In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

David, I like you, but, sometimes, what I perceive as your blind spots
make me want to scream.

The way you are going you will be killfiled by everybody here if you keep
it
up.
What? You've taken a vote? (Yes, sarcasm)


When ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.


No. When trying to get a message over it is folly to shout abuse in your
listener's face because that will ensure they never get the message. You
defeat yourself without the opposition doing a thing. This is religious
behaviour and not rational.
He wasn't a listener, he was an accuser. If he had wanted to refute me,
he could have, but he didn't. I'm not thin skinned. If he had wanted to
argue the value of neo-liberalism, we could have left it there, but he
chose to smear me as a propagandist, i.e. a hypocrite. I've done some
investigation into how the U.S. has arrived at it's present state of
crisis, and I've tried to reflect what I've learned. Which is why I
document my quotes. If my perception of reality is offensive to you, I
think you should kill file me. We have a coup d'etat going on in the
U.S., where already 90% of the media is in corporate hands.
[As the New Yorker's former press critic, A.J. Liebling, famously said,
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." Perhaps
that quotation is framed somewhere in a boardroom at the General
Electric Corp., which owns NBC News.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecut...s-mum-on-ges-0
-tax-bill]
To clarify this point, I should point out that G.E. is also a weapons
manufacturer, who has paid no taxes for the last 2 years in spite of
robust profits of $14.2 billion worldwide. So don't look to mass media
news to find out if the neo-liberals* are coming.

They have been very quiet on the subjects of police blocking entrances
to public buildings, and legislation being conducted in secret.

Do what you got to do.
That wasn't a command.


So you don't care if you get killfiled, yet you so desperately want to be
heard. Do you see any contradiction here?
There are others who share the vision of America being pillaged. There
are those who don't want to be bothered, and there are those who don't
want it mentioned.

If I am in a cinema and see a fire and shout,"FIRE", I'm not going to be
too concerned with some guy who says,"Pipe down, I'm trying to watch the
movie".

You are like fanatics who stand on street corners in the rain for hours
bearing witness to their faith.
Now, there you go again, characterizing me. Normally this would be
called an ad hominem attack. Why would you do that? Too lazy to use
logic or facts? In any event, all analogies fall apart at some point,
because they aren't the reality.

They imagine that they are giving people
the opportunity to change their lives for the better, when in fact all they
are doing is getting wet. It's self indulgent and pointless.
The second shoe drops. You do see what you are doing, don't you?

To sum up, I give my point of view, and I give supporting citations.
You could argue that this isn't the proper place to express my views,
but in this case, it was where my credibility was called into question.

David


*What is neoliberalism? In his Brief History of Neoliberalism, the
eminent social geographer David Harvey outlined "a theory of political
economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be
advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills
within an institutional framework characterised by strong private
property rights, free markets, and free trade." Neoliberal states
guarantee, by force if necessary, the "proper functioning" of markets;
where markets do not exist (for example, in the use of land, water,
education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution),
then the state should create them.

Guaranteeing the sanctity of markets is supposed to be the limit of
legitimate state functions, and state interventions should always be
subordinate to markets. All human behavior, and not just the production
of goods and services, can be reduced to market transactions.
---

The main points of neo-liberalism include:
1. THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private
enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no
matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to
international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by
de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won
over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total
freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this
is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to
increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's
like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow
the wealth didn't trickle down very much.

2. CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and
health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance
of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing
government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and
tax benefits for business.

3. DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that
could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on
the job.

4. PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to
private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll
highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although
usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed,
privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even
more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

5. ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and
replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest
people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care,
education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if
they fail, as "lazy."
---

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages.html
August 28, 2006
Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/op...r=1&ref=bobher
bert
the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of
Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income
growth in the years 2000 to 2007
---

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...ism/dp/0312427
999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300208360&sr=1-1
(Available at better libraries near you.)

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of
Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans...lism/dp/B001P3
OMQY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301174163&sr=1-1
(Available at better libraries near you.)
--
- Billy
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953
http://wn.com/black_panther_party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug