past, Erwin. Human beings in the main have realized that we can
do better.
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> news:e18e42b9-a7b7-422e...@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 28, 7:31 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
> >>news:25909d2a-a488-4d0a...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> > On Aug 28, 12:49 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> >>> >>news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> >> > What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
> >> >> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>
> >> >> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
>
> >> > Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
> >> > government highway robbers,
>
> >> By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company highway
> >> robbers.
>
> > Ah yes, those "thieving oil company highway robbers" that these poor
> > people of yours keep willing giving their money to.
>
> Do they have a viable alternative? That's the point of a monopoly, to
> control a vital resource and make everyone pay to get it. They have no
> choice but to buy it from you, unless they depose you and force you to
> relinquish control.
This is a common myth often used to justify social control. Monopolies
can't "make everyone pay to get it". A monopoly in a free market
depends for its very existence on there being enough people to
willingly pay the asking price for a product. Now, monopolies be able
to increase the price over and above what it might be in an enforced
competitive market, but they can never force people to pay more than
they are willing to pay, and if market participants are rational that
means that the value they place on that product is at least the asking
price, and for the vast majority of the market participants they will
actually place a higher value on it than the price they pay because of
consumer surplus.
So, your entire argument boils down to a view that it is fundamentally
unfair for people to pay a price for a product which is less than the
value they place on that product.
> That's what the alternative energy movement is up to.
> It is *not* necessary to let those thieves keep robbing you in order to get
> the energy you need to keep you from being at the mercy of the dark and the
> cold. Their profits will evaporate when you no longer need what they own.
No, their profits will evaporate when the market presents a way to
acquire a good substitute for that valued product at a lower price.
This is just regular old market competition, but it's competition in
substitute products, rather than identical products.
That's the inherent danger in monopoly; you think it's secure and that
you've cornered the market, but if someone comes along with an
alternative product you're screwed. It's easy to paint monopolies as
some kind of evil entity, but the reality is that they are as subject
to the forces of competition as anyone else once you look a little
further afield.
> >> Besides, just because they don't pay any taxes doesn;t mean they don't
> >> want
> >> the government to spend a lot of money. That's why the $200 billion
> >> budget
> >> surplus each year that America enjoyed when Clinton was president have
> >> become the $410 billion deficit we have now. It's not the the neocons
> >> didn't spend money; it's just that they didn't collect it from their
> >> friends. And spent most of it on projects that they handed to their
> >> friends' corporations via no-bid contracts.
>
> > Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
> > said?
>
> That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to do
> with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
That's pretty weak.
> > you're the one who
> > admits wanting the government to steal your money and waste it.
>
> *You* assume it's all stolen and wasted. Not me. I pay my taxes willingly,
> so it's not stolen,
But you pay your oil prices willing, so it is stolen, right? And you
don't see any contradictions, here?
> and while I think it's often spend inefficiently, it's
> not all wasted. If the government is competent, it spends the money it
> collects in a more responsible way. The trick is to devise a competent
> government.
*A* trick, which has largely proved unattainable. Another, better,
trick is to restrict the things that the government is allowed to
spend money on.
> The current US government is especially incompetent. So I mean to change
> it. If enough of my compatriots agree, change will be implemented. If the
> next batch doesn't get it right, we'll change it again. That's how democracy
> is supposed to work.
I'm not sure that choosing being one of two different dictators
presented to you every four years is worthy of the name "democracy".
> >> And now America is the only industrialized country that doesn't have it.
> >> It's time to grow up and join the modern human race.
>
> > Yeah, you might want to get out of America once in a while and see how
> > it works in these foreign utopias you've imagined.
>
> I don't imagine any "foreign utopias". As we have both noted in other
> threads, one doesn't have to get everything right in order to get some
> things right. The US health care system is the most inequitable of any
> industrialized nation. In that regard, we are not doing as well as others.
> We can do better.
Only if you measure things in terms of equity. The US health care
system may or may not be the most inequitable of any industrialized
nation, but it's certainly one of the most high quality systems. Not
everyone will agree that a system where everybody gets the same
shockingly poor level of health care is "better", despite how
"equitable" it is.
> > Try the free health
> > "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
> > first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
>
> Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all.
Not really. In both cases you die before you get any treatment.
Arguably, dying before you get any treatment and knowing that that's
going to happen is preferable to having uncertainty about it.
> You don't
> have to be perfect to be better than nothing. We can do better.
And once again, you are assuming that your version of "better" is the
right one.
> >> > And don't forget, all those jobs going to India, China and Mexico
> >> > result in a hell of a lot more poor people over there getting better
> >> > healthcare,
>
> >> Not yet.
>
> > Ah, I see, so it's the possibility of Indians, Chinese and Mexicans
> > getting better healthcare in the future that upsets you so much?
>
> Not a bit. However, the only reason the robber barons are investing there
> is that they haven't organized their labor yet and demanded it. They will.
> It's an inevitable phase of economic evolution.
Only inevitable to the extent that these "robber barons" of yours
invest in these places. You apparently want to withhold that
opportunity from them, so that they never manage to get themselves out
of squalor. So much for "equitable"!
> >> > and if you want to get all moral on me then you'll have to
> >> > explain why those people are less deserving of it,
>
> >> That's just plain stupid to try to say that A has to lose a job if B gets
> >> one. There's plenty of work to go around. There's no shortage of demand
> >> for products and therefore no reason why people everywhere can't work at
> >> a
> >> job that pays a decent wage.
>
> > Of course there is a reason, otherwise nobody would be unemployed.
> > What kind of nonsense is this?
>
> The "nonsense" is in the way you are conceiving of the situation. People
> want stuff. The more stuff they can get, the better. Thus. if we had an
> equitable way to get stuff to everybody. we'd all have jobs doing so.
> Nobody would be unemployed and everybody would have stuff. The problem is
> that "free markets" are based on the idea that you keep stuff from people in
> order to get them to pay more for it.
See? That's socialist thinking, that markets are somehow opposed to
the "common man". Businesses are owned and run by these very same
"people" whom you are claiming to be oppressed by them. Do you have a
401(k) plan? A college fund for your kids? Then when "big business"
profits, so do you.
Free markets are based on the idea that profits are made when there is
stuff that a lot of people want. This attracts other participants into
that market, production increases, and people end up with a lot more
of the stuff that they want. Interfering in markets leads to short
supply and people don't get the stuff thay want. Your argument is
completely backwards, but that's socialism for you.
> There's no cooperation. It's all
> competition.
I take it you've never heard of the "invisible hand", then?
> On the other hand, if everybody gets and nobody pays, nobody
> ever has any reason to get anything to anybody else. The balance is
> precarious. Regulation must occur to keep competition and cooperation from
> overwhelming one another. This is beyond capitalism or socialism. The
> global economy has not yet emerged. We're still in the nascent stages of
> it. I don't expect things to settle down for another hundred years or so.
> Until then, arguments like yours and mine are going to continue.
You appear to harbour a fondness for ideas of social evolution. What
is more likely is that this "global economy", if regulated in the way
that you suggest, will become so overblown that it collapses and
returns to a freer market system. Free markets are efficient because
they require no additional effort to keep them going. Regulation and
control is expensive and wasteful, and it implies that the persons
doing the regulating have something approaching perfect knowledge.
That's always the problem with socialism - you start regulating things
in order to "give control to the people", but the minute you start
regulating you take that control away from them. It's a pipedream.
> >> They are big parasites.
>
> > No, parasites steal things -
>
> You say "no" then you agree with me. They steal things. Government
> subsidies one doesn't deserve or need is theft.
Well, do you believe in democracy, or don't you? Again, you claim that
you pay your taxes willingly to the government, and you knew when you
paid them willingly that the government would spend them however it
saw fit. Now you want to complain about it. You can't have it both
ways.
> Grabbing up a natural
> resource of the people and then making them pay to get it back is theft.
"A natural resource of the people"? Firstly, the "people" don't own
that resource, and they never did, so it's a non-argument to begin
with. Secondly, you're not actually paying for the oil, you're paying
for the extraction, refining and distribution processes. Tell you
what, let's get rid of the oil companies, and the "people" can walk
thousands of miles to the oilfields, dig it out of the ground
themselves with homemade spoons, and then carry it home on their backs
in sacks made from grass, how about that?
> > Yes it is, because you have a socialistic view of "fair", which
> > involves the "rich" subsidising the poor.
>
> No it's not because I have the view that doesn't allow the rich to rip off
> the poor merely because the rich have the power to do so.
So what you propose is forcing the rich to share their wealth with the
poor merely because the poor, in sufficient numbers, have the power to
compel them to do it. Nothing you are talking about has anything to do
with taking away the power of control - you're just proposing moving
cooercive power from one group of people to a different group of
people. Pots and kettles, Tom?
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Chade
>
>
> Yeah, you might want to get out of America once in a while and see how
> it works in these foreign utopias you've imagined. Try the free health
> "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
> first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
Tangential, I know.
(For you non-Brits a GP is a family doctor)
> Then, try getting denied life-saving cancer drugs because the
> government has decided they aren't very good value for money.
IIRC the threshold is, approximatively, 30,000 pounds (the equivalent
of about 54,000 U.S. dollars) for every year of life, of a certain
quality, that can be reasonably expected.
Tom
> On Aug 29, 2:27 am, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>> news:e18e42b9-a7b7-422e...@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > On Aug 28, 7:31 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>> >>news:25909d2a-a488-4d0a...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> >> > On Aug 28, 12:49 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>>
>> >>> >>news:8583cc85-4e06-4d00...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> >> >> > What do you think happens to these "obscenely swollen profits"?
>> >> >> > They're not kept under the executives' beds, you know.
>>
>> >> >> No, they're kept in off-shore accounts where they won't get taxed.
>>
>> >> > Good for them. Keeps them out of the grubby hands of the thieving
>> >> > government highway robbers,
>>
>> >> By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company
>> >> highway
>> >> robbers.
>>
>> > Ah yes, those "thieving oil company highway robbers" that these poor
>> > people of yours keep willing giving their money to.
>>
>> Do they have a viable alternative? That's the point of a monopoly, to
>> control a vital resource and make everyone pay to get it. They have no
>> choice but to buy it from you, unless they depose you and force you to
>> relinquish control.
