^^ Ship, no, most of us on the progressive side probably don’t watch FAUX NEWS, anymore than you spend hours with Keith Olbermann (who I don’t watch) or reading the Huffington Post (which I do read occasionally).
Please don’t make a whole boatload of assumptions based on that bit alone, alright? You call Clevername close-minded, you give us this “you folks” crap again, since we have “incredibly biased opinions.” EVERYONE has biased opinions. That’s why they’re opinions. Just because someone doesn’t watch Fox doesn’t mean they only hear one “side” of an issue. Many people, myself among them, just tune out the extreme voices on BOTH sides.
Even when I read what you would term “liberal propaganda,” do you honestly think I’m stupid enough to swallow their entire position, hook line and sinker? Do you live your life according to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Bill-O? NO, of course you don’t. So why are you assuming we march in lockstep with Olbermann or Maddow? Give your fellow OKPers and other human beings a bit more credit than that.
Goldenroad
ZOMG…free education and health care…what a horrible country that would be to live in!
It wouldn’t be free… it would be tax payer funded. And, personally, I think the 50-55% tax rate that the wealthiest Americans currently pay (this includes ALL taxes) is enough. If you were to raise their taxes much more, you would be taking away their incentive to try to make more money and you would run the risk of having tax revenues actually decline… thus further adding to debt.
Clevername
NOBODY except right-wing fear mongers has used the words SINGLE PAYER.
Actually, from 2003-2007, Obama said that he was a proponent of the single payer system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE (I wish I could find the FULL version of this speech… he completely lays out his plan for slowly transitioning to a single payer system… because he is smart enough to know you can’t get there all at once). Even now, he admits that if he were ‘designing a system from scratch’, he’d probably go the single payer route… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wTDK-LwqE&feature=related
That’s not accurate. Increased rates for the wealthy are only applied to the amount they earn in the subsequent tax braket. A person that makes 1,000,000 dollars actually pays the same rate as a person making 250,000 on their first quarter million. Their taxes increase for the money they make above and beyond that braket. As a result, there is no decrease in wealth at any step on the tax scale. You keep accumulating more wealth, just at a different rate. Therefore, there is always incentive to generate more capital.
I disagree with you on this… if the overall tax rate was say 70% (fairly realistic if all Obama gets everything he wants), why would someone want to work harder if the government would end up getting $70 of every additional $100 earned. Doesn’t make sense to me…
Because if you are in the tax bracket that is paying 70% (which I find difficult to believe even exists), then you are in a very powerful position obviously, and power can offer some people a lot of things that money can not.
Yes… I know ALL about tax brackets. Maybe I didn’t explain myself well enough. My argument only pertained to the wealthy… as Obama’s social programs will be mostly funded by the wealthiest 5% of Americans by raising their taxes. Obviously, since their incomes are in the millions, the VAST majority of their income will be taxed at the highest level (as will their state taxes). You can only tax these people so much before many of them say ‘fuck it’, I quit… because they have already made enough money, and I doubt many will be interested in working as hard as they have been working in the past to have most of their earnings ripped from them. And, don’t forget, that the wealthiest 5% are also the people that start businesses, and employ most of us. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to over tax them to pay for bread and circuses for the rest of us… (and I for one don’t even want the handouts… I can take care of myself, thank you very much…).
And obviously, middle-class Americans will still have incentive to work… But even I might work less… I’m thinking of taking the Family Leave Act next year to spend some more time with the baby my wife and I are expecting. I don’t think anyone ever said on their death bed ‘Damn… I wish I had spent more time in the office…’
In many ways, I view the conservative right as attempting to keep the power in the upper echelons of society. Look to the people who get most worked up at these town hall meeting around the country, the ideologues who, inspired by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, compare our current administration to Nazis (look to a few Youtube videos for some great example of this).
I see the stimulus as a success, and it may be my limited knowledge of economics, but I was taught that in touch economic times government spending should increase. Cash for clunkers has helped spark the economy as well.
As for health care reform, it could be Obama’s make or break, most likely as those on the right wish for it to be so, and have carefully crafted a message which plays on Americans worst fears (socialism, death panels, etc…). We’ll have to wait and see, obviously, but if comprehensive reform gets passed and succeeds, Obama will most certainly be viewed highly.
^^I love how you disparage government programs, say you can take care of yourself, and then mention that you will be making use of the FLA. Enjoy your “bread and circuses.”
And really, it’s pretty silly not realistic to think that executives are going to call it quits because the next million they make this year will be taxed at 39% instead of 36%.
Generalizations aren’t universally accurate. Everyone is a nuanced individual. I feel confident that my statement is a valid criticism of American culture right now. Any cultural criticism is going to be somewhat flawed in it’s ability to take into account every individual attitude. So in that sense I think your argument is somewhat fallacious, because it implies that all cultural criticism is without value.
I think it is valid that you would be opposed to my somewhat inflammatory language, especially if you identify yourself as an American. I htink you could make the argument that my anger invalidates my points, and that may be tru.
As an American, I don’t find it offensive or inflammatory. I feel like I have learned this perspective from my own experiences as someone constantly trying to emerge from the haze of socialization by this coutry’s cultural institutions. I don’t really feel bad about being angry, and I empathize with others who share my frustration. I also think political discourse suffers from too much empathy towards a perspective of American superiority.
If you took personal offense at my statements, I do apolgize since it was not intended as a personal attack, but it was intended to express some anger, and if it is percieved as being confrontational I wonder what it is you identify with in my statement that makes it so personally offensive. Do you really disagree that Americans are largely responsible for their own predicament?
Regardless, I think my generalizations about American culture are hardly “ridiculous” or “absurd”. As an American I have grown up in this culture as a first hand observer. I have experienced a biased a misinformed education system and a political system that exploits the fact that Americans are socialized to a distorted and biased history of themselves, I have experienced and destructive and unsustainable approach towards consumption, and I have witnessed generations of apologetic political leaders ignore this reality in order to maintain a hierarchy of power.
You can point to social institutions that perpetuate and benefit from this cycle, but I think addressing peoples’ willingness to relinquish their own consciousness to coercion is the ultimate solution to this dysfunction.
All cable news networks spin the news. The difference is that Fox News makes shit up. They are a source of misinformation and fear with the dual purposes of advancing the far-right agenda and making Rupert Murdoch a wealthy, wealthy man.
No, they won’t call it quits, they will just fire more of us towards the bottom to make up the $.
Or move the jobs overseas and blame us.
We don’t work hard enough or we are Nazi’s for asking them to help us out a bit.
You know, like ask for a lunch break or maybe a free check-up once and awhile so we can be healthy enough to actually work.
I am not saying xenophobia is a strictly American phenomenon, nut I’m saying that the strain America chooses to revel in is particulary dentrimental to its freedom and happiness.
I am also not expecting any movement to topple any existing power structure. Social institutions change and decay over time regardless, and many time social movements only serve to perpetuate the root causes of their dysfunction. I have seen many of these things dissolving throughout my life, and I am only hopeful and exited about what new structures are developing to replace the old ones.
I do think we are in a time where, some old social structures are falling apart more rapidly than in recent history, maybe because the baby boomer generation is starting to pass and we are loosing such a large group of people with a shared generational perspective. In that sense I think it’s a great time for people to think about letting go of some of these old ideas and allowing some new ones to come into play.
^^New ideas are great but greed always ruins them eventually. It happens everywhere throughout history. Empires become corrupt and fall, a new and fresh system replaces them…then that system also becomes corrupt. It’s a never-ending cycle. Greed will always topple the greatest of ideas. Human nature…can’t fight it. Just accept it.
