World's Shortest Thread - Evidence the "Communists have won"

[Sasquatch]

Wow, a whole dozen? 

We now have a precedent of "no risk, no problem" as it relates to Wall Street.

Speaking of nonsense:

Part of why Wall Street WAS too big to fail

 

It was necessary to prop up the failed institutions. 

 

[NCVol]

Somewhere along the way NC, you've missed the point that the OWS movement is a bunch of useful idiots to these Marxists.  The plutocrats will rape and pillage.  That's a given.  They will continue to get richer and there's nothing we can do about it as long as they hold the leashes of the politicians, while the 99% gets swept into a socialist ghetto to live out a meager existence in poverty and state dependence.

Again, it's downright bizarre that this is coming from the same person who says the communists have won....

But I'm at a loss to grasp what kind of movement you would support. Yes, the plutocrats will continue to get richer as long as they hold the leashes of the politicians, which they do with now unlimited amounts of money, thanks to Citizens United and the all time record amount of income flowing to and wealth held by the plutocrats, thanks to the communists winning.  

Which is why among other things the OWS movement is supporting a constitutional amendment to remove the fallacy that corporations are people and speech is money.  See movetoamend.org.  This is a bad thing...why?  It's not done yet, so the people pushing it are "useful idiots?" How do you envision a populist movement emerging unless it points a finger directly as the source of the corruption, which you seem to on odd posts agree is the plutocrats and their iron grip on all the policy levers.  Do you really think the ANSWER is MORE deregulation and MORE money in politics?  

And what do you call the RP folks who are pushing for an end to the Fed - should be happening any day now.  Deregulation of the banks without a Fed would make some sense, since it would remove the Fed's ability to bail out the losers.  But Paul wants and has voted for deregulation, to allow the banks to grow to sizes that threaten national sovereignty, controlling TRILLIONS, which they've done, looting the America public in the process -  WITH THAT MASSIVE BAILOUT MACHINE IN PLACE.  

In my world it's an economic philosophy that works only with the cornerstone removed - the Fed - but has proven to be a massive failure with that cornerstone in place.  And RP advocates for deregulation despite the clear FACT that the banks are TBTF and will be bailed out by that Fed he hates at the first sign of trouble.  So, the results are what actually happened on the ground - a few banks control the process, $trillions in assets, have bought both parties, etc.  

It would be as delusional to advocate for removal of the EPA, arguing that private citizens can simply sue, and never once face up to the reality that we HAD that system in place for the decades prior to the EPA, and private citizens could sue, but guess damn what, YOU with a polluted river that you can't use to water your crops WILL LOSE if you go up against an entity with $billions in assets that can use those assets to, if it wants, stretch out a lawsuit literally for decades, bankrupting any legal adversary.  

And of course this is exactly Paul's position.  He argues to remove the big stick that can take on the behemoth multi-nationals with no process in place to check their activity that hasn't proved a total failure in the REAL WORLD WE LIVE IN AND NOT AN AYN RAND NOVEL.  Again, who is the useful idiot?  I'd say it's the guy that says remove the cops and gives the people no way to police the million man marauding gangs destroying their cities.  It's nice in theory, but thousands of years of history give us some indication of how it works in the real world...  

Is it really that hard to grasp?

What I wonder what is hard to grasp is that there is a lot of support of the OWS movement by RP supporters.  Ron Paul has offered his own support for the movement.  He's worked with actual liberals like Kucinich and socialist Bernie Sanders on many of his efforts because on many issues THEY ARE ALLIES.  They are proven allies on issues like Wall Street corruption, joining Paul's audit the Fed drive.  He has explicitly said the OWS movement expresses the same disgust as the Tea Party movement, and OWS is MORE outraged that Wall Street got bailed out if the focus of energy of Occupy WALL STREET versus the plutocrat friendly Dick Armey pushed Tea Party is any guide.  But for some reason, you guys on the right ignore this and call them useful idiots, while your hero praises them.  Why is that?  

My guess is the plutocrat friendly "conservative" press is using the right wing base as useful idiots, but that's just a guess....  Anything to keep the population from pointing the finger at the guys in charge, the plutocrats, which is of course what OWS does - names the right enemy.  

[NCVol]

Wow, a whole dozen?  

And how many interviews have you heard?  My guess is zero, since you think they don't understand why Obama nominates a Wall Street puppet to be his chief of staff, when their whole purpose is to protest the system that produces those kinds of appointments....  