>
> This is a common myth often used to justify social control.
Declaring a fact to be a myth isn't going to change anything. However,
since monopolies are technically illegal these days (that dratted government
again!), the oil companies are actually oligopolies, control not by one
entity, but by a favored few operating in collusion with one another. And
yes, unfair control of the marketplace due to having no real competition is
bad for an economy and necessitates government regulation.
> Monopolies can't "make everyone pay to get it". A monopoly in a free
> market
> depends for its very existence on there being enough people to
> willingly pay the asking price for a product. Now, monopolies be able
> to increase the price over and above what it might be in an enforced
> competitive market, but they can never force people to pay more than
> they are willing to pay, and if market participants are rational that
> means that the value they place on that product is at least the asking
> price, and for the vast majority of the market participants they will
> actually place a higher value on it than the price they pay because of
> consumer surplus.
Saying that they pay "willingly" because they have no alternative to paying
is farcical. Of course you don't try to get them to pay more than they can.
All they'll do is die. But you *can* get them to pay one hell of a lot more
than is fair or good for them. A smart parasite only weakens its host
rather than killing it ourright.
> So, your entire argument boils down to a view that it is fundamentally
> unfair for people to pay a price for a product which is less than the
> value they place on that product.
They have made sure that we *must* value their oil more highly than it's
really worth. Our dependency on oil is another contrivance. Not only have
oil companies locked up the access to oil, they have also tried their very
best to suppress any alternative energy source. It was President Carter's
plan to reduce our dependency on oil by promoting solar power. To that end,
he had solar panels installed in the Whitehouse. When Reagan was elected,
largely financed by the oil industry and other huge Wall Street corporate
entities, he tore them out and that was the last anybody heard of solar
power in our energy policies for the next twenty years, keeping us all in
the thrall of the oil oligopoly.
> That's what the alternative energy movement is up to.
What the alternative energy advocates are up to is breaking through the
phony facade that oil is our only viable energy source. Of course, that is
something that oil companies don't want and they have a lot of money to hire
the very best hucksters to convince rubes like you that they love you like
your mommy does. So they telle you to go back to sleep, children and by no
means should you ever look behind the curtain.
>> It is *not* necessary to let those thieves keep robbing you in order to
>> get
>> the energy you need to keep you from being at the mercy of the dark and
>> the
>> cold. Their profits will evaporate when you no longer need what they own.
>
> No, their profits will evaporate when the market presents a way to
> acquire a good substitute for that valued product at a lower price.
> This is just regular old market competition, but it's competition in
> substitute products, rather than identical products.
Not "substitutes", Erwin. Alternatives. Oil is not the one true energy
source with all others being merely poor copies. That's just the huckster
patter, the flim-flam of PR firms trying to keep you toeing the mark. And
prefacing your agreement with me with a "no" does not mean you're not
agreeing with me.
> That's the inherent danger in monopoly; you think it's secure and that
> you've cornered the market, but if someone comes along with an
> alternative product you're screwed.
So you use your ill-gotten wealth to keep your would-be competition from
ever having a level playing field.
>> > Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
>> > said?
>>
>> That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to do
>> with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
>
> That's pretty weak.
It was pretty weak of you to try to pretend I had no point to make, but due
to your self-involvement, you couldn't see that. So I turned your argument
back on you. Once you were hit with your own stick, you suddenly noticed
how bootless that sort of argument really is.
So stop trying to strut like a banty rooster and stick to the arguments
themselves.
>> > you're the one who
>> > admits wanting the government to steal your money and waste it.
>>
>> *You* assume it's all stolen and wasted. Not me. I pay my taxes
>> willingly,
>> so it's not stolen,
>
> But you pay your oil prices willing, so it is stolen, right?
I choose my government. Democracy, remember? I don't choose my oil
company. They are *not* a democracy.
>> and while I think it's often spend inefficiently, it's
>> not all wasted. If the government is competent, it spends the money it
>> collects in a more responsible way. The trick is to devise a competent
>> government.
>
> *A* trick, which has largely proved unattainable. Another, better,
> trick is to restrict the things that the government is allowed to
> spend money on.
That's exactly what happens, actually, but the fly in the ointment is the
influence of big money interests on where that money is spent. Insurance
companies make sure that government doesn't spend money on health care
because if it did, they wouldn't get rich bleeding that system by putting a
bizarrely complicated and profit-oriented bureaucracy between doctor and
patient. Oil companies make sure the government doesn't make the switch to
solar or subsidize solar industries they way oil companies as subsidized
because if it did, oil companies wouldn't get rich bleeding *that* system.
We currently have an opportunity to improve that situation. The Obama
campaign has discovered a way to use the internet to let grassroots
financing fund their efforts at a level which can actually compete with big
money funded campaigns. Thus the influence of big corporations and their
lobbyists has been significantly reduced and Obama is not beholden to the
same corporate pirates that have effectively shackled every political party
up to now. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's a damn sight further
down the road toward a truly representative government than any previous
election has been able to manage.
I'm not willing to accept whatever lousy system happens to be in place just
because an initial change doesn't result in immediate perfection. The
answer to the question of what to do when the situation is bad is not to
give up and bear the suffering stoically, but to change it. If the change
doesn't give you the result you hoped for, you change it again. Repeat
until you get success.
>> The current US government is especially incompetent. So I mean to change
>> it. If enough of my compatriots agree, change will be implemented. If the
>> next batch doesn't get it right, we'll change it again. That's how
>> democracy
>> is supposed to work.
>
> I'm not sure that choosing being one of two different dictators
> presented to you every four years is worthy of the name "democracy".
Of course you're not "sure". Don't be a coward. Don't run from change just
because you don't know for sure what's going to happen. Change is coming.
The only real issue is whether or not you lead it or get dragged along by
it.
>> I don't imagine any "foreign utopias". As we have both noted in other
>> threads, one doesn't have to get everything right in order to get some
>> things right. The US health care system is the most inequitable of any
>> industrialized nation. In that regard, we are not doing as well as
>> others.
>> We can do better.
>
> Only if you measure things in terms of equity. The US health care
> system may or may not be the most inequitable of any industrialized
> nation, but it's certainly one of the most high quality systems.
If you have enough money to afford it. Increasingly, we don't. Health
insurance programs are becoming more expensive every day. Benefits are
curtailed. Doctors are being told by accountants what drugs are to be
administered to their patients because the drug companies want to make their
own record profits, right along with the oil companies. The whole system is
riddled with parasites from top to bottom. It is not true that the American
health care system "may or may not be the most inequitable". It *is* the
most inequitable.
> Not everyone will agree that a system where everybody gets the same
> shockingly poor level of health care is "better", despite how
> "equitable" it is.
What ever gave you the silly notion that any health care system run by any
organization that isn't intending to make a profit out of it must deliver
"shockingly poor care" to everyone? I don't hear anybody saying that rich
people won't be allowed to pay over and above some minimum level of care.
Nor does any health care system anywhere make that demand. That sort of
bugaboo is just another huckster spiel designed to confuse and distract you
from the real issue that a lot of American people are getting no health care
at all. Even a little would be better for than than none.
>> > Try the free health
>> > "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
>> > first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
>>
>> Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all.
>
> Not really. In both cases you die before you get any treatment.
That's the most ridiculous claim you've made yet. First, you make the
completely unsupported claim that everyone weill have to wait eighteen
months to get cancer treatment, which simply isn't true. Then you claim
that getting some minimum level of care is just as bad as getting no care at
all, which also is completely unsupported by any factual data outside of
anecdotal exceptions. You've completely abandoned any rational argument
here.
>> You don't
>> have to be perfect to be better than nothing. We can do better.
>
> And once again, you are assuming that your version of "better" is the
> right one.
And you're worried that it might not be so you don't have the courage to
even try.
>> The "nonsense" is in the way you are conceiving of the situation. People
>> want stuff. The more stuff they can get, the better. Thus. if we had an
>> equitable way to get stuff to everybody. we'd all have jobs doing so.
>> Nobody would be unemployed and everybody would have stuff. The problem is
>> that "free markets" are based on the idea that you keep stuff from people
>> in
>> order to get them to pay more for it.
>
> See? That's socialist thinking, that markets are somehow opposed to
> the "common man".
You cannot change a fact by mere name-calling and hyperbole. Nobody claims
that markets are "opposed to the common man". The fact is that the markets
are not actually "free", and any and all objections to the unprincipled
manipulations of the marketplace by big corporations is not "socialism".
>> There's no cooperation. It's all
>> competition.
>
> I take it you've never heard of the "invisible hand", then?
Corporate mythology.
"The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is
often not there." -- Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in
economics 2001.
> You appear to harbour a fondness for ideas of social evolution.
Whereas you seem to want social stagnation.
>> No it's not because I have the view that doesn't allow the rich to rip
>> off
>> the poor merely because the rich have the power to do so.
>
> So what you propose is forcing the rich to share their wealth with the
> poor
No, that's not what I propose. That's only what you're afraid of. It might
be true if the only way to get rich was to steal, but it's not. The goal of
keeping the rich from taking unfair advantage due to the power of their
wealth is not the same as the goal of not allowing anyone to be wealthy.
I propose social responsibility as a cornerstone of a fair and sustainable
economy.
Dennis Kemmerer
He obviously didn't understand what I said.
Chade
>
> I don't hear anybody saying that rich
> people won't be allowed to pay over and above some minimum level of care.
> Nor does any health care system anywhere make that demand.
The NHS (UK health service) withdraws the 'free' treatments for a
condition if someone starts buying extra treatments for the same
condition privatively. Though no-one, other than their bank manager,
stops them for paying for the basic treatments as well as the extra
ones if they want to.
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
> > market
> > depends for its very existence on there being enough people to
> > willingly pay the asking price for a product. Now, monopolies be able
> > to increase the price over and above what it might be in an enforced
> > competitive market, but they can never force people to pay more than
> > they are willing to pay, and if market participants are rational that
> > means that the value they place on that product is at least the asking
> > price, and for the vast majority of the market participants they will
> > actually place a higher value on it than the price they pay because of
> > consumer surplus.
>
> Saying that they pay "willingly" because they have no alternative to paying
> is farcical.
So you admit your statement that you "willingly pay taxes" was
"farcical", then?
Quite apart from the fact that they *do* have an alternative to paying
- they can just avoid consuming that product.
> Of course you don't try to get them to pay more than they can.
> All they'll do is die. But you *can* get them to pay one hell of a lot more
> than is fair or good for them.
Oh, so now you know what is "fair or good" for everyone, do you? So
tell me, what's a "fair and good" price for a barrel of oil today?
> > So, your entire argument boils down to a view that it is fundamentally
> > unfair for people to pay a price for a product which is less than the
> > value they place on that product.
>
> They have made sure that we *must* value their oil more highly than it's
> really worth. Our dependency on oil is another contrivance. Not only have
> oil companies locked up the access to oil, they have also tried their very
> best to suppress any alternative energy source.
Ah yes. You'll be trotting out the old water-powered car anecdotes,
next. Those evil grubby oil companies suppressing all our miracle
technologies, blast their eyes! You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
> It was President Carter's
> plan to reduce our dependency on oil by promoting solar power. To that end,
> he had solar panels installed in the Whitehouse. When Reagan was elected,
> largely financed by the oil industry and other huge Wall Street corporate
> entities, he tore them out and that was the last anybody heard of solar
> power in our energy policies for the next twenty years,
Oh, and of course if the government doesn't have a policy for
developing new technology, it'll never get developed, right? I guess I
must have just dreamed the industrial revolution.
> keeping us all in
> the thrall of the oil oligopoly.
Ooooh, those naughty little oil barons! Let them eat cake! Etc etc.
Do you have even the tiniest bit of evidence for any of this claptrap?
> > That's what the alternative energy movement is up to.
>
> What the alternative energy advocates are up to is breaking through the
> phony facade that oil is our only viable energy source.
What utter gibberish. How many oil fueled power stations are there in
this country? What proportion of homes use oil for their heating? How
many people cook on oil stoves?
The only reason almost anybody gives a shit about oil prices or
"dependency on oil" is simple: higher gas prices. This entire hoohah
has nothing whatsoever to do with "viable alternative energy sources"
- it's all about wanting cheaper driving, that's all. Most "energy" in
this country, right now, comes from sources other than oil. You've
simply been deluded by all this socialist propaganda into inventing a
problem that doesn't exist.
> Of course, that is
> something that oil companies don't want and they have a lot of money to hire
> the very best hucksters to convince rubes like you that they love you like
> your mommy does. So they telle you to go back to sleep, children and by no
> means should you ever look behind the curtain.
See? Alarmist socialist propaganda. "Elect Obama or we're all going to
die!" Yeah. OK. Sure.
> >> It is *not* necessary to let those thieves keep robbing you in order to
> >> get
> >> the energy you need to keep you from being at the mercy of the dark and
> >> the
> >> cold. Their profits will evaporate when you no longer need what they own.
>
> > No, their profits will evaporate when the market presents a way to
> > acquire a good substitute for that valued product at a lower price.
> > This is just regular old market competition, but it's competition in
> > substitute products, rather than identical products.
>
> Not "substitutes", Erwin. Alternatives.
Substitutes is the correct economic term. Don't blame me if you aren't
familiar with the correct terminology for the arguments you want to
ill-advisedly make.
> > That's the inherent danger in monopoly; you think it's secure and that
> > you've cornered the market, but if someone comes along with an
> > alternative product you're screwed.
>
> So you use your ill-gotten wealth to keep your would-be competition from
> ever having a level playing field.
Which leaves you with less wealth to develop your existing products
with, resulting in an even greater likelihood that someone will
develop a better substitute in the near future.
See, that's the problem with conspiracy theories like yours - they're
all bullshit. You might as well argue that the "rich" can suspend the
law of gravity if they have enough nasty obscene cash.
> >> > Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
> >> > said?
>
> >> That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to do
> >> with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
>
> > That's pretty weak.
>
> It was pretty weak of you to try to pretend I had no point to make,
"A point to make that is in any way relevant to what I said" were my
exact words, as you know perfectly well. Now you're just trying to
distract attention from your weak response, because you're embarrassed
by it.
> >> > you're the one who
> >> > admits wanting the government to steal your money and waste it.
>
> >> *You* assume it's all stolen and wasted. Not me. I pay my taxes
> >> willingly,
> >> so it's not stolen,
>
> > But you pay your oil prices willing, so it is stolen, right?
>
> I choose my government. Democracy, remember? I don't choose my oil
> company. They are *not* a democracy.
And by choosing "your" government, you deny everybody who would vote
differently from you the opportunity to choose *their* government. I
doubt if any Western government in the last one hundred years has
received more than 50% of the vote, therefore the majority of people
do not get the government they choose. So much for your democracy.
And you certainly *do* choose your oil company. Go through any town in
the country, and you'll see gas stations owned by at least four
different oil companies on the same street. You are free to choose any
of them that you wish. Nobody gets this level of choice for their
government.
I don't think you've really thought any of this through.
> > *A* trick, which has largely proved unattainable. Another, better,
> > trick is to restrict the things that the government is allowed to
> > spend money on.
>
> That's exactly what happens, actually, but the fly in the ointment is the
> influence of big money interests on where that money is spent.
You've yet to demonstrate why any other interests would either be more
effective, or more "fair". You're just demonising "big money" because
that's what your socialist overlords tell you to think.
If we're talking about economic policy, "big money interests" have a
far greater stake in that economy than people like you do. It's just
as easy to argue that they should have a far greater say in economic
policy for that reason. Your position has no rational basis
whatsoever.
> Insurance
> companies make sure that government doesn't spend money on health care
> because if it did, they wouldn't get rich bleeding that system by putting a
> bizarrely complicated and profit-oriented bureaucracy between doctor and
> patient. Oil companies make sure the government doesn't make the switch to
> solar or subsidize solar industries they way oil companies as subsidized
> because if it did, oil companies wouldn't get rich bleeding *that* system.
>
> We currently have an opportunity to improve that situation.
If you think any politician is going to have anything other than a
very superficial effect on the country then you are dreaming.
> The Obama
> campaign has discovered a way to use the internet to let grassroots
> financing fund their efforts at a level which can actually compete with big
> money funded campaigns. Thus the influence of big corporations and their
> lobbyists has been significantly reduced and Obama is not beholden to the
> same corporate pirates that have effectively shackled every political party
> up to now. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's a damn sight further
> down the road toward a truly representative government than any previous
> election has been able to manage.
Utter tripe. That's exactly what they want you to think. Politicians
are competing for votes, and they'll use their pernicious efforts to
hoodwink the public just as much as "big money interests" will.
You claim to dislike "big business", but government is the worst big
business of them all, but they've managed to get you at least to
willingly submit to their control.
> I'm not willing to accept whatever lousy system happens to be in place just
> because an initial change doesn't result in immediate perfection. The
> answer to the question of what to do when the situation is bad is not to
> give up and bear the suffering stoically, but to change it. If the change
> doesn't give you the result you hoped for, you change it again. Repeat
> until you get success.
Changing one group of politicians for another is hardly a radical
solution. Your argument is indistinguishable from "if one roll of
toilet paper is unsuitable for hammering in nails, then keep trying
different brands of toilet paper until you get success." You speak out
against feudalism, and then you state that the entirety of your plan
is to look for the best master that you can find. It's pitiful.
> >> The current US government is especially incompetent. So I mean to change
> >> it. If enough of my compatriots agree, change will be implemented. If the
> >> next batch doesn't get it right, we'll change it again. That's how
> >> democracy
> >> is supposed to work.
>
> > I'm not sure that choosing being one of two different dictators
> > presented to you every four years is worthy of the name "democracy".
>
> Of course you're not "sure". Don't be a coward. Don't run from change just
> because you don't know for sure what's going to happen. Change is coming.
> The only real issue is whether or not you lead it or get dragged along by
> it.
In the unlikely event that Obama does get elected, there's going to be
an awful lot of disappointed Obama supporters in the next few years
when that idiot fails to deliver on his ridiculous pie-in-the-sky
pipedreams.
> >> We can do better.
>
> > Only if you measure things in terms of equity. The US health care
> > system may or may not be the most inequitable of any industrialized
> > nation, but it's certainly one of the most high quality systems.
>
> If you have enough money to afford it. Increasingly, we don't. Health
> insurance programs are becoming more expensive every day. Benefits are
> curtailed. Doctors are being told by accountants what drugs are to be
> administered to their patients because the drug companies want to make their
> own record profits, right along with the oil companies. The whole system is
> riddled with parasites from top to bottom.
That's not a response. You've just restated your opinion that equity
is the factor of overriding importance.
> > Not everyone will agree that a system where everybody gets the same
> > shockingly poor level of health care is "better", despite how
> > "equitable" it is.
>
> What ever gave you the silly notion that any health care system run by any
> organization that isn't intending to make a profit out of it must deliver
> "shockingly poor care" to everyone?
Evidence derived from experiencing such an arrangement which, I feel
compelled to remind you, you've never done.
> I don't hear anybody saying that rich
> people won't be allowed to pay over and above some minimum level of care.
> Nor does any health care system anywhere make that demand.
But many socialists make that demand. Whether or not anybody has been
stupid enough to fall for it yet is another matter. If, as you say,
"change is coming", you may yet live to see it.
> That sort of
> bugaboo is just another huckster spiel designed to confuse and distract you
> from the real issue that a lot of American people are getting no health care
> at all. Even a little would be better for than than none.
Ah, how simple the world looks to an ideologist who has never actually
had to implement his ideas. That's the problem with Obama and his
nonsensical plans - it's easy to say one is going to do something.
You've bought his "huckster spiel" that he's actually going to succeed
in doing it hook, line and sinker. He must have seen you coming from a
long way away. Still, I'm sure you'll feel much better about being
hoodwinked into thralldom to a socialist regime, just so long as it's
not an oil company.
> >> > Try the free health
> >> > "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
> >> > first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous tumour.
>
> >> Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all.
>
> > Not really. In both cases you die before you get any treatment.
>
> That's the most ridiculous claim you've made yet. First, you make the
> completely unsupported claim that everyone weill have to wait eighteen
> months to get cancer treatment, which simply isn't true.
