No, but that's what it has turned into sadly. Everything is about how those with money (power) can make more money at the expense of others.
Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
- Start date
djdavedk
Well-Known Member
This isn't capitalism. This isn't what Adam Smith envisioned with his invisible hand. In fact, both Marx and Smith were huge critics of financiers and the rentier class--those people that generated their income passively through owning a resource that they rent out whether it be in monthly rent or through loan interest. Both warned against giving the financiers power to shape the economy because of the very issues we are dealing with right now.
Oh, it gets better than that:
According to the New Food Economy, Amazon ranks high on the list of employers with massive numbers of employees enrolled in SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps). In Ohio, around one in 10 Amazon employees uses SNAP; in Pennsylvania, about one in nine. In Arizona, nearly one in three Amazon employees is enrolled in the food stamp program.
Later this year, Amazon will start accepting food stamps for online grocery orders, from which it stands to benefit enormously as one of the nation’s top retailers. That means the company will be the recipient of government assistance (in the form of tax breaks and incentives) while its own workers are forced to rely upon that same program to survive.
A large number of Amazon workers rely on food stamps for assistance
The latest troubling revelation regarding the online retail giant's working conditions.archive.thinkprogress.org
So Amazon workers are on food stamps and Amazon accepts food stamps so he not only doesn't pay his workers a living wage, but also rakes in government dollars by accepting the very food stamps that his workers rely on.
This just reflects history, the wealthy making fortunes off the backs of the impoverished... serfs, slaves, low-wage workers, etc.
All while they are thinking that they are paying that "unskilled labor" too much.
djdavedk
Well-Known Member
Like Chris Rock said in his standup... Minimum Wage means "if we could pay you less, we would." (or something to that effect)
debianlinux
Well-Known Member
Amazon could pay every employee $100k a year, hell even pay their spouses and kids $100k/yr each and it would not make a recognizable dent in the billions upon billions coming in. In fact, the optics of doing it might even increase the total. But no, that would require a humanitarian presupposition that the people who are actually responsible for generating the income should benefit from it commensurately (aka socialism).
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Do people not realise what an appellate court is? That it is a place where you appeal a decision? That if evidence isn’t presented first time around the judge can’t make a judgment on it and so it cannot be appealed? Your Supreme Court’s scope as a court of original jurisdiction is incredibly narrow and I can’t see how any of this falls under it.
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Remember the CEO from Washington State who raised his companies minimum wage to 75k? All the other CEO's were laughing at him and saying it won't work. That's just not what you do as a CEO.
A few years back Market Basket, a regional grocery store chain went on strike and stores closed for months after the board ousted the CEO who was a member of the founding family of the company. They ousted him because shareholders and the board were not pleased with how much money he was paying employees and for their benefits like medical and when he refused to back down they ousted him. To him it was still a family business and he took care of his employees. Everyone got health insurance, even part time workers. But capitalism doesn't like that. That's not doing your job as a CEO and get cost you your Job. They replaced him with a former Radio Shack CEO
After huge losses and stores closed for months from his employees striking and calling for his return they backed down and finally caved bringing him back as CEO. But not before having to pay their new CEO something like $150 Million severance that was part of his contract.
The Market Basket situation is one of the rare cases with the workers made a difference and had a leader who supported them.
djdavedk
Well-Known Member
I often feel bad about using Amazon... they treat employees like thieves in many locations. They make them go thru security scans off the clock (even though they are required for work), have hot warehouses with insufficient air conditioning... on and on. Like a company that makes SO MUCH MONEY can't treat their employees better is fucking crazy and mean.
Tyr
Well-Known Member
Axios did a short article on McConnell today. It’s worth 2 minutes of your time. McConnell’s focus on the long game is both admirably strategic and alarmingly concerning. I’ve always equated Mitch with Tywin Lannister from GOT. That’s a frightening concept considering the level of intelligence and amount of power in the party he wields.
I’ve long said that to be truly transformational the Democratic Party must focus not only on grassroots transformative initiatives but long-term systemic changes. There needs to be a level of shrewd strategizing coming out if the party that we haven’t seen in a bit. This truly is the long game for the overall health and safety of people and institutions of healing and caring.
www.axios.com
I’ve long said that to be truly transformational the Democratic Party must focus not only on grassroots transformative initiatives but long-term systemic changes. There needs to be a level of shrewd strategizing coming out if the party that we haven’t seen in a bit. This truly is the long game for the overall health and safety of people and institutions of healing and caring.
