First article of any notoriety actually calling for a Revolution in America....:eek:
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnist...ion-in-the-air
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First article of any notoriety actually calling for a Revolution in America....:eek:
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnist...ion-in-the-air
Link to Zenpundit on possible collapse/revolution scenario written by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts former undersecretary during the Regan Administration. Scary stuff especially how it might happen:eek:
http://zenpundit.com/?p=3493
Link to article on riot in East Point,Ga. (Atlanta area)over applications for public housing assistance.
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_new...ay-after-chaos
The article in the initial post calls for the left wing of the Democratic Party to fight back more vigorously against Obama's middle-of-the-road policies. It isn't the usual call to arms from the Minuteman/Tea Party crowd.
or even warfare in general. The initial op-ed is pure political foolishness.Sheesh, creative writing at its campiest. Our Capital has been tone deaf all my life and until we start voting out all incumbents and get rid of political parties, it'll remain that way. Robert's polemic is dumber than a box of hammers.Quote:
"Throughout the nation there is outrage in the land, revolution in the air, insurrection in the wind from the left, right and center. The political ground is shaking from gale-force winds of a national demand for powerful change in the way our corrupted and tone-deaf capital does business."
On that last link, the Great East Point Riot, I'm sure the left will make a big deal out of it. Out of little or nothing; "Yet no arrests were made." (LINK). I lived in Atlanta for 12 years. East Point was a minor tinder box the whole time and has remained such. The various housing authorities in the Atlanta area have been and are a bed of consistent corruption. Housing authorities nationwide have problems; to be expected when dumb Congroids promise more than we can afford or deliver... :rolleyes:
The Son who's an Atlanta metro area cop has a slew of tales about political shenanigans there and in Georgia Generally. The other two, the Soldat in the northeast and the Cop on the west coast also have a bunch from their regions. So does the NC Grandson in Law. Not to mention mine from here in Floridada. The point -- Flawed politics and tone deaf politicians are not restricted to DC, not by a long shot. They just make the national news easier and provide media and pundit fodder. :mad:
The Sky is Falling, 2010 Summer Edition. Penalty of being old: it's at least the thirtieth or maybe the fortieth time that I've seen our immediate demise from internal dissent, riots, militias, etc. etc. -- and fiscal ineptitude -- predicted ...:eek:
Oh, well, I'm still making plans for my Great Grandson's arrival and setting up a College savings account for him.:cool:
One could say that about many threads here....;) But I agree, the op-ed is pretty much speculation on par with Fallout III. Except that Fallout has better graphics...
...and not much of it for the danged better." He said, grumpily in his hoarse old voice...;)
[The fact that small 'l' liberals don't agree with small 'c' conservatives and that "the world is going to the Devil in a hand basket" being things that have not changed much at all since 1782. Amazing that we're still here...:wry:]
I didn't know you were a liberal.
I'm a Hells Angel Republican. And so is our Republican Govenor. Click on the link below for the story and then click the video to the right to see our Govenor on a Viper motorcycle!
http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=12957209
For some interesing history on how Congress pissing off the Public is hardly new see:
The Continental congress at Princeton, by Varnum Lansing Collins(accessible at Google Books)
It recounts the cicumstances surrounding the 1783 Mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line and the resultant flight of the Continental Congress to Princton.
Such helped cement the notion of our country as a Great Republic, not a Demcracy subject to the vagueries of "mob rule".
We have the means for peaceful revolution in our hands every 2-4 years. We must simply execute it, or we get the representives we deserve.
Of course that does not mean that I would feel sorry for the current Congreff Affembled if history were to repeat itself...
I also hardly think the collapse of civilaization as we know it is nigh. The nightmare scenarios require that in effect the result of the world agrees to fiddle while we burn and see their own financial ruin. The US would not collapse without taking the rest of the world down with it. In the era of Globalism, we are "too big to fail".
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts on how greed destroyed Capitalism.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=20587
Although off-topic, this story about Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. comes to mind:
Quote:
A well-known anecdote has Holmes, riding in a carriage with a law clerk while in his nineties, passing a beautiful young woman on the street. Holmes is said to have sighed, "Oh, to be seventy again!"
Go to the site below and click play and watch an interactive map of US unemployment for 2007 to today.
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net...ediafinal.html
Saying greed destroys capitalism is like saying gasoline destroys an internal combustion engine. Greed is the energy source that drives capitalism... and even socialism, once the energy source squeezes through the multiple filters of the bureaucracy.