Where did I ever say that it was for "everyone"? I might as well state
that you've claimed that *noone* in the US can afford healthcare.
> Then you claim
> that getting some minimum level of care is just as bad as getting no care at
> all, which also is completely unsupported by any factual data outside of
> anecdotal exceptions. You've completely abandoned any rational argument
> here.
Nice try, but you aren't smart enough to pull off this kind of tactic.
The correct distinction to make is between lots of people getting good
healthcare and some people getting none, compared to lots of people
getting a minimum level of care and only some getting good healthcare.
You assume the latter is better and more "equitable". To date, only
your empty assertions stand to support this assumption.
> >> You don't
> >> have to be perfect to be better than nothing. We can do better.
>
> > And once again, you are assuming that your version of "better" is the
> > right one.
>
> And you're worried that it might not be so you don't have the courage to
> even try.
You Americans have yet to endure a real socialist regime, which is why
you and your pie-eyed socialist idealogues think it would be a really
super and whizzer progressive scheme to "give it a go". I don't have
to be "worried that it might not be so" - I've seen the ill effects of
socialism at first hand, and I've seen how it can destroy a previously
great country. Well, if you and your cohorts succeed in your
imperialist plan for forcing socialism on the American public, don't
say I didn't warn you when the reality turns out to be not quite what
you expected and you've given up your way back.
> >> The "nonsense" is in the way you are conceiving of the situation. People
> >> want stuff. The more stuff they can get, the better. Thus. if we had an
> >> equitable way to get stuff to everybody. we'd all have jobs doing so.
> >> Nobody would be unemployed and everybody would have stuff. The problem is
> >> that "free markets" are based on the idea that you keep stuff from people
> >> in
> >> order to get them to pay more for it.
>
> > See? That's socialist thinking, that markets are somehow opposed to
> > the "common man".
>
> You cannot change a fact by mere name-calling and hyperbole. Nobody claims
> that markets are "opposed to the common man".
You do.
> The fact is that the markets
> are not actually "free", and any and all objections to the unprincipled
> manipulations of the marketplace by big corporations is not "socialism".
Here's a better, more truthful statement of your entire position, and
that of your buddy Obama:
Alec Baldwin: My fellow actors. We live in a dark time. The world is
becoming more and more violent, and the idiots in charge are making it
worse. What the world needs is an international advisory committee who
truly understands global politics. Namely, us.
Actors: [pounding their tables with fists] Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! ...
Helen Hunt: The time has come for us to start using our acting talents
in a different way.
Ethan Hawke: Yes, we can use our powers to change the world.
Actors: [pounding their tables with fists] Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! ...
Tim Robbins: We will persuade everyone to drive hybrid cars and stop
smoking!
Liv Tyler: If we focus our acting on global politics, we can change
everything and stuff.
Actors: [pounding their tables with fists] Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! ...
Janeane Garofalo: As actors, it is our responsibility to read the
newspapers, and then say what we read on television like it's our own
opinion.
Matt Damon: Matt Damon.
> > You appear to harbour a fondness for ideas of social evolution.
>
> Whereas you seem to want social stagnation.
Not all of us rely on governmental social policy to give our lives
meaning, Tom.
> >> No it's not because I have the view that doesn't allow the rich to rip
> >> off
> >> the poor merely because the rich have the power to do so.
>
> > So what you propose is forcing the rich to share their wealth with the
> > poor
>
> No, that's not what I propose. That's only what you're afraid of. It might
> be true if the only way to get rich was to steal, but it's not. The goal of
> keeping the rich from taking unfair advantage due to the power of their
> wealth is not the same as the goal of not allowing anyone to be wealthy.
See, you still haven't explained how the wealthy taking advantage of
their wealth to achieve thier ends is "unfair", whereas the socialists
taking advantage of their propaganda to achieve their's is not. To
date, your argument has been no more sophisticated than "Yay the Red
Sox! Fuck the Yankees!" except you use words like "fair" and
"equitable" to take the edge of the appearance of stupidity.
> I propose social responsibility as a cornerstone of a fair and sustainable
> economy.
"Social responsibility" = "everyone should act in the way I want them
to, or face the consequences."
I propose people like you shutting up and letting everyone else live
their lives the way they want to, without you or your oppressive
socialist politicians getting in their way all the time. In other
words, I propose that people mind their own fucking business.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Tom
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:H5-dnYfEI7m0GirV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Dennis Kemmerer" <d...@suespammers.org> wrote in message
>> news:WGKtk.21029$uE5....@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com...
>>>
>>
>> Oh, that's no way to treat Erwin. He really is listening, you know.
>> It's just that he's quite competent at defending whatever position he
>> elects to take. Use the opportunity to sharpen your skills. Don't
>> expect capitulation from a shadow boxer.
>
> He obviously didn't understand what I said.
Obviously. Why not clarify?
Bassos
>
> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
> news:48b5851c$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...>> news:I5WdnZ5yF8Kb6CjV...@comcast.com...
>>>
>>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>>> news:48b540f3$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>
>>>> So, how do i overcome this propping up my ego ?
>>>
>>> Shut up.
>>
>> That is a panace.
>
> You mean "panacea".
Who the fuck cares ?
> If you would ever try it, you'd see it works. But you won;t because
> yammering is the only way you have of trying to make yourself seem
> important.
Heh, writes the dude that does not respond to questions.
You seriously need to consider what i write worthwhile before i will respond
to you, you abject noob you.
The rest of the post is interesting, but you did not go into it.
(shame on you)
Now you can go pretty much two routes.
One route is you claiming to know (lol you nuby)
Two route is even worse.
Accept that i know more than you before any interaction whill be worthwhile.
(yes Tom, i pwn you long time)
Bassos
> He obviously didn't understand what I said.
It does not matter what you think anybody else understands.
If you find yourself lucky enough having caught Erwins attention, you should
be grateful.
If i have ever met anyone that actually can continue discussion after
everyone else has left, it is Erwin.
He will use all your weaknesses against you.
You should thank him for that.
Imo the only way to goat Erwin to attack you is posting in alt.magick
There is some debate whether Erwin actually is a Magus, but for the
experience of interacting with him, that question is completely irrelevant.
So, if you are brave enough, post your thoughts in alt.magick, and maybe
Erwin will grace your posts with his destruction.
Bassos.
Dennis Kemmerer
Sock puppets go into the killfile, too.
[plonk]
Bassos
> Sock puppets go into the killfile, too.
This is the second time in 8 years usenet someone calls me a sockpuppet.
Thanks dude.
marika
> By keeping them in the grubby hands of the thieving oil company highway
> robbers.
Here is what I came up with using the web archive. As you look
at the drawing the would be on the right.
mk5000
http://socialcustomer.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/muddyhands.jpg
Tom
> On Aug 29, 12:24 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>> > Monopolies can't "make everyone pay to get it". A monopoly in a free
>> > market
>> > depends for its very existence on there being enough people to
>> > willingly pay the asking price for a product. Now, monopolies be able
>> > to increase the price over and above what it might be in an enforced
>> > competitive market, but they can never force people to pay more than
>> > they are willing to pay, and if market participants are rational that
>> > means that the value they place on that product is at least the asking
>> > price, and for the vast majority of the market participants they will
>> > actually place a higher value on it than the price they pay because of
>> > consumer surplus.
>>
>> Saying that they pay "willingly" because they have no alternative to
>> paying
>> is farcical.
>
> So you admit your statement that you "willingly pay taxes" was
> "farcical", then?
I explained that I have a choice as to what services I want my government to
provide and how much I will be charged for it. I do this by exercising my
right to vote. I have virtually no choice at all about what fuel my car
uses because the oil companies and car makers have colluded to prevent me
from doing so and I don't get any say in their decision. That's why I'm
willing to pay my taxes and unwilling to put up with oil company fraud.
> Quite apart from the fact that they *do* have an alternative to paying
> - they can just avoid consuming that product.
That's not a viable alternative. They've seen to that, too.
>> Of course you don't try to get them to pay more than they can.
>> All they'll do is die. But you *can* get them to pay one hell of a lot
>> more
>> than is fair or good for them.
>
> Oh, so now you know what is "fair or good" for everyone, do you? So
> tell me, what's a "fair and good" price for a barrel of oil today?
A good and fair price for a barrel of oil is zero. It's a non-renewable
fossil fuel whose profligate use is poisoning the planet. We shouldn't be
using it at all, let alone depending on it for our main power source.
Besides that, the supplies are already dwindling, which means the unfair
prices are only going to get higher and higher until the supply gives out
entirely. We should stop buying and selling oil altogether as soon as
possible.
>> They have made sure that we *must* value their oil more highly than it's
>> really worth. Our dependency on oil is another contrivance. Not only
>> have
>> oil companies locked up the access to oil, they have also tried their
>> very
>> best to suppress any alternative energy source.
>
> Ah yes. You'll be trotting out the old water-powered car anecdotes,
> next.
I'm trotting out wind power, solar power, and geothermal power. You, on the
other hand, are trotting out nonsense and trying to attribute it to me in
another of your transparent straw man arguments.
>> It was President Carter's
>> plan to reduce our dependency on oil by promoting solar power. To that
>> end,
>> he had solar panels installed in the Whitehouse. When Reagan was
>> elected,
>> largely financed by the oil industry and other huge Wall Street corporate
>> entities, he tore them out and that was the last anybody heard of solar
>> power in our energy policies for the next twenty years,
>
> Oh, and of course if the government doesn't have a policy for
> developing new technology, it'll never get developed, right? I guess I
> must have just dreamed the industrial revolution.
Are you really sure you want to argue that technological advances always
happen without government support and encouragement or even that they happen
more often without government support and encouragement? You're wandering
into a mine field there.
> Do you have even the tiniest bit of evidence for any of this claptrap?
There's plenty and it's very easy to find, but you've chosen to ignore it
and pretend it isn't there. You're turning into Archie before my very eyes.
Reagan stopped the move towards solar power. In his first term, he
eliminated tax credits for homeowners who wanted to go solar, knowing full
well that without tax credits the tiny industry could not compete with
fossil-based products. For example, in 1985 American Solar King reported
$30 million in sales of solar water heaters. After the tax credits were
abolished in 1986, they went out of business.
