Just got this email from my conservative mom... want to help me dissect all the flawed arguments for a response?

Eat_the_Rich

Sorry dude, your mother doesn't write well enough to give a coherent response. So I'll pick out one point:

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number.. what does it mean?

It means that the aid to N.O. is like US aid to Afghanistan.

Most of the money will be spent on consultants, studies, and other middlemen. Another huge share will be spent on business contracts to politically-favored businesses at wildly inflated prices.

The people on the ground will get next to nothing.

We would be far better off taking the tactic of Hezbollah after the last Israeli assault on Lebanon. Hezbollah -- a grassroots, community organization -- just passed out cash to people who were impacted. No large bureaucracy required. The people were thrilled and rebuilding started quickly and was done well.

Clearly the US gov't is not giving huge, multi-hundred-thousand dollar checks to poor people in Katrina's wake -- that isn't how the US gov't works. The US gov't is a plutocracy, with politicians funded by and backed by corporations -- and those corporations are at the front of the line to get their cut.

The poor people will be conned into "low interest" loans as a method of debt peonage. That's life in the US under corporate/banker rule.

All in all, I reject the premise of your mother's argument. Yes, the corruption of the US gov't is appalling -- but is it wrong to help people devastated by a natural disaster? No, it isn't.

If we want to cut spending, let's look at the biggest source of needlessly wasteful corruption in the US gov't: Pentagon spending!

Eat_the_Rich

Saying that the market would be better if we got rid of all regulations is like saying football would be better if we got rid of all the rules and refs.

Nice analogy.

And you make a great point -- those items are required. That's why I called it "the free-market religion". It has a lot in common with fundamentalist religions. Belief needs to trump reality, only in economics it's easier to prove.

Eat_the_Rich

From the article:

The [Sudanese] soldiers were convinced the airmen were at the airfield to collect evidence of war crimes, not fly a husband back to his pregnant wife.

We know what the Sudanese soldiers were thinking because we Americans have mind-reading superpowers.

Now, why would the Sudanese think that? Could it be because in violation of UN rules, the US used UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s to spy for the CIA? That is what former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has stated publicly. (That illegal US spying is what caused Saddam Hussein to hinder the inspections, when, in reality, Hussein had every right to just kick the inspectors out of Iraq.)

But I love how we have the tear-jerking sob story about the husband being picked up to go see his pregnant wife. Propaganda tactics like this -- even if true -- help ensure that you'll see this as an emotional, nationalistic issue.

Even back in the 1990s the US attacked Sudan with cruise missiles. The Sudanese should be very leery of any US Air Force plane that enters their airspace. You couldn't blame the Sudanese if they had shot that plane out of the sky, let alone let it land.

Eat_the_Rich

Ask her for a bottle of anal lubricant. That way you won't have to worry about being asked silly X-mas present questions next year.

Eat_the_Rich

(Excited kid waving his hand from the first row:)

Oh! Oh! I know! I know!

It means that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee performs no effective oversight function and that in reality, the CIA is the president's unseen army to carry out policy and crimes in the president's name without the approval of Congress or the public.

Eat_the_Rich

This should not be news to anyone paying attention.

But given our corporate mass media propaganda system functioning as the US gov't cheerleading team and only reporting trivial "anti-gov't" stories to maintain some semblance of objectivity and credibility, we need to be reminded of these facts constantly.

We need to be reminded that our gov't employs torturers and is tyrannical at the most fundamental levels. That is unequivocal fact, but we are trained in nationalism and supported by a propaganda system that still maintains the US gov't is as innocent and inherently good as Mom and apple pie.

Eat_the_Rich

They're non-monogamous men. Non-monogamous men who are married will lie about sex. Non-monogamous men in power have the tendency to use their position to get sex, just like rich non-monogamous men will use their money to get sex.

Nothing about the above should be shocking. That's been true for thousands of years.

What we should be disgusted at is the hypocrisy -- the lying about their actions while publicly maintaining a stance of the complete opposite and pushing political positions that are the complete opposite.

That hypocrisy -- not the acts themselves, since it has nothing to do with their political office or position -- is why they should be tarred and feathered.

Eat_the_Rich

but I don't know how to summon the courage or willpower to do it.

Wow, I never thought of masturbation as a "courageous" act. To me, this hints of some twisted views of sexual repression.

There is a reason why monkeys at the zoo masturbate randomly -- it feels good and is a natural thing to do. In fact, besides urination, spitting out sperm in an orgasm is exactly what the penis was designed to do.

Eat_the_Rich

The author does not understand basic economics, basic supply, basic demand, basic subjective valuation, or basic trade exchange, but look at him spout off go like he knows something.

Having read a lot of the author's articles, it is simply false to say he is uneducated about economics.

Idiots like this would do well to ask themselves why stores don't trade their goods for Parker Brothers monopoly "money".

Isn't that what we do? If everyone trusts that Monopoly money and Parker Bros. regulates the printing to some degree, that is exactly what we have going on.

The point is that this Monopoly money has to -- at some point -- be translated into real human labor and hard goods (you are exactly correct on that point). That is presently working, somewhat.

The problem is that other countries know they're getting ripped off by Parker Bros. But those countries have decades of habits and entire economies interwoven with Parker Bros.' habits of printing. Making the switch to a fair and more equitable system will be difficult and involves a lot of difficult tradeoffs for even the countries getting ripped off.

Eat_the_Rich

It's refreshing to see a court use simple, common sense and to buck the "me too" trend. Kudos.

As the German court decision illustrates, accuracy and integrity of elections is the first and foremost consideration -- and that may explain why the US and other countries are so gung-ho on blackbox voting machines.

Eat_the_Rich

Israel is an open, theocratic settler state engaged in ethnic cleansing. That much cannot be denied.

This story is not news (but thank you for posting it because we need constant reminders of the above fact to counteract the corporate mass media's pro-Israel propaganda).

Israel is cleansing "its" land of natives in the same way the US cleansed "its" land of natives 200 years ago. The "problem" for Israel is that 200 years later we have much better communication making the world a smaller place, and that ethics and morality have evolved to view ethnic cleansing as a universal crime.

Eat_the_Rich

Your point -- great, accurate headline, BTW -- is 100% valid.

But you're pissing in the wind of propaganda. Sadly, the so-called Libertarians will likely hammer you for saying anything about the free-market religion that drives them.

Eat_the_Rich

Microsoft sets the standard for violating your privacy. It is just amazing to me (a Linux user) that people blindly accept an "agreement/license" that allows Microsoft to enter your home or place of business if Microsoft wants to, and which allows Microsoft to remotely disable software and many other nefarious things. People are really stupid sometimes.

Microsoft clearly "owns" your computer. And what is doubly amazing is that there is absolutely no reason to put up with that abuse -- other than the fact that people are just too lazy to change.

Eat_the_Rich

Imagine, an employer not wanting you to evangelize with buttons while you're on the clock in your job that interfaces with the public.

What a ridiculous lawsuit.

Eat_the_Rich

TROPHY CASE

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