I don't think Capitalism has been destroyed, either, though I suspect that the carburetor could use a bit of adjustment, to continue the engine analogy....
Latest interview by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, includes comments on Iran.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIPoZ...eature=related
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts "The Ecstasy Of Empire" or how we need a new kind of Revolution to Tax Corporations oversees profits that out source American jobs.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=20650
That's unlikely to work out well.
The U.S. is already an exception with its taxing of income generated by its citizens abroad.
A German doesn't need to pay German income tax if he lives (=60% or more of the year) in Monaco, for example.
It's more important to generate jobs anyway.
Think of a tax on international phone services. Call centre jobs would need to be moved to domestic locations and reliably put hundreds of thousands of unskilled people in labour.
Or end the structural nonsense of the financial sector ripping off the industrial sector and its shareholders. You need roughly a fourth more industrial output to meet your material consumption level. East Asians won't deliver goods for mere promises forever - sometime they'll demand a real payment and you don't want to experience a drop of a fifth of goods consumption in your society. That would be about twice as grave as the recent crisis and it would probably break much more.
There is no such thing as an "American job". A job is only yours, as an individual or as a nation, if you can perform the function more efficiently than the other guy. If you penalize American enterprises by forcing them to hire less efficient labor, the enterprise goes out of business and produces no jobs at all.
Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.
Pure Gobbsmackery, why is it every other country is allowed to engage in protectionism but we can't? China has a nationalized banking system that will provide any amount of money needed to allow it's industries to produce at below market rates in order for it to maintain a competitive advantage, and it also has a government policy of slave labor. You cannot defend against that without counter policies to protect our jobs (USA) and industries.
Link to Real News Network interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCf9mzuLd4&feature=sub
Sure it is... tax imports... and make imports cost the same as locally made... then let the buyer choose.
My mother in law uses paint brushes once, its cheaper and easier to buy new ones from China each time. My kid gets more toys a year than i had in my life, because they are all so cheap....
We have become quantity consumers, not quality consumers.
If prices became higher due to protectionism, I would be forced to look after my stuff more...
Last week i went to the gym and forgot my Gym shoes. Instead of driving home to get them i bought a cheap pair at a shop next to the gym... Blush...
20 Years ago shoes were worth something, kids did not discard toys after a week... and you cleaned paintbrushes... cheap imports change a lot...
Yes but these protectionist measures will then simply be followed by retaliation protectionist measures by countries who are subject to your measures, leading to a collapse of your export sector and by extension international trade.Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayuhan
Sure, you can force American corporations to produce at home. The product will be too expensive to sell, nobody will buy it, and the jobs disappear anyway. Not a solution. Protectionism never is.
Sure it is... tax imports... and make imports cost the same as locally made... then let the buyer choose.
My mother in law uses paint brushes once, its cheaper and easier to buy new ones from China each time. My kid gets more toys a year than i had in my life, because they are all so cheap....
We have become quantity consumers, not quality consumers.
If prices became higher due to protectionism, I would be forced to look after my stuff more...
Last week i went to the gym and forgot my Gym shoes. Instead of driving home to get them i bought a cheap pair at a shop next to the gym... Blush...
20 Years ago shoes were worth something, kids did not discard toys after a week... and you cleaned paintbrushes... cheap imports change a lot...
also only producing for an internal market could lead to a massively reduced demand of your products and this will result in economic recession/downgrading and although this effect could be limited in large countries who have large internal markets, small and export aimed countries dont have such large internal markets and this would cause an even bigger economic recession in those countries.
And then we are not yet speaking about the political/social consequences of such a recession.
I am missing something here...... If AMERICANS cannot afford to buy US products and buy from China.... who is buying the US products?
From what I see, other countires only buy what they cannot make themselves... China may buy steel or wood... and will continue to buy... but they are not going to buy made in USA cheap transistors or kiddies toys....
The USA does not NEED Chinese Ghetto blasters and kids toys, they buy them because they are cheap... china however NEEDS raw products from other countries?
I am no economist, so Imay be a bit ahead of myself here...
Ok im not an expert on what the US exports and imports as im from Belgium so i cant really think of any examples to support my claim, anyways lets start.Quote:
I am missing something here...... If AMERICANS cannot afford to buy US products and buy from China.... who is buying the US products?
