Re: but still they love and trust their government to take care of them

"Billy" <wildbilly@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:wildbilly-861A00.10000618082010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <ca2n66pt9rta1flbplgnc5uv903r8vppgu@xxxxxxx>,
Caesar Romano <Spam@xxxxxxx> wrote:

As an observer of the US from way beyond your shores, who's read usenet
for
years and been subjected to a massive amount of US Kulchur and culture
in
various forms of media for 60 years, I'd say that the one thing that
stands
out and is very obvious to non Americans is how incredibly distrustful
of
their own government Americans are.

For a nation who seem to continue to say quite freely that the US is the
'best place in the world to live'

That's a hold-over from the post WW-II generation. It's mostly
parroted now by the ignorant non-thinking masses, which is about 80%
of the population. Anyone who has done an even moderate amount of
travel outside the U.S. realizes what bullsh*t it is.

Caesar is right. People died for American workers to have a 40 hr. week.

I know. The industrial history of the US is interesting but seemingly
ignored or unknown amongst many Americans. But then I think that applies to
much of your history - the myth is known but not the real history.

Refusing to work (striking) was considered communist plot.

But that is a more recent idiot innovation when set against the totality of
US industrail history.

As bad as
Stalin was, as long as there was a competitive ideology, capitalism
tried to win the hearts and minds of the people.
In 1945, the world was in ruins. America's industrial base was intact
and our Merchant Marine did half the world's shipping. Suddenly, unlike
any other time in American history, a family could survive well on one
paycheck. We also consumed a quarter of all the energy produced on the
planet. As the years went by, and other countries rebuilt their
industrial bases, America's advantage became less and less.

Well at teh current time, the US doesn't seem to be very advantaged at
allhaving a sick economy and being in 'technical bankruptcy'. I don't
understand how that can apply to a country, but I'm told it does.

Politics has always been about money, and how to make more of it.
Taxpayers can't afford lobbyists. We thought that was what our
congressmen did.

:-)) Yes, we all try to think that of our elected representatives. Naive
at best aren't we :-))

Just as in professional sports, the whole team doesn't
have to cheat, to make the bookies happy, just a few players can change >
the advantage of the game, and it doesn't even have to be the same
players everytime. It is the same thing in government. The trick is to
always have a reasonable argument. Presently, we have 2+ wars going on
(spending half the worlds military budget in the process, with 1000
military bases around the world), that are draining our economy of
wealth that would be better spent on education and transportation
(infrastructure). Spending a $1 on the military only returns 35?
(basically wages), and that which is created is usually lost. In
Education a $1 spent will return $3, and in transportation $1 will
return $4. The problem is that the weapon systems have been spread
evenly across the country, so any politician can claim that a reduction
in military spending is going to cost jobs in their district or state.
Thus the money continues to flow to the "military-industrial complex",
as President Eisenhower called it.
Then we have companies claiming if we only cut taxes on them, they will
be free to create new jobs, but they never do.
Or reduce taxes on profits earned from investment (capital gains) to
free up money for investment, and the result is that one man sweats all
day at work and pays 35% taxes, and another man may do nothing (have a
broker invest his money) and only pays 15% tax.
All the above is loosely called "trickle down economics". If you want to
feed the birds, feed the horse grain (or doo-doo economics).

LOL. I like tht analogy. I think I might streal it and use it sometime
:-))

Many of us wonder why we don't try "trickle up economics". Pay the
worker well, and the worker will have more money to buy more things that >
will make the producers richer.

Since this isn't happening, but getting worse, we suspect that the fox
is in the hen house. It's not just the Republicans. It's not just the
Democrats. But Democrats and Republicans forming a new party, the
Kleptocrats. And to make sure that too many people don't notice that
they are being robbed, the media tells us that our cheap labor from
south of the border is the problem, or men marrying men is the problem,
or that government is the problem, or in more swarmy circles, our
problems are all cause by inferior races. Basically, it's the old divide
and conquer routine.

Yup. A con job (not that we're paranoid or anything) but I do get sick of
being told lies by all and sundry in positions of power. I wonder why they
really think I'm totally stupid.

BTW, I should have noticed that this thread was done and dusted months ago -
I changed my setting to 'view' something by subject and then didn't set it
back to see things by their sent date.


.

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