We now have a precedent of "no risk, no problem" as it relates to Wall Street.

Right, and again, the OWS movement was created to challenge that precedent, that protects the 1% AT ALL COSTS while letting the 99% suffer.  Not sure why this is hard to grasp.

Speaking of nonsense:

 

If you think we could have let CITI and JPM and GS et al just enter into a normal bankruptcy, you've been listening to too much fact free right wing talk radio.  Bankruptcies tie up the assets of the bankrupt entity, possibly for years.  When those entities control $TRILLIONS in assets., and they did, a normal bankruptcy is simply a recipe for disaster, as we spend months or years figuring out which of the creditors who were also owed TRILLIONS gets what share of the assets. Just as a start, it would have wiped out the money market funds of millions of Americans, or at a minimum made those $hundreds of billions inaccessible, perhaps for months or years.  

 Again, the problem was the process both parties chose (since the plutocrats own both parties)  was one that protected the top leadership of those who led their companies to failure, and the shareholders in those companies.  THAT is where the problem was, not that we prevented a meltdown of the banking system.  

  

[Sasquatch]

If what you say is correct and true about OWS, I would expect to see Obama treated like Bush was with the anti-war protests. I don't see anything like that. Has there even been any outrage expressed by the dozen or so OWS folks you have heard over Obama's new Chief of Staff yet? Was there any problems with his old COS?

[Jeremy Roenick]

NC repeat after me...

Plutocratic... Socialist... Empire...

We have symptoms of all three conditions.  We have Plutocrats running the show and hoarding the wealth, we have the general populace reduced to life and death by socialism, and we have a foreign policy that is front-loaded with a major dose of Imperialism.

With more and more people (see SNAP, see skyrocketing state dependency) relying on the government to get them thru life, I don't know how our increasing socialist state is escaping you.

[NCVol]

Do you know what a "mic check" is?  

It's when OWS protesters interrupt speeches by people on the right AND left.  Here they are doing it to Obama.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/obama-new-hampshire-speech-occupy-protesters_n_1108081.html

There's a link in that video to other protesters singing "we paid our dues, where's our change?"  

Here's a link FROM OCCUPY WALL STREET "Don't Be Big Banks' Puppet; No Immunity Deal for Crooks"

http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-wall-street-obama-dont-be-big-banks-puppet-/

President Obama is on the brink of cutting a backroom deal that would give bankers broad immunity for illegally throwing tens of thousands of Americans out of their homes. The Administration is pressuring state attorneys general to abandon an ongoing investigation into the massive "robo-signing" fraud, in exchange for a relatively small payoff by the banks.
...
“This is a clear, moral issue that cuts to the core of why we occupy,” said Max Berger, an Occupy Wall Street participant helping to plan the event. “Instead of throwing corrupt bankers in jail, the administration is pushing to give them a get-out-of jail-free card.”
...
“We will not stand for a system that gives campaign contributors a right to immunity, while serving foreclosure papers to the 99%,” said Beth Bogart, a volunteer with Occupy Wall Street. “We will not stand for a country where bankers that issued deadly mortgage-backed securities are bailed out, but homeowners with mortgages are illegally thrown out on the street.”

At New York’s Foley Square, the Occupy movement will stand with those on the front lines of the economic collapse in their struggle against the banks and the politicians who do the banks' bidding. We will join in solidarity with those who have lost their homes to Wall Street greed and political corruption.

We won't let Obama get away with being Wall Street's puppet.

And the OWS movement doesn't have a big PR department to comment on all the day's news, but here's Glenn Greenwald, lefty, with a typical view of liberals on Obama and Wall Street.  

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/10/the_new_wh_chief_of_staff_and_citigroup/

Here's the cartoon used at the end to capture the essence of the appointment.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DhJLTyM659k/TwzNRaPWakI/AAAAAAAAAjY/DExtCuL-b7Y/s400/macleod.png

[NCVol]

NC repeat after me...

Plutocratic... Socialist... Empire...

We have symptoms of all three conditions.  We have Plutocrats running the show and hoarding the wealth, we have the general populace reduced to life and death by socialism, and we have a foreign policy that is front-loaded with a major dose of Imperialism.

With more and more people (see SNAP, see skyrocketing state dependency) relying on the government to get them thru life, I don't know how our increasing socialist state is escaping you.