Mitch McConnell is outmuscling Trump as the dominant GOP powerbroker on Capitol Hill
It's a taste of a tension that will help define the next four years.
www.axios.com
yukbon
Well-Known Member
I see two or three things holding back the democratic party:
- No long term strategy (or at least no ruthlessness/shamelessness to pull it off). The republican party are masters at it and the gerrymandering they did with congressional redistricting in 2010 was a game-changing 'fuck you' to pretty much everyone. -- The democratic party needs a McConnel or Gingrich to keep party discipline. As-is, they keep snatching defeath from the mouth of success. I fully expect the democratic party to shit the bed on the Georgia election btw. *
- No base appeal to the common voter. It all looks good on paper, sure, but at the end of the day, people voted for Bush the Lesser because he seemed like a down-homey dude that you'd have a beer with, who definitely wouldn't be getting blowies from the cute intern chick; GWB was (and is) in fact a canny dude who just didn't really care for politics initially, grew up a wealthy socialite and as a recovering alcoholic, famously doesn't drink (anymore)**. Hillary -- despite having amazing bona fides on her own merit -- has the misfortune of having the charmisma of a wet sock. Obama was disliked as much or more as Hillary, but Obama's got charisma to spare. Biden has tiny glimmers of charisma -- "malarkey", challenging trump to fisticuffs -- but he's basically boring. After the unrelenting firehose of crybaby attention-seeking that is Trump's unbridled id, I think America is really, really craving boring.
- The democratic party, IMO, needs a real WWE/WWF style heel, someone over the top who does all the cartoonishly crazy shit. Someone to get on twitter and say "we're coming for your guns to get them gay married and give them vaccines!". In my heart of hearts, I want this to be Obama and I want Obama to start texting Trump dick pics and say "sorry -- that was for melania, but pass it along to ivanka too
". It would just delight me to no end to have Trump get on twitter and say "obama is sending dick pics for my wife and daughter to my phone" -- who would believe him? Anyway. Over the top clown, pushing all the buttons. McConnel says democrats are socialists, dude in on Fox calling everyone Comrade and telling Fox News employees they will have a perfect worker's paradise when state controlled media takes over. They need to play a media game and play it well -- AOC is not bad at this
* I think it's obvious that Biden won not because the democratic party has their shit together but just because Trump has fucked up so, so bad that those that would normally hold their nose and vote republican even for him just stayed home or voted for not-Trump. Which is to say, the Democratic party has no cause to congratulate themselves on a win.
** This is conjecture on my part, but I think the record bears it out. I suspect the heavy hitters in his father's cabinet came to him and said something like "we know you DGAF about politics seriously but you just have to do the hand-waving and talking and we'll do the back-room dealing", only to find to their surprised horror, that once he was in it, GWB was really into it. Oops. I think this indirectly leads to the Tea Party and Trump, btw -- the desire to have a populist base and a dummy talking head that is readily controllable/manipulated -- and it just blew up in their face real good.
ranbalam
Well-Known Member
This is what is making the social media rounds now. I saw it posted under someone's post on FB about Trump losing again. I went to Twitter and saw it posted over and over again, different languages as well. It feels like another push for fundraising, getting the supporters to believe that there is still hope 'so send money so we can get this done.'
From Trump attorney Jenna Ellis
Today, the electoral college votes will be sealed and sent by special carrier to Washington where they will remain sealed until January 6th when the House and Senate will come into a joint session to open the votes. The media is going to make you believe that it’s all over and Joe Biden is now officially president…
On January 6th, Nancy Pelosi will sit down with the rest of the House members as she has no special power or authority over the hearing… Vice President Mike Pence will have all the authority as president of the Senate for that day and will accept or reject motions to decide the next steps by the assembly.
Remember… Mike Pence is in full authority that day as written in the Constitution. The ballots will be certified today but that means nothing… The votes will be opened and at that point one House member could, and most likely will, raise their hand to object to the Vice President on the state of elector’s votes. That objection could cover fraud or any other reason, and with the seconding of that objection everything changes. Everything!!
