Here is the problem!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2015517169_edit06taxes.html

What a mess!

It is time for revolt. "I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees."
Time is ripe to fight against tyranny.

I have tried to listen to the FOX radio station this week to be sure I am hearing all sides of issues.

The commentators - and in a week of listening I have heard no actual news reporters except for a blip or two - they are all commentators who are intent on raising their ratings and the listeners (which included me this week.)

They are very clever. They state a half truth then support it with speculation about how things will "likely" be in the future - a future they paint as grim.

Their style is either a rant or conversational, as though they are sharing an in
timate cup of coffee that gives them permission to say "Obama" with such disrespect I am embarassed. They are also liberal with labels and name calling.

One commentator compared votes for President Obama as "tribal activity - the tribe voting for its member instead of voting for actual policies". The subtle racism is not subtle at all. It was blatant. It was a pitch to appeal to the racist members of the nation who fear the shifting demographics of the U.S.

Every commentator praciced fear mongering. They must go to the same school of propaganda. They repeat the name calling of anyone with a desire to help those less able until it's thoroughly ingrained in the psyche. It's no wonder people who listen to that stuff say such hateful things.

Unfortunately, I am not capable of repeating all I heard because I cannot speak with such hate and lack of caring for my country. They say things that are outright lies and then soft pedal their lack of truth by saying something after like, "at least that's what I see" and the listener loves the commentator and takes in every word as gospel even with the commentators "opinions."

It is a lot like the health care problem. Misuse and manipulation by those few who have the most keep the rest of the people from having what they rightfully ought to have.

Ann

Diane and Ann. I agree. It smells of conspiracy to keep the poor and less educated confused. Then they will supply them with the solution - the solution being to vote for their candidate. They will throw in the word, "God" since that has worked in the past. They may even claim that God told them what to do or say to save them from the evils of the opposing party, and many will buy that crap.

"In God we Trust" is written on our currency. The money God has lost his value, but not the influence for those who have most of it.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradepolicy/p/Dollar_Value.htm

Americans can't be too bright to buy this garbage, Fox News is sick.

We like to think we are so superior, I don't see it.

In 235 years we have stolen land from the Indians, oppressed the minorities and fought some ill-considered wars.

We are bullies.

We need to mind our own business and take care of our own problems.
We need to care for our homeless, jobless people.

Just my opinion.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2015528644_brooks07.html

Some more from a Republican--some of them get it.

Quote :

One commentator compared votes for President Obama as "tribal
activity - the tribe voting for its member instead of voting for actual
policies". The subtle racism is not subtle at all. It was blatant. It
was a pitch to appeal to the racist members of the nation who fear the
shifting demographics of the U.S.

How is it racism when Obama carried 98% of the black vote? Is it racist to actually state that? What does that have to do with "fear" for shifting demographics? The shifting demographics are Hispanic, and while they tend to vote Democrat, blacks are solid, dependable voters for black candidates (you know, like Obama).

The only "fear" is of getting the knee-jerk "racist!" screamed at any question that involves asking stuff like that. However, I think the word is losing its meaning and effect, since it's been so over-used.

LC wrote:

Quote :

One commentator compared votes for President Obama as "tribal
activity - the tribe voting for its member instead of voting for actual
policies". The subtle racism is not subtle at all. It was blatant. It
was a pitch to appeal to the racist members of the nation who fear the
shifting demographics of the U.S.

How is it racism when Obama carried 98% of the black vote? Is it racist to actually state that? What does that have to do with "fear" for shifting demographics? The shifting demographics are Hispanic, and while they tend to vote Democrat, blacks are solid, dependable voters for black candidates (you know, like Obama).

The only "fear" is of getting the knee-jerk "racist!" screamed at any question that involves asking stuff like that. However, I think the word is losing its meaning and effect, since it's been so over-used.

I agree wholeheartedly, but would like to reinforce th point by a reminder of its context.

As I read it, DK was not expressing her views as much as she was referring to the situation created by the Fox commentators.

The racist implications were theirs, trying to pin a label on African-American voters.

That being said, I would like to reiterate LC's comment:

Quote :

The only "fear" is of getting the knee-jerk "racist!" screamed at any
question that involves asking stuff like that. However, I think the word
is losing its meaning and effect, since it's been so over-used.

Ann

Quote :

The racist implications were theirs, trying to pin a label on African-American voters.

Was the label incorrect? Is that what your objection is?

What I am hearing is that conservative commentators are claiming that the African-American vote is an indication of racism.