Just so we're clear now that communism is a brand new word you invented, and it means an economic system that coddles big banks, is under the control of CEOs of major Fortune 500 companies and Wall Street, that is characterized by wealth disparity not seen in U.S. history with the rich capturing greater shares of it than at any time in history, with tax rates on them at sixty year lows, but with the destruction of the middle class, our productive industries, and along with that typically "communist" organizations like labor unions, etc.  

Here's the only relevant point, to me.  It's that we point the finger at those who control the levers of power, and with that control by ANY account are capturing the spoils of the corruption that is obvious in our political system.  When you use the word "communism" you are deliberately, IMO, pointing directly away from the actual culprits, the ones dictating every major policy choice.  

If you use the right word, plutocracy, oligarchy, corporatocracy, then the source of the corruption is clear (the financial elites), the beneficiaries are clear (CEO class and Wall Street) and the victims, the working class, are also clear.  

[NCVol]

Here are some definitions:

plu·toc·ra·cy
? ?[ploo-tok-ruh-see] Show IPA
noun, plural -cies.
1. the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy.
2. a government or state in which the wealthy class rules.
3. a class or group ruling, or exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth.

ol·i·gar·chy
? ?[ol-i-gahr-kee] Show IPA
noun, plural -chies.

1. a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

You don't have to do mental gymnastics to show that we live in one or the other system of government.  You say so yourself.  And if a person calls that a plutocracy, and if you think that system isn't working, then it's clear what has to change - the people wielding power for their own enrichment. 

Who the hell knows what needs to be changed when you define rule by the wealthy, for the wealthy, as "socialism" and "communism." 

BTW, you seem obsessed with proving that we have some socialism.  We do, starting with our socialist military.  But the fact that there exists some socialism such as a safety net in a plutocracy doesn't change the government to socialist, it just indicates that the plutocrats have decided to maintain social order and therefore their own iron grip on the levers of power by, among other things, keeping the population from starving to death, something that could lead to revolution and their own murder and destruction - history shows revolution and wiping out the ruling elites is a common reaction to oppression and starvation, etc. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

NC, there is no greater (or more evil) way of subjugating the people of a society than reducing them all to dependency on the state to live.  Achievement and economic freedom are fast disappearing from this country, and one day a job at McDonald's will be looked at as a high standard.

Even in the purist forms of Communism there was a ruling aristocratic class at the top of the pyramid.  They hold the wealth and make the rules.  How is our situation any different?  Our hybrid of Plutocracy/Communism/Imperialism is unlike anything we've seen in modern history.  It's because we started off the FREEST, WEALTHIEST, CAPITALIST nation in the world's history and this is what regression looks like when it runs it's course.  Capitalism gets perverted by the evil elites, and it ends up being a means of manipulating the body politic.  The end result is that the general population ends up in serfdom as more and more wealth is funneled away and into the ruling elite's hands.

[The One Man Gang]

NINE pages and the answer is still "yes."

The Communists have won.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

It is being held open with pro-forma sessions and not gaveled "sine die"  it is NOT in recess. THIS is the exact same tactics Democrats used against BUSH.... I say let them, set the precedence and see what happens in the future.... IF not getting anything done is all it takes to consider them in recess, one could argue they have pretty much been in recess for MONTHS. Obama is now more than ever showing how he chooses to take on the role of dictator... I know you guys would have thought it peachy keen IF Bush did the same thing, just remember Democrats will not always be in office, and once this precedence is set, you will have no one to cry to when it comes back and bites you in the rear.

As usual, you are wrong. The Justice Department says Obama can make recess appointments when the Senate is in recess, INCLUDING PRO FORMA SESSIONS WHERE NO BUSINESS IS BEING CONDUCTED.

Like I said before, Obama won and the GOP lost. End of story.

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama has the discretion to exercise his power to make recess appointments, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

In an internal opinion dated January 6 but released Thursday, the Justice Department said the president has the authority to make recess appointments during pro forma Senate sessions in which no business is to be conducted.

"The president therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments," said Virginia Seitz, the assistant attorney general who heads the Office of Legal Counsel.

The non-binding decision came at the request of the White House, soon after Obama used a recess appointment earlier this month for Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The move sidestepped Republicans in Congress, who had blocked that confirmation for months.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/12/politics/obama-recess-appointments/index.html

[Jeremy Roenick]

The DOJ?    You can't be serious right?  That's like letting the football players throw the yellow flags.

And especially this DOJ, that sees no problem at all with automatic weapons walking across the border and into the hands of terrorist drug dealers.  Yeah, I feel so much better now that Holder's DOJ has said Obama isn't speeding.