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Holds FDR on a pedestal
Democratic Socialism 101. Check.
The Oregonian reported last week that fully 156,000 families are on the edge of homelessness in our small-population state.
Every one of those households is now paying more than 50 percent of its monthly income on rent, and none of them has any savings; one medical bill, major car repair or job loss, and they’re on the streets.
This has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism or billionaires. It's a simple consequence of average people refusing to build enough housing units.
Activism will be required to bring about meaningful changes.
Several essentials have been turned into a racket such as healthcare and education.
I'm not going to look up a bunch of stats today, but I've already seen enough to make up my mind.
Nobody will recognize the Kaiser Family Foundation statistics that show in California that almost 65% of non-elderly Medicaid users are Hispanic/Latino. Pretty soon once the Democrat Socialists get further power, they will enact a law to stop any demographic tracking like this. That is exactly what France did, and look at now the French yellow vest protests against the government and its tax policies.
Benefit to Soc Sec because they contribute under Fake SSNs
I am not sure about that. A lot work for cash or under the table, and do not contribute to the federal tax rolls, and state income tax rolls. Read below as far as Obama executive order that unlawfully issues social security numbers to non-citizens. I don't know how they prove their past 3 year salaries since it was likely paid in cash and with no official documentation (i.e, W-2's).
Look at Japan at the end of WWII. We didn't have to drop two atomic bombs which killed many innocent children and infants. Or have you seen a weapons of mass destruction discriminate kids from adults? Russians were beginning to invade Japan, and we had to end the war quickly in order to protect the financial interest.
Russia and China are fudging their numbers hard. The rest of NATO members not paying their fair share into common defense are the reason US spending is so high.
believe $$ is the only answer for those who want a decent life.
YOUR TURN
Let's see you provide somethin
the nation founded on the world’s greatest known genocide and over three centuries of legalized slavery
FDR’s proposed amendments
He [Harding] kept both promises, putting the nation into a sugar-high spin called the Roaring ’20s,
Progressive “social democracy” has kept Europe, Canada, and the developed nations of the East and South Pacific free of war for almost a century
Medicare and Medicaid
while Democrats accuse Trump of playing identity politics, that is exactly what the left is doing
Kakistocracy saysthe nation founded on the world’s greatest known genocide and over three centuries of legalized slavery
The rich don't give a rat's ass about the poor except as a source of taxes.
The rich don't give a rat's ass about the poor except as a source of taxes. The rich rely on the US sytem to get rich and stay rich. That means education, transport, infrastructure, finance, USD and defense. They think that just because they pay a lot of taxes, they should not have to pay more than a certain amount ("Why should I pay 10% taxes if that means $50 million a year when some immigrant pays only $2k a year and gets all the same benefits?") . Since the rich control the country, that is the policy we have in place.
Freedom. Freedom is just some bullshit word spewed out by someone who wants to live his own way without consideration for anyone else or the notion of society. We have a right to bear arms (as stupid as that might be) but we have no right to fire guns indiscriminately in public. We have the right to privacy in our home but we can't kidnap children, bring them home and rape them. So we know that freedom is relative.
Take away rich people's money for ten ...
Yes, and the Democrats play Identity Politics which causes tax increases, reduction in quality of life,
We have a right to bear arms (as stupid as that might be)
The Oregonian reported last week that fully 156,000 families are on the edge of homelessness in our small-population state.
Every one of those households is now paying more than 50 percent of its monthly income on rent, and none of them has any savings; one medical bill, major car repair or job loss, and they’re on the streets.
While socialism may or may not solve their problem, the more pressing issue we have is an entire political party and a huge sector of the billionaire class who see homelessness not as a problem, but as a symptom of a “free” society.
The words freedomand liberty are iconic in American culture—probably more so than with any other nation because they’re so intrinsic to the literature, declarations and slogans of our nation’s founding.
The irony—of the nation founded on the world’s greatest known genocide (the systematic state murder of tens of millions of Native Americans) and over three centuries of legalized slavery and a century and a half of oppression and exploitation of the descendants of those slaves—is extraordinary. It presses us all to bring truefreedom and liberty to allAmericans.