I'm saying that the whole concept of racism is being over-used. It works both ways.

Ann

Quote :

What I am hearing is that conservative commentators are claiming that the African-American vote is an indication of racism.

If someone votes, or doesn't vote, for someone based on race, isn't that textbook racism? Which is a form of tribalism, isn't it? If that was the objection to the piece. I've read Jews refer to themselves as a "tribe," particularly during articles describing why they trusted Madoff. "He was part of the tribe." It means clan, basically.

Whatever Fox News says, I disagree with.
They are "a piece of work."
Zero credibility with me.

So, at best, then, we have news commentators who are implying that some voters are influenced by the ethnicity of the candidate and are upset by that situation, which implies that the canidate could not possibly be worthy of carryng that high a percentage strictly on his own merit.

Isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black? (pun unavoidable)

Barak Obama is a progressive politician. I think I can understand why a large majority of voters from a minority group that has had to deal with oppression might vote for a progressive over a conservative. It isn't about race. It's about politics.

Ann

Alice,
I was watching Meet The Press because my David puts on the news on channel 13 which is a fox station here in Florida. He had it on because it was a sunday and he plays solitare to relax and listen to the news through the double doors. hahah.

I always get angry and talk back to the tv.

I heard them tell Jon Stewart that " well we at fox have a very liberal agenda, hahahah."
What trash. I thought that a news reporter should not have an 'agenda' but it is the way it is.

It is time for an underground press and I imagine that is done on the internet willy-nilly, but I do not know the sites.

I wonder if the youth of this day are as "radical" as they used to be when change needed to be.

Maybe not, because most American youth of today have everything anyone could desire, never had to suffer or work for any of it and if they do not have it, their are agencies that make sure they do not 'suffer'.

Without the disgruntled youth to keep the old entrenched on their toes, this country is lost. I imagine we will be 'third world' one day.

Love,
Betty

Our grandson is a Republican , but he is only seven years old. He thiinks like they do anyway.

Dave took him and the neighbor boy to the toy stiore. Dave bought Jonah a gun for $20.00. The neighbor had only five dollars to spend. Jonah told the kid he ought to save his money.

We are laughing .The Republicans inherit their money then tell the poor to save.
Save what?

Quote :

Dave took him and the neighbor boy to the toy stiore. Dave bought
Jonah a gun for $20.00. The neighbor had only five dollars to spend.
Jonah told he kid he ought to save his money.

We are laughing .The Republicans inherit their money then tell the poor to save.

Laughing? Am I reading this right -Dave (your son?) took his son and a neighbor kid shopping and bot his own son a toy and nothing for the friend? If so, what a totally crappy thing to do.

When I was growing up, my parents bought the same treat for whoever was tagging along as they did me, and neighbor parents did the same when I tagged along. As I did, when my kids were younger. If I were planning to buy my kid a toy that I couldn't afford an extra of, I wouldn't take the neighbor kid along.

I'm sure the shopping circumstances were not totally described since Alice had a point to make and that was the emphasis.

As far a buying toys for accompanying children. That was great of your parents. I often had lots of children in tow, all of whom were responsible for their own shopping. I did not buy other children toys as their parents had different toy ideas than mine. I did tell the parents the object of our activity for them to arrange with their own children what that child would be purchasing or even if they would be purchasing nothing.

As a child, I had a lot of spending change for small toys; my friend had none. I would buy the toys and share them with my friend. When her mother found out she was angry with me. She did not want her child playing with the plastic toys we used to play as though we owned a ranch (made of logs) where we kept little horses in corrals that were ridden by cowboys and cowgirls.

Quote :

I'm sure the shopping circumstances were not totally described since Alice had a point to make and that was the emphasis.

But the only point it made was to show how her family is pretty much the Republicans she was trying to mock.

Neither I nor my parents took lots of kids on trips with us, we'd take one or two. And I was the only one who went along on friends' trips. Seems like a normal, courteous thing to do, like not eating in front of others without offering to share. I can't fathom buying my kid a toy gun or whatever and letting the neighbor kid watch -and get a retarded lecture about saving, yet.

I didn't see it that way. I saw an elementary example of a child with much spending for his own benefit while telling another child with a little to save theirs. It was quite a cute example of bringing reality to a child's level.