The House and Senate will divide for two hours (at least) to debate, then vote. The vote will be per Senator with the Vice President being the deciding vote if needed in the Senate, while the vote in the House will be only be ONE vote per delegation, per state, not per House member!!! The Republicans have 30 delegation votes compared to the Democrats 20 delegation votes.
If this scenario runs true, President Trump gets re-elected. The Democrats, the media, social networks and globalists around the world will come unhinged and chaos will erupt. Bigly. President Trump is trying to do the right thing and go through the courts first, expose all the fraud, but we all knew that none of the courts, even the Supreme Court wanted to touch this issue with a 10-ft pole!
This is why our forefathers were so brilliant because they knew something like this could happen someday. So, don’t listen to the media and all their deception and lies. All you have to do is read the Constitution and you know that the law, policies and procedures in the end are on our side. Tic Toc… Tic Toc…
From Trump attorney Jenna Ellis
Today, the electoral college votes will be sealed and sent by special carrier to Washington where they will remain sealed until January 6th when the House and Senate will come into a joint session to open the votes. The media is going to make you believe that it’s all over and Joe Biden is now officially president…
On January 6th, Nancy Pelosi will sit down with the rest of the House members as she has no special power or authority over the hearing… Vice President Mike Pence will have all the authority as president of the Senate for that day and will accept or reject motions to decide the next steps by the assembly.
Remember… Mike Pence is in full authority that day as written in the Constitution. The ballots will be certified today but that means nothing… The votes will be opened and at that point one House member could, and most likely will, raise their hand to object to the Vice President on the state of elector’s votes. That objection could cover fraud or any other reason, and with the seconding of that objection everything changes. Everything!!
The House and Senate will divide for two hours (at least) to debate, then vote. The vote will be per Senator with the Vice President being the deciding vote if needed in the Senate, while the vote in the House will be only be ONE vote per delegation, per state, not per House member!!! The Republicans have 30 delegation votes compared to the Democrats 20 delegation votes.
If this scenario runs true, President Trump gets re-elected. The Democrats, the media, social networks and globalists around the world will come unhinged and chaos will erupt. Bigly. President Trump is trying to do the right thing and go through the courts first, expose all the fraud, but we all knew that none of the courts, even the Supreme Court wanted to touch this issue with a 10-ft pole!
This is why our forefathers were so brilliant because they knew something like this could happen someday. So, don’t listen to the media and all their deception and lies. All you have to do is read the Constitution and you know that the law, policies and procedures in the end are on our side. Tic Toc… Tic Toc…
TenderLovingKiller®
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but they are mixing up things. If a Rep AND Senator both dispute the results then they break off for two hours of debate into their respective chambers. They would then cast a vote on whether they agree with the objection. The vote is a simple majority vote in each chamber, NOT as stated above one vote per delegation in the House (that would come later per the 12th amendment if neither candidate were to reach the 270 threshold; VERY unlikely scenario). The President would be very unlikely to find 50 Senators that would go along with this ploy and definitely won’t find a majority of Representatives in the Dem controlled house to have the results tossed. I have also seen that behind the scenes Mitch I s imploring his caucus not to go along with this charade as it will not only be unsuccessful but will also make the Senate look bad. So, fear not this is all just total Bullshit, Trump just ripping off his supporter for more dough while the getting is good.
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TenderLovingKiller®
Well-Known Member
Something this Jamoke forgot to do before posting...
Nothing like quoting the Rorschach worshiping white supremacist group, The Seventh Kalvary from HBO’s Watchmen to make your point.
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ranbalam
Well-Known Member
That's the vibe I was grabbing. The social media blitz was apparent....like a band dropping a song.
wokeupnew
Well-Known Member
I gotta disagree with this. While, a cartoon-y Democrat may help win in this current political climate. I do not want the POTUS to be unpredictable, irrational, crazy, ill-tempered, and/or unprofessional at all.