From what I see, other countires only buy what they cannot make themselves... China may buy steel or wood... and will continue to buy... but they are not going to buy made in USA cheap transistors or kiddies toys....
The USA does not NEED Chinese Ghetto blasters and kids toys, they buy them because they are cheap... china however NEEDS raw products from other countries?
I am no economist, so Imay be a bit ahead of myself here...
consumers in a somewhat capitalist country dont only choose which products they are gonna buy acording to what they can afford what they cant, competition and thus the fact they can choose between several somewhat similar products.
So US consumers buy chinese kiddy toys because they have the best quality/price ratio.
On the other hand US producers might be able to produce and export another product at a better price/quality ratio then chinese producers and thus will be exporting to China.
This will then lead to specialisation of certain countries in certain sectors and will eventually lead to an increased production, employment and more economical activity (its called the law of ricardo i think).
Also you should not group all the products a country produces, there is no single market of "all products", similar products from all over the world are grouped in markets that have vastly different dynamics according to production proccesses and competition from other markets.
Also of note is that capitalistic systems work along a system of offer and demand, so if there is no demand for a product then there will be no offer.
And off course the fact that "countries" in general dont import or export, private citizens do it and they can only be "coached" by governements by using taxes and subsidies, but these private citizens still work for the acquirement of profit.
Also of note is that protectionist measures to strengthen your domestic economy is not something that only involves China, it involves every country that the US imports to or exports from, now a change in the export/import dynamics could not be that bad in the case of one country, but it might be devestating if done between other countries, say Europe and US.
So that was my little rant about international trade, i am also not an economist but in middle school i specialized in economics and this was practicly what i understood from that course, so if somebody who contrary to me actually knows what he is talking about, and sees im wrong please correct me.
The competitiveness varies between sectors and even between corporations and products.
Part of the problem is that not enough foreigners buy U.S. products, though.
The trade balance deficit (services balance included) is on the order of $ 30-60 billion per month. That's by how much the U.S. lives beyond its means.
A even more grave view would add to this the monthly loss of capital stock.
In the end, U.S. consumers need either to learn to live with about 4/5th of the goods consumption or U.S. industry output needs to grow by about 25%.
More consumption is certainly not the way to go, more savings = investment and moderate consumption is the way to go. The U.S. is in a similar situation as after 1945; it needs a time of hardships to get back on track for there's no easy way out of the economic mess.
The top income tax bracket in the 50's had a tax rate of about 90% (during the Republican presidency of Eisenhower!).
You can't tax imported toys and shoes until they cost as much as local products, because there aren't any local products. These manufacturing lines moved out of the US decades ago, and nobody ever really missed them. It's really not possible to do low-skill labor-intensive manufacturing at US wages... the products would cost more than anybody would pay for them and the people making them would go out of business. People with lower incomes would also kick up a bit of a fuss if prices of items like clothes and children's toys suddenly quadrupled.
Protection is best understood as a subsidy, paid by the consumer. In an emerging economy it can be an effective way to shelter an industry that has the potential to be competitive but needs space to get established and achieve an economy of scale. Very hard to justify protection in a mature economy, unless we decide that we want consumers to perpetually subsidize non-competitive industries.
The problem, of course, is that everybody thinks their job and their industry is important enough to be subsidized... but if we subsidize everybody there's nobody left to pay the subsidy.
Treating non-competitiveness with protection is like treating malaria with paracetamol. You may push that fever down briefly, but you're not treating the cause. Why are we not competitive? Start with an education system that thinks competition is evil and produces more liberal arts graduates than the economy can possibly absorb, while even at close to 10% unemployment we have severe shortages of machinists, precision welders, and other skilled trades. Finish with an entitlement culture that has us convinced that wages should not be proportional to cost of a middle class lifestyle, not to the value of the product or service being produced. Fill in the space in between.
Our problem isn't them furriners. Our problem is us. We need to compete.
The trade deficit comes largely down to two issues. First is energy imports, which is not likely to change in the immediate future. Second, and more important, is a currency that has held an artificially inflated value, sometimes wildly inflated, for most of the time since WW2. That has been to some extent corrected, though IMO the dollar should still fall a bit more. It will take some time for that correction to show any material effect on the economy, though: the impact of 6 decades of distortion isn't reversed overnight.