Here is the problem: While those with extreme wealth continue to grow their wealth by leaps and bounds and live lives of ostentatious excess, they also fund the lobbyists and politicians that will help preserve that wealth. It has to come from somewhere - so it comes from the ever decreasing salaried and hourly workers making less income but providing the services to support the sources of wealth for those who have it all. Those who have it all have no concept of the hardships of the economically deprived and therefore lack compassion, viewing the underclasses as lazy and deserving of the dregs left for them. The big lie is that wealth creates jobs. No, extreme wealth is created with vapor on paper. Jobs start with small businesses, generally started by poor immigrant families.

Compassionate people created programs to assist those with less inheritance and birthright. Those programs were intended as temporary. They grew and for some people became a lifestyle. For others, they became a source of wealth: doctors, lawyers, hospitals, home health care, pharmaceutical industries, etc. So at the same time the wealthy complain about "paying for the lazy" they are not diligently working to improve these entitlement programs to eliminate fraud because they are profiting from the very programs they decry as "liberal" programs. Of course there are problems with these programs; but they need overhaul, not a percentage cut that eliminates truly needy people.

The republicans have picked up the mantra of those who wish to hang onto their wealth. They were put in office by those people. Their mandate is to reduce the government that might regulate or otherwise threaten their wealth through taxes, reduction in subsidies or other wealthy "entitlement" programs that no one seems to recognize are as full of fraud, waste and cost as the programs for the poor. But the poor look ragged, so it's easier to talk about their entitlement programs with disdain and those of the wealthy with fancy words like subsidies and loopholes and tax planning. A criminal is a criminal whether wearing Walmart jeans or an Armani suit. There are many suits today stealing the government and the people blind and destroying the very fabric of this country - the worth of one man's desire to create a better life for his family than his own. This is no longer possible in today's economy. The common man is going backward and the opportunities for his children are more limited.

Unfortunately, the democrats have their share of entitled politicians as well, tied to the corporate world of wealth and excess. So long as we have a government of the wealthy class, they will protect their jobs and their wealth above the needs of the majority of the U.S. citizens. If this was not the case, this "debt ceiling" issue would be a non-issue. The 14th Amendment gives the president all the authority he needs to continue printing money.

Thank you, Dk, You got the point.

LC, Dave is my husband , not my son.

I am glad your parents were so wonderful.

Dave is a grandparent to Jonah. He not only cares for the two grandsons but even took care of the neighbor kid so the mother could go to the doctor.
He takes care of me too.

A few extra facts:
Dave and Jonah had planned to go shopping for quite awhile.
Dave couldn't hold him off because the neighbor kid showed up.
The boy had $10.00. His mother said he was not to borrow any money. He elected to spend only five.

My husband is a wonderful man and not crappy.
Thank you,
If you don't fancy me--fine. A little less hostility towards my husband would be greatly appreciated.
I also could do without retarded being applied to a seven year old child's actions.
I am extremely offended by this verbal attack.

I'm getting off topic somewhat. I have to confess something. My David never had a toy gun when he was little. I decided if he never played with them, he would never learn that shooting someone or something was a way to solve problems. Following the same reasoning, we never spanked him. Besides, it hurt him a lot more to have the Pong game unplugged for an hour or so - or when he got a little older, to turn off the computer.

It didn't work. When he was 15, he and his friends went to the GI Surplus store and bought some jungle-printed overalls. Then they went to the toy store and bought these high-powered repeating water rifles that made noise like machine guns. (They used their own money. They had formed a metallic rock band and got paid to play at church picnics ( Yes, heavy metal at church.) ) They would put on their camouflage suits and take their water guns into the woods behind the subdivision and play war games. So much for my enlightened thinking. But only one of those guys went into the military after finishing school. The others mostly have grad degrees and work behind desks in offices. I guess I didn't do too badly.

Ann

Diane, a very good and informative post.
Ann, I never bought my son a gun, even a toy one. Pointing a gun, real or toy, at anything is significant. When it is used in make believe killing where the others perform a dying act, isn't very funny. Killing, real or imagined, is a serious thing.

I used a real gun when I was a kid. It was for hunting. My father instructed me on how to use it as well as the safety issues, i.e., never pointing it in the direction of another person, even if it is "supposedly" unloaded. Often people forget to take shells out of guns and assuming it is empty can be deadly.

As Don Stephens once remarked on this forum, if you point a gun at anyone, you should be prepared to use it. With gun ownership comes responsibility. If a toy gun is used for instruction purposes, it can be a positive thing. I cannot get into the mind of any parent and ascertain their reasons for what they do. I must assume that they felt confident in what they did and felt it was the right thing to do. Also, what one sees as harmful, others may view as harmless.

LC,

I am hurt and dismayed by your vicious verbal attack.