But what do those words mean?
If you ask the Koch brothers and their buddies—who slap those words on pretty much everything they do—you’d get a definition that largely has to do with being “free” from taxation and regulation. And, truth be told, if you’re morbidly rich, that makes a certain amount of sense, particularly if your main goal is to get richer and richer, regardless of your behavior’s impact on working-class people, the environment, or the ability of government to function.
On the other hand, the definition of freedom and liberty that’s been embraced by so-called “democratic socialist” countries—from Canada to almost all of Europe to Japan and Australia—you’d hear a definition that’s closer to that articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he proposed, in January 1944, a “second Bill of Rights” to be added to our Constitution.
FDR’s proposed amendments included the right to a job, and the rightto be paid enough to live comfortably; the rightto “adequate food and clothing and recreation”; the right to start a business and run it without worrying about “unfair competition and domination by monopolies”; the right“of every family to a decent home”; the rightto “adequate medical care… to achieve and enjoy good health”; the right to government-based “protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment”; and the right“to a good education.”
Roosevelt pointed out that, “All of these rights spell security.”
He added, “America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”
The other nations mentioned earlier took President Roosevelt’s advice to heart. Progressive “social democracy” has kept Europe, Canada, and the developed nations of the East and South Pacific free of war for almost a century—a mind-boggling feat when considering the history of the developed world since the 1500s.
Just prior to FDR winning the White House in the election of 1932, the nation had been treated to 12 years of a bizarre Republican administration that was the model for today’s GOP. In 1920, Warren Harding won the presidency on a campaign of “more industry in government, less government in industry”—privatize and deregulate—and a promise to drop the top tax rate of 91 percent down to 25 percent.
He kept both promises, putting the nation into a sugar-high spin called the Roaring ’20s, where the rich got fabulously rich and working-class people were being beaten and murdered by industrialists when they tried to unionize. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (the three Republican presidents from 1920 to 1932) all cheered on the assaults, using phrases like “the right to work” to describe a union-free nation.
In the end, the result of the “horses and sparrows” economics advocated by Harding (“feed more oats to the horses and there’ll be more oats in the horse poop to fatten the sparrows”—that generation’s version of trickle-down economics) was the Republican Great Depression (yes, they called it that until after World War II).
Even though Roosevelt was fabulously popular—the only president to be elected four times—the right-wingers of his day were loud and outspoken in their protests of what they called “socialist” programs like Social Security, the right to unionize, and government-guaranteed job programs including the WPA, REA, CCC, and others.
Speaking of “the grave dangers of ‘rightist reaction’ in this Nation,” Roosevelt told Americain that same speech that: “[I]f history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called ‘normalcy’ of the 1920s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.”
Although right-wingers are still working hard to disassemble FDR’s New Deal—the GOP budget for 2019 contains massive cuts to Social Security, as well as to Medicare and Medicaid—we got halfway toward his notion of freedom and liberty here in the United States:
•You’re not free if you’re old and deep in poverty, so we have Social Security (although the GOP wants to gut it).
•You’re not free if you’re hungry, so we have food stamps/SNAP (although the GOP wants to gut them).
•You’re not free if you’re homeless, so we have housing assistance and homeless shelters (although the GOP fights every effort to help homeless people).
•You’re not free if you’re sick and can’t get medical care, so we have Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare (although the GOP wants to gut them all).
•You’re not free if you’re working more than 40 hours a week and still can’t meet basic expenses, so we have minimum wage laws and the right to unionize (although the GOP wants to gut both).
•You’re not free if you can’t read, so we have free public schools (although the GOP is actively working to gut them).
•You’re not free if you can’t vote, so we’ve passed numerous laws to guarantee the right to vote (although the GOP is doing everything it can to keep tens of millions of Americans from voting).
More: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/03/what-republicans-and-billionaires-really-mean-when-they-talk-about-freedom.html
#Freedom #GOP #Billionaires