The Carter Administration had an energy plan called "A New Prosperity"
(available at your local library, if you don't believe me) which proposed to
convert 28% of America's power generation from fossil fuels to solar by
2010. Reagan shelved it. He turned over most of the duties of the
Department of Energy to the Department of Commerce. They promptly lifted
controls on natural gas and crude oil prices and began the farcical
"America's Commitment to Clean Coal", in which gave the coal industry $2.5
billion dollars to do some research into cleaning up their filth, without
any appreciable success, and spent another $1.6 billion trying to salvage
the nuclear industry. He did this after he cut the $700 million funding for
solar energy research claiming that it was a waste of money and that "the
market" would fix everything. This is all a matter of record.
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/permalink/meta-crs-8799:1
>> > That's what the alternative energy movement is up to.
>>
>> What the alternative energy advocates are up to is breaking through the
>> phony facade that oil is our only viable energy source.
>
> What utter gibberish. How many oil fueled power stations are there in
> this country? What proportion of homes use oil for their heating? How
> many people cook on oil stoves?
The only reason almost anybody gives a shit about oil prices or
"dependency on oil" is simple: higher gas prices. This entire hoohah
has nothing whatsoever to do with "viable alternative energy sources"
- it's all about wanting cheaper driving, that's all. Most "energy" in
this country, right now, comes from sources other than oil. You've
simply been deluded by all this socialist propaganda into inventing a
problem that doesn't exist.
>> Of course, that is
>> something that oil companies don't want and they have a lot of money to
>> hire
>> the very best hucksters to convince rubes like you that they love you
>> like
>> your mommy does. So they tell you to go back to sleep, children, and by
>> no means should you ever look behind the curtain.
>
> See? Alarmist socialist propaganda. "Elect Obama or we're all going to
> die!" Yeah. OK. Sure.
Another hyperbolic misrepresentation of my statements. It seems you can't
resist the urge to build straw men to attack. That's what happens every
time you haven't got a rational reply. So I'll consider them to be your
charming way of conceding the point.
>> > No, their profits will evaporate when the market presents a way to
>> > acquire a good substitute for that valued product at a lower price.
>> > This is just regular old market competition, but it's competition in
>> > substitute products, rather than identical products.
>>
>> Not "substitutes", Erwin. Alternatives.
>
> Substitutes is the correct economic term.
According to whom? Let's see the evidence.
>> > That's the inherent danger in monopoly; you think it's secure and that
>> > you've cornered the market, but if someone comes along with an
>> > alternative product you're screwed.
>>
>> So you use your ill-gotten wealth to keep your would-be competition from
>> ever having a level playing field.
>
> Which leaves you with less wealth to develop your existing products
> with, resulting in an even greater likelihood that someone will
> develop a better substitute in the near future.
That's the most idiotic claim you've made yet. You don't *have* to improve
your product if you don't have any competition. So, instead of risking your
money on research, you can ensure your domonance of the market by simpy
nipping would-be competitors in the bud. It's actually a lot cheaper to do
it that way instead of assuming that you're always going to be the one with
the best new ideas. Research is riskier than cutthroat politics.
> See, that's the problem with conspiracy theories like yours -
The operation of monopolies and oliopolies is not conspircay theory but
mainstream economic theory. This is just another of your straw men erected
in lieu of a rational argument, so this is another point you've conceded by
default.
>> >> > Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
>> >> > said?
>>
>> >> That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to
>> >> do
>> >> with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
>>
>> > That's pretty weak.
>>
>> It was pretty weak of you to try to pretend I had no point to make,
>
> "A point to make that is in any way relevant to what I said" were my
> exact words, as you know perfectly well.
Indeed. You were talking off the point, which you have done quite often in
this thread. That';s the problem with all those straw men you keep
erecting. They have nothing to do with anything I've actually said.
>> I choose my government. Democracy, remember? I don't choose my oil
>> company. They are *not* a democracy.
>
> And by choosing "your" government, you deny everybody who would vote
> differently from you the opportunity to choose *their* government.
There you go again. I said nothing of the sort. Another straw man erected
due to a lack of rational argument, and thus another concession from you.
> I doubt if any Western government in the last one hundred years has
> received more than 50% of the vote,
Well, you'd be wrong again. Just in the elections I've seen myself, Lyndon
Johnson got 69% of the popular vote in 1964 and Richard Nixon got 60% in
1972. If you want to count by electoral college votes, presidents within
the last 100 years that garnered over 50% include Eisenhower, Roosevelt,
Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush (GW), Truman, Carter, Kennedy, Clinton, and
Coolidge.
> therefore the majority of people
> do not get the government they choose. So much for your democracy.
There has been only one election in the last hundred years in which the
popular vote for the winning candidate was lower than that of the losing
candidate. That was the highly disputed election of George W. Bush in 2000,
which was decided not by votes but by an act of the Supreme Court before the
final total of the badly-run Florida election could be properly tabulated.
As it turns out, Gore actually did win the state, but that information came
too late to prevent the neocon take-over of the U S A. So much for your
knowledge of the facts.
>> > *A* trick, which has largely proved unattainable. Another, better,
>> > trick is to restrict the things that the government is allowed to
>> > spend money on.
>>
>> That's exactly what happens, actually, but the fly in the ointment is the
>> influence of big money interests on where that money is spent.
>
> You've yet to demonstrate why any other interests would either be more
> effective, or more "fair".
A democracy is a government run by the people all together. A government
run by the rich alone is not a democracy but an oligarchy. Thus, if one
wishes to be fair, the interests of all the people must be considered
equally. Under the present system of lobbyists and campaign financing, this
sort of fairness has been unattainable in practice.
> You're just demonising "big money" because
> that's what your socialist overlords tell you to think.
A "socialist overlord" is a self-contradictory term. And again, you resort
ot a straw man. I am not a socialist and have not been espousing socialism
at all. Yet again, by your demonstrated dearth of rational argument, you've
conceded the point.
>> The Obama
>> campaign has discovered a way to use the internet to let grassroots
>> financing fund their efforts at a level which can actually compete with
>> big
>> money funded campaigns. Thus the influence of big corporations and their
>> lobbyists has been significantly reduced and Obama is not beholden to
>> the
>> same corporate pirates that have effectively shackled every political
>> party
>> up to now. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's a damn sight further
>> down the road toward a truly representative government than any previous
>> election has been able to manage.
>
> Utter tripe. That's exactly what they want you to think.
"They?" Who are "they", Erwin? Are you touting a conspiracy theory here?
Where's your evidence of a vast conspiracy of "they" who wants to force
socialism on poor liittle you by financing elections in some way other than
through big-money lobbyists?
> Politicians are competing for votes, and they'll use their pernicious
> efforts to
> hoodwink the public just as much as "big money interests" will.
Hilarious. Everybody running for a public office is a "politician", you
silly bugger. This includes those representing the big money interests.
It's appallingly stupid of you to characterize the political tools of big
business as something other than politicians. Even if your sweeping
generalization is true and all politicians are, by definition hoodwinkers,
politicians who depend on big money interests are hoodwinking you on behalf
of those big money interests. Since, under the current system of campaign
financing, any national level politician who wants to have enough money to
buy the kind and amount of advertising to get his or her message across
without being completely drowned out, only big-money-supported candidates
can compete with any real hope of success, that means that the "politicians"
you refer to are all representing the interests of big money donors. Except
for Obama, who found a way to fund his campaign with vast numbers of small
donations instead of being forced to surround himself with lobbyists the way
McCain is forced to do.
> You claim to dislike "big business",
I claim no such thing. I think big business is a good thing in many ways.
However, I dislike certain big businesses exerting an unfair and deletory
influence over American government.
Your accusation is just another straw man, which means it's just another of
your concessions that you don't have a rational argument to propose.
> Changing one group of politicians for another is hardly a radical
> solution.
I'm not proposing any "radical solutions". That's another straw man you've
erected. I am proposing some reasonable reforms.
> In the unlikely event that Obama does get elected, there's going to be
> an awful lot of disappointed Obama supporters in the next few years
> when that idiot fails to deliver on his ridiculous pie-in-the-sky
> pipedreams.
It's not unlikely at all, according to most folks who aren't erecting acre
after acre of straw men to attack. As for disappointment, one cannot
reasonably expect instant and painless solutions to the problems we face.
Anybody who does is as delusional as you are to think they can't be solved
at all.
>> What ever gave you the silly notion that any health care system run by
>> any
>> organization that isn't intending to make a profit out of it must deliver
>> "shockingly poor care" to everyone?
>
> Evidence derived from experiencing such an arrangement which, I feel
> compelled to remind you, you've never done.
What experience is that? Let's examine your evidence.
>> I don't hear anybody saying that rich
>> people won't be allowed to pay over and above some minimum level of care.
>> Nor does any health care system anywhere make that demand.
>
> But many socialists make that demand.
Who, exactly? Stop waving vaguely at "many socialists" and show me some
particulars. Are you claiming that Obama is saying that rich people will
not be allowed any medical care over that which he wants to provide to the
poor? If so, let's see the evidence. You can probably find it right up
there with the evidence that he's a "registered Muslim".
>> That sort of
>> bugaboo is just another huckster spiel designed to confuse and distract
>> you
>> from the real issue that a lot of American people are getting no health
>> care
>> at all. Even a little would be better for than than none.
>
> Ah, how simple the world looks to an ideologist who has never actually
> had to implement his ideas.
But I *have* done so. There have been times in my life where I didn't have
health insurance and thus could not afford any health care. So I say from
my own experience that, compared to no health care at all, some health care
is better.
> That's the problem with Obama and his
> nonsensical plans -
I think it's extremely likely that you don't know what Obama's plan is. It
probably hasn't occurred to you to examine it, since you seem to believe you
already know all about it by divine revelation or something. He's not some
libertarian free-market ranter, so you're sure he must be a socialist. The
narrowness of your dualistic worldview is simply amazing. Educate yourself.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf
>> >> > Try the free health
>> >> > "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
>> >> > first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous
>> >> > tumour.
>>
>> >> Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all.
>>
>> > Not really. In both cases you die before you get any treatment.
>>
>> That's the most ridiculous claim you've made yet. First, you make the
>> completely unsupported claim that everyone will have to wait eighteen
>> months to get cancer treatment, which simply isn't true.