Part 2 of the interview "The Collapse Of Liberalism" or how to deconstruct the system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nelGtSOimwQ
This is an informal interview/lecture by Paul Jay of the Real News Network from 2008! done in the country of Estonia. Interesting stuff especially about what President Obama really stands for as opposed to the manufactured media image. Also has some points about the source of Terrorism being Saudi Arabia and dating back to WW2. Interesting to see how accurate he was of what was to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIeS3FlK1R4
Now that we've agreed that an armed revolution in the U.S. is unlikely to be happening any time soon, what does this thread have to do with military affairs?
Man, I love Alabama. After living in Iowa and California growing up, the east coast going to school, and multiple places in the world with Uncle Sam, I can honestly say there's no place I would rather be than sweet home Alabama.
But then you guys gotta start talking like this and putting confederate flags on your truck. You get folks who refuse to vote in a lottery or minor property tax increase that would add an extra $150 a year to build a new $20 milliion high school. They apparently don't realize that Californians pay 1.25% annually on their half million dollar modest home...some $6,250, so that those crazies can build half billion high schools in L.A....not lower Alabama but the real L.A. where my lawyer brother lives/works, traffic is idiotic, illegal aliens are plentiful, only matched by environmental impact studies that deprive farmers of water and destroy perfectly good dams so a few more fish will survive.
And then those left coast geniuses turn around and promise so much in government pensions that the state possibly has half a trillion in unfunded pension obligations. They go so hog wild on home speculation that it in turn drives up public and private pay to the point that businesses can't afford to operate there, especially when workmen's comp is included. Regular folks can't afford the taxes or normal homes that have been inflated near big cities forcing stupidly long commutes.
The inevitable crash occurs so then red states end up partially funding left and right coast stupidity in buying too much house for their income. You are right, that ain't right. They pay so much in interest on those homes that despite big incomes they don't necessarily pay big federal taxes, yet they expect us to bail them out of their own misguided purchase.
The other dumb thing in blue states is unions. The other day on TV, a guy was complaining that he had lost his $130,000-with-overtime GM job and was now making 100K less working at Loews. Well, duh dude, your $130K income, outrageous benefits, and huge pension are what put GM in bankruptcy. I refuse to be put on a guilt trip for not "buying American" when union folks demand so much...and get it...and our tax dollars foot the bill.
So when I see all kinds of foreign and multinational corporations being successful in the south, I have a hard time feeling sorry for American manufacturing. I will happily buy a Nissan Sentra made in Smyrna, Tennessee, an American pick-up for horse-happy wife, and my sports car Mazda that at the time was part owned by Ford. And I'm perfectly happy to make less than the coasters because my house is paid for and cost only $65K to build from scratch in 1986. You can make less in the south because it costs less to live here. You can survive as a business here for the same reasons...I know because I had one for 13 years.
It's a global economy and global interdependence in the economic sector helps deter war. So please help me cheerlead for a possible LCS victory by Australian Austal and KC-X win by EADS that also builds darn nice helicopters in Mississippi near where NG builds nice Fire Scout UAS. Did you know that Boeing C-17 workers went on strike? How about the KC-X crying Seattle boys that sent half the 787 production to South Carolina? Now Oshkosh wants to strike after corporate honchos got them crucial orders to keep them afloat at a ridiculously low M-ATV bid price...dumb.
You'll tell me that I don't get it and I'm a carpetbagger. Well, my daughter is hogging a Med School slot in Alabama, something she could never do in California due to greater competition. My son is now at Auburn so we are trying to assimilate. And assimilation is something my daughter endeavors to do sharing one good thing in common with those left coasters. She and an Indian and Pakistani med student are in the same study group and do just fine together. When I visit my Silicon valley former home, I also see plenty of Indians. Pakistanis, and Iranians who aren't threatening jihad and seem to get along with Americans quite well. Alabama has come a long ways from just 40 years ago which is why, when coupled with the Muslim immigrant population that does just fine here, leads me to believe that one day things could get better over yonder...using the U.S. and its well-intentioned Soldiers as a model.
So before even using the "R" word to describe changing government, just be glad you live where you live and a Kia and Hyundai plant are just down the road along with a fine university dressed all in orange. Wanna be like Aivs and be number 2 instead? Soon enough instead of 10 day traffic jams, China will have perpetual ones and even greater smog. They will have fewer younger and more older citizens thanks to the one-chld rule. Eventually wages will rise and some new place in the world will supplant them in making products for Walmart where Americans spend $2 million a week per store. Are you gonna tell me you don't buy from Walmart with all that non-made-in-the USA stuff?