>
> Where did I ever say that it was for "everyone"?
Ah, then who is it who dies before he gets treatment? Is it the guy who
would have died anyway from having no access to treatment at all because he
was unable to afford it? Have you asked anyone who can't afford health
insurance if he'd prefer a flat "no" to "wait a while unless it's an
emergency"?
> The correct distinction to make is between lots of people getting good
> healthcare and some people getting none, compared to lots of people
> getting a minimum level of care and only some getting good healthcare.
How may is "some", Erwin? Almost 47 million Americans have no health
insurance today and health insurance premiums are going up four times faster
than wages. That means the number is going to continue to grow. That's
sounds like "lots" to me.
In addition, an increasing number of group healthcare plans offered by
employers (through which most Americans get that "good" care you're talking
about) have been steadily curtailing their coverage, denying claims where
there might possibly be a "pre-existing condition" and otherwise interfering
with doctor-patient relationships and limiting access needed services. So
that "good" care is getting worse all the time.
> You assume the latter is better and more "equitable". To date, only
> your empty assertions stand to support this assumption.
And the facts, of course. Let's not forget them.
>> And you're worried that it might not be so you don't have the courage to
>> even try.
>
> You Americans have yet to endure a real socialist regime,
And we're not going to with an Obama administation. Only a foam-spitting,
paranoid, right-wing ranter would suggest otherwise.
>> > See? That's socialist thinking, that markets are somehow opposed to
>> > the "common man".
>>
>> You cannot change a fact by mere name-calling and hyperbole. Nobody
>> claims
>> that markets are "opposed to the common man".
>
> You do.
An baseless accusation. I've said no such thing. Another of your straw
men, another concession that you have no rational argument to offer.
Tom
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:4-2dnTygAuFNeSjV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>> news:48b5851c$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>
>>
>> You mean "panacea".
>
> Who the fuck cares ?
Then shut up.
Erwin Hessle
> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
>
> news:04ed8e99-ee53-43fd...@k7g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Aug 29, 12:24 pm, "Tom" <dantPAYATTENTIONo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> "Erwin Hessle" <er...@erwinhessle.com> wrote in message
> >> > Monopolies can't "make everyone pay to get it". A monopoly in a free
> >> > market
> >> > depends for its very existence on there being enough people to
> >> > willingly pay the asking price for a product. Now, monopolies be able
> >> > to increase the price over and above what it might be in an enforced
> >> > competitive market, but they can never force people to pay more than
> >> > they are willing to pay, and if market participants are rational that
> >> > means that the value they place on that product is at least the asking
> >> > price, and for the vast majority of the market participants they will
> >> > actually place a higher value on it than the price they pay because of
> >> > consumer surplus.
>
> >> Saying that they pay "willingly" because they have no alternative to
> >> paying
> >> is farcical.
>
> > So you admit your statement that you "willingly pay taxes" was
> > "farcical", then?
>
> I explained that I have a choice as to what services I want my government to
> provide and how much I will be charged for it. I do this by exercising my
> right to vote.
That's a delusion. You have a choice as to which of a limited number
of presidential candidates that you are presented with you'll vote
for, and you have a choice as to which of a number of other
politicians representing your local area to vote with. These people
then go away and formulate policy without any of your input
whatsoever. Since your vote is one of millions, and since you only get
a tiny subset of government to vote for anyway, the idea that you have
these "choices" is an utterly lunatic idea.
Let's try an experiment. Suppose that you choose you want your
government to provide a free cat-washing service, and that you choose
that you want to be charged fifty cents a time for it. Give me a
viable plan as to how you can exercise this "choice".
> > Quite apart from the fact that they *do* have an alternative to paying
> > - they can just avoid consuming that product.
>
> That's not a viable alternative. They've seen to that, too.
Oh really? So, direct me to some viable technology for solar-powered
cars, wind-powered cars, or geothermal powered cars. The reason there
is no viable alternative to cars powered directly or indirectly from
fossil fuels is because no technology exists which is remotely as
efficient. Anybody who developed such a technology would become
unimaginably rich extremely quickly. This idea of yours that the "oil
companies" are colluding to suppress the development of such
technology is absolutely risible. It's overwhelmingly likely that the
oil companies are spending a lot of money trying to do it themselves.
The oil companies are just as aware as you that oil is a finite
resource, you know, but you elect to ignore this because it would be
inconvenient for your scaremongering bogeyman arguments.
> >> Of course you don't try to get them to pay more than they can.
> >> All they'll do is die. But you *can* get them to pay one hell of a lot
> >> more
> >> than is fair or good for them.
>
> > Oh, so now you know what is "fair or good" for everyone, do you? So
> > tell me, what's a "fair and good" price for a barrel of oil today?
>
> A good and fair price for a barrel of oil is zero. It's a non-renewable
> fossil fuel whose profligate use is poisoning the planet. We shouldn't be
> using it at all, let alone depending on it for our main power source.
You aren't going to curb use of a resource by setting its price to
zero, you utter peabrain, you are going to maximise consumption of it
that way.
> Besides that, the supplies are already dwindling, which means the unfair
> prices are only going to get higher and higher until the supply gives out
> entirely. We should stop buying and selling oil altogether as soon as
> possible.
If the supplies are already dwindly, we're going to have to stop
buying and selling oil soon anyway. As soon as oil prices get high
enough other technologies will become cheaper and people will switch
to them. That's the great thing about markets, see. If you really want
to see a switch to alternative technologies and the end of the oil
companies power, what you really should be doing is encouraging ever
more voracious consumption of it.
> >> It was President Carter's
> >> plan to reduce our dependency on oil by promoting solar power. To that
> >> end,
> >> he had solar panels installed in the Whitehouse. When Reagan was
> >> elected,
> >> largely financed by the oil industry and other huge Wall Street corporate
> >> entities, he tore them out and that was the last anybody heard of solar
> >> power in our energy policies for the next twenty years,
>
> > Oh, and of course if the government doesn't have a policy for
> > developing new technology, it'll never get developed, right? I guess I
> > must have just dreamed the industrial revolution.
>
> Are you really sure you want to argue that technological advances always
> happen without government support and encouragement or even that they happen
> more often without government support and encouragement? You're wandering
> into a mine field there.
Government regulation on a scale necessary to support and encourage
technological advances in the way you are describing is a relatively
recent phenomenon. That's the problem with you socialists - we have a
couple wars, you're impressed by how much government control is
possible in a war situation, and then you convince yourself that the
world was always like that and that without governmental control we'd
all still be living in caves. Technological advances have been
happening for thousands and thousands of years without government
encouragement. Until recently, the only technological advances which
governments encouraged and supported were the type which would be
useful to governments.
> > Do you have even the tiniest bit of evidence for any of this claptrap?
>
> There's plenty and it's very easy to find, but you've chosen to ignore it
> and pretend it isn't there. You're turning into Archie before my very eyes.
>
> Reagan stopped the move towards solar power. In his first term, he
> eliminated tax credits for homeowners who wanted to go solar, knowing full
> well that without tax credits the tiny industry could not compete with
> fossil-based products. For example, in 1985 American Solar King reported
> $30 million in sales of solar water heaters. After the tax credits were
> abolished in 1986, they went out of business.
Anecdotal crap. Practical every mobile road sign I see these days is
solar powered. People can and do put solar panels on their houses.
Saying that one company went out of business because some tax credit
plan was abolished is not "evidence".
This is typical of Obama's nonsense - all you need to do to make a
stupid plan work is to throw billions of dollars of tax payers' money
at it, and you're lapping it all up like a good little serf.
> The Carter Administration had an energy plan called "A New Prosperity"
> (available at your local library, if you don't believe me) which proposed to
> convert 28% of America's power generation from fossil fuels to solar by
> 2010. Reagan shelved it.
Where's your evidence that this absurd plan was actually feasible? The
most likely explanation is that it was shelved because it was a stupid
plan.
> He turned over most of the duties of the
> Department of Energy to the Department of Commerce. They promptly lifted
> controls on natural gas and crude oil prices and began the farcical
> "America's Commitment to Clean Coal", in which gave the coal industry $2.5
> billion dollars to do some research into cleaning up their filth, without
> any appreciable success, and spent another $1.6 billion trying to salvage
> the nuclear industry.
Spending money on energy methods which are already proven to be
feasible, now *that* sounds like a more sensible plan to me. How well
that plan worked is another question, since we only have your dubious
say-so that the solar plan would have worked.
> He did this after he cut the $700 million funding for
> solar energy research claiming that it was a waste of money and that "the
> market" would fix everything. This is all a matter of record.
A matter a record, maybe, but not a matter of reliable evidence, and
that's what I asked you for. Try again.
> > What utter gibberish. How many oil fueled power stations are there in
> > this country? What proportion of homes use oil for their heating? How
> > many people cook on oil stoves?
>
> The only reason almost anybody gives a shit about oil prices or
> "dependency on oil" is simple: higher gas prices. This entire hoohah
> has nothing whatsoever to do with "viable alternative energy sources"
> - it's all about wanting cheaper driving, that's all. Most "energy" in
> this country, right now, comes from sources other than oil. You've
> simply been deluded by all this socialist propaganda into inventing a
> problem that doesn't exist.
No response to this, then? Figures.
> >> Of course, that is
> >> something that oil companies don't want and they have a lot of money to
> >> hire
> >> the very best hucksters to convince rubes like you that they love you
> >> like
> >> your mommy does. So they tell you to go back to sleep, children, and by
> >> no means should you ever look behind the curtain.
>
> > See? Alarmist socialist propaganda. "Elect Obama or we're all going to
> > die!" Yeah. OK. Sure.
>
> Another hyperbolic misrepresentation of my statements.
An accurate representation of the essence of your statements, you
mean.
> >> > No, their profits will evaporate when the market presents a way to
> >> > acquire a good substitute for that valued product at a lower price.
> >> > This is just regular old market competition, but it's competition in
> >> > substitute products, rather than identical products.
>
> >> Not "substitutes", Erwin. Alternatives.
>
> > Substitutes is the correct economic term.
>
> According to whom? Let's see the evidence.
The first of many references a quick google search for "substitute
economics" turned up:
http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/substitute.htm
"Substitute goods are goods that can be used to satisfy the same
needs, one in the place of another. The buyer carries out an actual
and conscious process of choice about them, which leads the buyer to
prefer one to another."
There are many, many more. Any good or crappy economics textbook will
also tell you the same. As I said, it's not my fault if you lack of
basic understanding of the subjects you are trying to discuss.
> >> > That's the inherent danger in monopoly; you think it's secure and that
> >> > you've cornered the market, but if someone comes along with an
> >> > alternative product you're screwed.
>
> >> So you use your ill-gotten wealth to keep your would-be competition from
> >> ever having a level playing field.
>
> > Which leaves you with less wealth to develop your existing products
> > with, resulting in an even greater likelihood that someone will
> > develop a better substitute in the near future.
>
> That's the most idiotic claim you've made yet. You don't *have* to improve
> your product if you don't have any competition.
For the umpteenth time, monopolies *do* have competition you dimwit;
all they have a monopoly over is the market for their own product.
Anyone whatsoever can and often does compete with substitute
products.
> So, instead of risking your
> money on research, you can ensure your domonance of the market by simpy
> nipping would-be competitors in the bud. It's actually a lot cheaper to do
> it that way instead of assuming that you're always going to be the one with
> the best new ideas. Research is riskier than cutthroat politics.
Do you have even the slightest idea how much oil companies spend on
research each year? Or Microsoft, which has been on the receiving end
of many actions for abusing "market dominance"? You are talking
straight out of your ass, here.
> > See, that's the problem with conspiracy theories like yours -
>
> The operation of monopolies and oliopolies
Which you clearly have a woeful misunderstanding of.
> is not conspircay theory but
> mainstream economic theory. This is just another of your straw men erected
> in lieu of a rational argument, so this is another point you've conceded by
> default.
Nice try. If you had a rational argument as opposed to socialist
political scaremongering then you might have a point, but you don't,
so you don't.
> >> >> > Did you have a point to make that is in any way relevant to what I
> >> >> > said?
>
> >> >> That would depend on whether or not anything you said had anything to
> >> >> do
> >> >> with my point. My point stands. Is anything you said relevant to it?
>
> >> > That's pretty weak.
>
> >> It was pretty weak of you to try to pretend I had no point to make,
>
> > "A point to make that is in any way relevant to what I said" were my
> > exact words, as you know perfectly well.
>
> Indeed. You were talking off the point, which you have done quite often in
> this thread. That';s the problem with all those straw men you keep
> erecting. They have nothing to do with anything I've actually said.
All this talk of "strawmen" is just an excuse for you to avoid dealing
with points you can't deal with. After all, why explain yourself when
you can just yell "strawman!" and excuse yourself from the debate by
default? It's a very weak and transparent tactic.
> >> I choose my government. Democracy, remember? I don't choose my oil
> >> company. They are *not* a democracy.
>
> > And by choosing "your" government, you deny everybody who would vote
> > differently from you the opportunity to choose *their* government.
>
> There you go again. I said nothing of the sort. Another straw man erected
> due to a lack of rational argument, and thus another concession from you.
See what I mean? "I said nothing of the sort". No, you didn't. *I*
said that. Yet you, once again, have excused yourself from addressing
that point by crying wolf and yelling "strawman!".
> > I doubt if any Western government in the last one hundred years has
> > received more than 50% of the vote,
>
> Well, you'd be wrong again. Just in the elections I've seen myself, Lyndon
> Johnson got 69% of the popular vote in 1964 and Richard Nixon got 60% in
> 1972. If you want to count by electoral college votes, presidents within
> the last 100 years that garnered over 50% include Eisenhower, Roosevelt,
> Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush (GW), Truman, Carter, Kennedy, Clinton, and
> Coolidge.
Firstly, neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon are "governments",
so you can try again.
Secondly, you are engaging in statistical dishonesty typical of
political reprobates.
According to http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting/cps2006.html,
there were 220.6m people over the age of 18 in the US, and 136m
registered voters. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
the popolation of the US was 300m. This means that of the total
population, between 45.3% and 73.5% are eligible to vote. According to
the previous link, the US population was in the region of 190m, and if
the same proportions held true then between 86.1m and 139.7m were
eligible to vote.
Johnson received 43.1m votes in 1964. This means that even using the
low end of the estimate, presuming that everyone who is entitled to
vote is eligible, then he received the votes of only 50.1% of the
registered voters. We only need to assume that less than 100,000
people are eligible to vote but not registered, which is an absolute
certainly, and there is he with less than 50%. And that's your record
high.
Now I'm well aware that the ohrase "percentage of the vote" means the
percentage of votes cast, but the percentage of votes available is the
measure you should be using for the kind of claims you are bandying
about, and the numbers just don't support your claims. The facts are,
in Johnson's case, which is (1) not a government, and (2) your highest
rate, less than 50% of the people who were legally able to choose him
actually did choose him. Therefore, as I said, they majority of people
did not get the [president] they chose in his case, less than 50% did.
> > therefore the majority of people
> > do not get the government they choose. So much for your democracy.
>
> There has been only one election in the last hundred years in which the
> popular vote for the winning candidate was lower than that of the losing
> candidate. That was the highly disputed election of George W. Bush in 2000,
Yeah, it was only a matter of time before some Bush-bashing came into
this.
> which was decided not by votes but by an act of the Supreme Court before the
> final total of the badly-run Florida election could be properly tabulated.
> As it turns out, Gore actually did win the state, but that information came
> too late to prevent the neocon take-over of the U S A. So much for your
> knowledge of the facts.
Try again, wide-boy. You might fool your daft socialist buddies with
your misuse of statistics, but it ain't gonna work with me.
> >> > *A* trick, which has largely proved unattainable. Another, better,
> >> > trick is to restrict the things that the government is allowed to
> >> > spend money on.
>
> >> That's exactly what happens, actually, but the fly in the ointment is the
> >> influence of big money interests on where that money is spent.
>
> > You've yet to demonstrate why any other interests would either be more
> > effective, or more "fair".
>
> A democracy is a government run by the people all together.
Which is absolutely not the case in the U.S. and never has been the
case.
> A government
> run by the rich alone is not a democracy but an oligarchy. Thus, if one
> wishes to be fair, the interests of all the people must be considered
> equally.
So you continue to blithely assert without demonstrating the point as
I keep on asking you to do. Why are you so keen to avoid addressing
this? You are merely asserting as a matter of political dictat that
this is what "fair" means. You need to demonstrate why it's not fair
that people with more money, or more land, or more intelligence, or
more power, should have more influence. You will find that you are
unable to sensibly do this, and that strident but empty political
declarations are simply all you have.
Furthermore, people are dumb. If you want to ensure that the interests
of all the people are *not* considered equally, then one of the best
ways to do this is to give them all an equal say. That's another
problem with socialists; they will stick to their ridiculous
ideologies even when they demonstrably lead to suboptimal outcomes in
practice.
> > You're just demonising "big money" because
> > that's what your socialist overlords tell you to think.
>
> A "socialist overlord" is a self-contradictory term.
Isn't it just? That's why socialism is so utterly stupid. You're
catching on.
> And again, you resort
> ot a straw man. I am not a socialist and have not been espousing socialism
> at all. Yet again, by your demonstrated dearth of rational argument, you've
> conceded the point.
"I am not a socialist" is not a "rational argument", it's a claim
clearly contradicted by the evidence. You're one of these "do as I
say, not as I do" characters, aren't you?
> >> The Obama
> >> campaign has discovered a way to use the internet to let grassroots
> >> financing fund their efforts at a level which can actually compete with
> >> big
> >> money funded campaigns. Thus the influence of big corporations and their
> >> lobbyists has been significantly reduced and Obama is not beholden to
> >> the
> >> same corporate pirates that have effectively shackled every political
> >> party
> >> up to now. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's a damn sight further
> >> down the road toward a truly representative government than any previous
> >> election has been able to manage.
>
> > Utter tripe. That's exactly what they want you to think.
>
> "They?" Who are "they", Erwin?
The Obama Campaign, idiot. You began the paragraph I responded to
referring to it. Pay attention.
> Are you touting a conspiracy theory here?
> Where's your evidence of a vast conspiracy of "they" who wants to force
> socialism on poor liittle you by financing elections in some way other than
> through big-money lobbyists?
Is that some of that "rational argument" you were going on about,
then?
> > Politicians are competing for votes, and they'll use their pernicious
> > efforts to
> > hoodwink the public just as much as "big money interests" will.
>
> Hilarious. Everybody running for a public office is a "politician", you
> silly bugger.
Blinding knowledge of the English language.
> This includes those representing the big money interests.
> It's appallingly stupid of you to characterize the political tools of big
> business as something other than politicians.
Well, while we're on the subject of "appalling stupid", let's look at
your claim that lobbying - which is a "political tool of big business"
- is not "something other than politicians". Would you care to explain
your claim that lobbying is a politician?
> Even if your sweeping
> generalization is true and all politicians are, by definition hoodwinkers,
Correct.
> politicians who depend on big money interests are hoodwinking you on behalf
> of those big money interests.
Incorrect. See, that's the problem with you socialists, you think
everybody is controlled by government. They aren't. As long as they
largely leave me alone, I really don't give a shit what politicians
do, or who they are working on behalf of.
> Since, under the current system of campaign
> financing, any national level politician who wants to have enough money to
> buy the kind and amount of advertising to get his or her message across
> without being completely drowned out, only big-money-supported candidates
> can compete with any real hope of success, that means that the "politicians"
> you refer to are all representing the interests of big money donors. Except
> for Obama, who found a way to fund his campaign with vast numbers of small
> donations instead of being forced to surround himself with lobbyists the way
> McCain is forced to do.
You seem to place an inordinate amount of importance on this point, as
if it means that Obama will somehow be "more representative". All
these people who provide "grassroots support" are those same people
that you claim will be misled by the campaigns of the "big-money-
supported candidates". If they are being misled by the campaigns of
the "big-money-supported-candidates", then how come they support
Obama? They must have done so before he got enough money to mount this
type of campaign, or he'd never have generated enough cash. And this
completely negates your claim that any other message will be "drowned
out" by those candidates.