For those who wish to post politically oriented comments, there are plenty of web sites out there. This is not one, politics only as pertain directly to small wars or warfare in general.
Thank you.
This thread is locked. CORRECTION: Was locked...
ADDED: On reflection, locking the thread was an over reaction on my part, so I've unlocked it. However it is IMO still an undesirable diversion into purely domestic political territory and there are plenty of sites that encourage that sort of dialogue. This site has not and hopefully will not.
I'll simply ask that future comments and threads devote themselves to warfare related topics and avoid the domestic political scene unless there is a direct relationship to warfare.
Warning: a couple of bad words are in this video clip!
This is some type of a street interview of Max Kyser(has a Financial News Show) on the threat from Wall Street and possible Middle Class response. Max usually is pretty funny if you have ever watched his shows but this seems to be some pretty serious stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXw-...ayer_embedded#!
The ITG* rantings from either end of the political spectrum across the internetz, where chairborne commandos Cletus & Che Jr. froth over fantasies of picking up a gun while never being closer to a combat zone than their X-Box controller, strike me as just another case of plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
I wonder if F&I Veterans in 1774 or Mexican-American War vets in the summer of 1860 felt the same way. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3288/...b341ca0fc5.jpg
* Internet Tough Guys
Link to article on how the IMF warns of Social Unrest due to high unemployment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...bs-crisis.html
Some incredible graphics are in store for Cletus & Che Jr. with the latest Medal of Honor.
what I am talking about when I say the next Revolution and it may be violent or it may not. H/T to Fab Max for posting a series of links to some good articles about how robotization and automation are very real threats to our present Recession and future ones.
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2...60/#more-20560
Link to SWC member franksforum post on Global Governance. Some interesting stuff in here possible future revolutions in governance. I vote for scenario #2 Fragmentation!
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...846#post106846
Tangentially related - http://www.news.com.au/technology/sh...#ixzz0zcKUbWqE
"Mr. President, Frankly I'm exhausted!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnMMo...eature=related
Reminds me of another lady that started a Revolution "I'm tired of being treated like a second class citizen" Rosa Parks
Link to a series of clips from President Kennedy's comments on our (Mankind) Revolution and how it cannot be stopped! I am biased but he was one of the last US Presidents to actually grasp what was and is going on in the World.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJrFpGYgMlE
Slap,
Nice link. It is easy to forget how close every populace is to evolution, or every economy is to dramatic fluctuations due to the relatively safe bubble in time that the US has existed within for several generations. Small things can have tremendous impact, but in understanding the small things that really matter and being able to differentiate from those that perhaps seem significant in their time, the truly important ones can be managed.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the three pillars of American government are a marvel. Not the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary; those are necessary evils. But rather the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights that shape and constrain the context those three evils operate within; and preserve the rights in the "fourth branch / estate". Not the press, as they arrogantly claim, but rather the people themselves. Informed by a free press, free to assemble and speak their minds, free to worship as they desire, and armed to counter any government that would seek to constrain those rights.
In our history lays our future. This current rough patch will only become a problem is we forget what brought us here, and what will carry us forward.
I was at BWI this morning waiting for a flight to Tampa, and an Honor Flight came into my gate with a couple dozen WWII vets, most in wheel chairs, many in parts of uniforms. A 1LT from the 82nd, bright and alert with CIB, silver wings, BSM and purple heart on his old Ike Jacket. A pilot from the CBI theater, DFC and and air medal pinned to his shirt, his pilot's wings on his baseball cap. Others. They'll all be gone soon, but what they fought for can be here for long into the future if we simply stay focused on what is really important, and adjust our ways and means for the times we live in.
Hi Bob, this ones for you. And yes I saw it at the Drive In. The movie pretty much sucked eggs but it was one of our possible alternative futures. Nobody gets to live past 30:eek::eek::eek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cM61...eature=related
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...76926#40076926
Interesting comments from the CommiePinkoLeftie political cartoonist Ted Rall about using violence for Change.
Then again, he's selling a book. :rolleyes:
Bob:
Very nicely said. It is not the systems, per se, but the operating constraints that assure that the rollicking, inefficient and imperfect framework leaves space for some measure of human advancement.
Steve
Dylan Ratigan show: It is time for a Revolution, discussion of people's right to a Revolution in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=namL_pIqsVo