You really haven't thought this through very well. Either most people
who support him already know what they want, which negates your
argument about the advantages of big money campaigns, or most people
are only supported him because of the grassroots support of a small
number of his supporters, which completely negates your argument that
he is any different to the rest. You appear to want to have your cake
and eat it too.
As I said, you've fallen for this nonsense hook, line and sinker.
> > You claim to dislike "big business",
>
> I claim no such thing. I think big business is a good thing in many ways.
> However, I dislike certain big businesses exerting an unfair and deletory
> influence over American government.
>
> Your accusation is just another straw man, which means it's just another of
> your concessions that you don't have a rational argument to propose.
You're starting to sound like a broken record. I think you're running
out of resources. Ironic, really, given your arguments about oil.
> > Changing one group of politicians for another is hardly a radical
> > solution.
>
> I'm not proposing any "radical solutions". That's another straw man you've
> erected. I am proposing some reasonable reforms.
Radicalists always think their reforms are "reasonable". They are
always incorrect to think that, too.
> > In the unlikely event that Obama does get elected, there's going to be
> > an awful lot of disappointed Obama supporters in the next few years
> > when that idiot fails to deliver on his ridiculous pie-in-the-sky
> > pipedreams.
>
> It's not unlikely at all, according to most folks who aren't erecting acre
> after acre of straw men to attack.
We'll see.
> As for disappointment, one cannot
> reasonably expect instant and painless solutions to the problems we face.
Yet that is exactly what Obama is proposing.
> Anybody who does is as delusional as you are to think they can't be solved
> at all.
Q.E.D. You want a delusional president.
> >> What ever gave you the silly notion that any health care system run by
> >> any
> >> organization that isn't intending to make a profit out of it must deliver
> >> "shockingly poor care" to everyone?
>
> > Evidence derived from experiencing such an arrangement which, I feel
> > compelled to remind you, you've never done.
>
> What experience is that? Let's examine your evidence.
We've already been through this, the N.H.S. in the UK.
> >> I don't hear anybody saying that rich
> >> people won't be allowed to pay over and above some minimum level of care.
> >> Nor does any health care system anywhere make that demand.
>
> > But many socialists make that demand.
>
> Who, exactly? Stop waving vaguely at "many socialists" and show me some
> particulars.
Many Labour party supporters (and the Labour Party is currently in
government, in the UK, for a short while longer, so this is not some
minority radical parliament) routinely and regularly demand that
private access to healthcare and education should be made illegal, on
the grounds that by forcing "the rich" to accept a uniform level of
provision for everyone else they'll be motivated to improve that state-
provided "service" with their own money.
See, this is what I'm talking about. You want to implement policies
without the slightest knowledge whatsoever about what those policies
have resulted in throughout the rest of the world. Typical American,
thinking that the world stops at the Statue of Liberty.
> >> That sort of
> >> bugaboo is just another huckster spiel designed to confuse and distract
> >> you
> >> from the real issue that a lot of American people are getting no health
> >> care
> >> at all. Even a little would be better for than than none.
>
> > Ah, how simple the world looks to an ideologist who has never actually
> > had to implement his ideas.
>
> But I *have* done so. There have been times in my life where I didn't have
> health insurance and thus could not afford any health care. So I say from
> my own experience that, compared to no health care at all, some health care
> is better.
And how is having no health care at all even remotely connected to
having to implement a universal health care system, which is what I
asked in the first place?
What was that you were saying about "strawmen" and "dearth of rational
argument"?
> >> >> > Try the free health
> >> >> > "care" in the UK, for instance, and wait eighteen months for your
> >> >> > first appointment with a specialist to examine your cancerous
> >> >> > tumour.
>
> >> >> Better than waiting forever because you can't afford any at all.
>
> >> > Not really. In both cases you die before you get any treatment.
>
> >> That's the most ridiculous claim you've made yet. First, you make the
> >> completely unsupported claim that everyone will have to wait eighteen
> >> months to get cancer treatment, which simply isn't true.
>
> > Where did I ever say that it was for "everyone"?
>
> Ah, then who is it who dies before he gets treatment?
The woman I referred to who waited 18 months for an initial
consultation, by which time the cancer had become inoperable, for
starters.
> > The correct distinction to make is between lots of people getting good
> > healthcare and some people getting none, compared to lots of people
> > getting a minimum level of care and only some getting good healthcare.
>
> How may is "some", Erwin? Almost 47 million Americans have no health
> insurance today and health insurance premiums are going up four times faster
> than wages. That means the number is going to continue to grow. That's
> sounds like "lots" to me.
>
> In addition, an increasing number of group healthcare plans offered by
> employers (through which most Americans get that "good" care you're talking
> about) have been steadily curtailing their coverage, denying claims where
> there might possibly be a "pre-existing condition" and otherwise interfering
> with doctor-patient relationships and limiting access needed services. So
> that "good" care is getting worse all the time.
And? Is there a point in there somewhere?
> > You assume the latter is better and more "equitable". To date, only
> > your empty assertions stand to support this assumption.
>
> And the facts, of course. Let's not forget them.
We can't forget them, since you haven't presented any, merely empty
assertions.
> >> And you're worried that it might not be so you don't have the courage to
> >> even try.
>
> > You Americans have yet to endure a real socialist regime,
>
> And we're not going to with an Obama administation. Only a foam-spitting,
> paranoid, right-wing ranter would suggest otherwise.
Yes, that's how they always represent it.
> >> > See? That's socialist thinking, that markets are somehow opposed to
> >> > the "common man".
>
> >> You cannot change a fact by mere name-calling and hyperbole. Nobody
> >> claims
> >> that markets are "opposed to the common man".
>
> > You do.
>
> An baseless accusation. I've said no such thing. Another of your straw
> men, another concession that you have no rational argument to offer.
Yep, there it goes again. For someone who talks of "rational
arguments" so frequently, you sure don't engage in them very often.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
Tom
lengthy and irrational arguments in order to keep straight who said what.
Not only that, you make it even more tedious when you accuse me of saying
things I didn't say and then, when that is noted, you then say that *you*
said them but continue to claim that I did even as you admit I didn't. That
sort of convoluted gibbering is not worth the effort to untangle and
further.
For the most part, you've been relying on name-calling and straw man
arguments, rejecting evidence whenever it's inconvenient to your denial of
reality, and so on. Here and there are some glimmers of intelligence, but
for the most part, they are inundated and made trivial by your histrionics.
So, thanks for the dance, but I'm done with you on this subject until you
can get your balance and respond with rational arguments instead of polemic
rants.
Tom
>
> "Dennis Kemmerer" <d...@suespammers.org> wrote in message
> news:HrVtk.18168$LG4....@nlpi065.nbdc.sbc.com...
>> He obviously didn't understand what I said.
>
> It does not matter what you think anybody else understands.
It matters to him. What probably doesn't matter to him is what a capering
clown like you thinks.
Erwin Hessle
> Well, Erwin, I've become bored with having to reformat every line of your
> lengthy and irrational arguments in order to keep straight who said what.
> Not only that, you make it even more tedious when you accuse me of saying
> things I didn't say and then, when that is noted, you then say that *you*
> said them but continue to claim that I did even as you admit I didn't. That
> sort of convoluted gibbering is not worth the effort to untangle and
> further.
>
> For the most part, you've been relying on name-calling and straw man
> arguments, rejecting evidence whenever it's inconvenient to your denial of
> reality, and so on.
"Reality"! In political opinion! Priceless.
> Here and there are some glimmers of intelligence, but
> for the most part, they are inundated and made trivial by your histrionics.
>
> So, thanks for the dance, but I'm done with you on this subject until you
> can get your balance and respond with rational arguments instead of polemic
> rants.
I acknowledge your humbled capitulation, and forgive the bizarre
kettlepot manner in which you have elected to offer it.
Erwin Hessle, 8=3
bassos
Me shutting up is the easy way out.
I acknowledge that for most of the alt.magick readers this seems weird.
This is also why shut up and go away is not in any way a troublesome thing
for me.
You already know this.
(or have you forgotten ?)
You noob.
bassos
Tom, mate, are you OK ?
I would never imagine you as someone infantile enough to post what you did.
So, what's up ?
Tom
"bassos" <no...@askffs.com> wrote in message
news:48bb5723$0$196$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>
> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:XpmdnZYAzMfLWSTV...@comcast.com...
>>
>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>> news:48b87942$0$192$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>
>>> "Tom" <dantPAYATT...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>> news:4-2dnTygAuFNeSjV...@comcast.com...
>>>>
>>>> "Bassos" <zebaz...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
>>>> news:48b5851c$0$187$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
>>>>>
>>>>> That is a panace.
>>>>
>>>> You mean "panacea".
>>>
>>> Who the fuck cares ?
>>
>> Then shut up.
>
> Me shutting up is the easy way out.
You shutting up is far to scary for you to even contemplate, you gutless
little coward. You're so desperate for attention that you even settle for
abuse rather than be ingored for even a moment.
Chade
> Well, Erwin, I've become bored with having to reformat every line of your
> lengthy and irrational arguments in order to keep straight who said what.
> Not only that, you make it even more tedious when you accuse me of saying
> things I didn't say and then, when that is noted, you then say that *you*
> said them but continue to claim that I did even as you admit I didn't.
I know there are problems with the way the new outlook quotes in
usenet. It must be tedious having to reformat, and probably why you
don't always get the formatting of the attributions right in your
replies.
I don't want to get into any straw man arguments here, but have you
considered using a different newsreader? There are several free ones
out there for Vista.
Unfortunately the one I sometimes use, which I find has useful
features not included in outlook, doesn't work with Vista yet. But I
expect that someone else will be able to recommend a free one for
Vista.
Bassos
You are correct.
I would much rather settle for abuse than be in-gored.
You do realize that what you posted states how you would feel if you posted
what i did, right ?
You nub you.
Still lub ya ofcourse, but you are going all too hard for the spanking.
Shutting up is easy.
It is the acting that makes for resistance.
Like a star, which extends it's sphere of influence into space.
Is the star you ?
Is it our sun ?
Is it the central sun ?
Is it something else ?
I invite confusion to this discussion.
Tom
>> little coward. You're so desperate for attention that you even settle
>> for abuse rather than be ingored for even a moment.
>
> You are correct.
We're all aware of that.