AnthonyI
Well-Known Member
Fixed this for her for what's actually going to happen when Biden is STILL President on January 6th.
yukbon
Well-Known Member
oh no no no, not even aiming for the presidency or leadership roles. Just someone to sound completely insane and bring the discourse back to normal. One of the big problems IMO is that every slightly liberal idea is treated as The Return Of Communism! So AOC says "it's a travesty that we don't pay a living wage" and 5 minutes later your facebook and commentary feeds see cartoonish charicatures of a dumb sassy latina bartender advocating for full-on communism. Or you have Bernie Sanders saying "healthcare should not be tied to employment, it should be available to all no matter what" and that turns into death panels or whatever. Completely normal discussions can't be had because the right treats every minor effort at some sort of progressive movement at a full tilt assault on something. Which is how you get things like attacks on science and expertise and "how dare you tell me how to act during a pandemic that is killing literally hundreds of thousands".
So you go hard and when someone complains that gun laws are oneruous and unconstitutional with some "them libs're comin' for yer guns!", you get, some democrat on Fox News going "hell yeah we're coming for your guns and we're giving them to any immigrants that come across the border! With free medicare and two medical marijuana cards! and a buy-1-get-2-free coupon for planned parenthood visits!"
And after that, someone more rational saying "you know, maybe we could just demand that gun owners carry gun insurance, like with cars? or doctors with malpractice insurance?" comes off as a middle ground.
The right has done this for years; demanding the left compromise and meet in the middle, and when they do the right inevitably moves further right. The Obamacare fiasco is a perfect example; the ACA is basically the same model that Romney pulled as governor, that Gingrich had put forth in 1996. Since what Obama actually wanted -- single-payer -- was going to go over like a fart in a church, they went 'ok, we'll use their plan, it's better than nothing and it's not half-bad at what it does do', only to be told that it was full of socialist death panels and obama's death squads were going to come to your gran's and execute her in front of her book club for having arthritis or whatever.
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Tyr
Well-Known Member
I see two or three things holding back the democratic party:
- No long term strategy (or at least no ruthlessness/shamelessness to pull it off). The republican party are masters at it and the gerrymandering they did with congressional redistricting in 2010 was a game-changing 'fuck you' to pretty much everyone. -- The democratic party needs a McConnel or Gingrich to keep party discipline. As-is, they keep snatching defeath from the mouth of success. I fully expect the democratic party to shit the bed on the Georgia election btw. *
- No base appeal to the common voter. It all looks good on paper, sure, but at the end of the day, people voted for Bush the Lesser because he seemed like a down-homey dude that you'd have a beer with, who definitely wouldn't be getting blowies from the cute intern chick; GWB was (and is) in fact a canny dude who just didn't really care for politics initially, grew up a wealthy socialite and as a recovering alcoholic, famously doesn't drink (anymore)**. Hillary -- despite having amazing bona fides on her own merit -- has the misfortune of having the charmisma of a wet sock. Obama was disliked as much or more as Hillary, but Obama's got charisma to spare. Biden has tiny glimmers of charisma -- "malarkey", challenging trump to fisticuffs -- but he's basically boring. After the unrelenting firehose of crybaby attention-seeking that is Trump's unbridled id, I think America is really, really craving boring.
- The democratic party, IMO, needs a real WWE/WWF style heel, someone over the top who does all the cartoonishly crazy shit. Someone to get on twitter and say "we're coming for your guns to get them gay married and give them vaccines!". In my heart of hearts, I want this to be Obama and I want Obama to start texting Trump dick pics and say "sorry -- that was for melania, but pass it along to ivanka too
* I think it's obvious that Biden won not because the democratic party has their shit together but just because Trump has fucked up so, so bad that those that would normally hold their nose and vote republican even for him just stayed home or voted for not-Trump. Which is to say, the Democratic party has no cause to congratulate themselves on a win.
** This is conjecture on my part, but I think the record bears it out. I suspect the heavy hitters in his father's cabinet came to him and said something like "we know you DGAF about politics seriously but you just have to do the hand-waving and talking and we'll do the back-room dealing", only to find to their surprised horror, that once he was in it, GWB was really into it. Oops. I think this indirectly leads to the Tea Party and Trump, btw -- the desire to have a populist base and a dummy talking head that is readily controllable/manipulated -- and it just blew up in their face real good.
I see your overarching point and agree with two of the three points you conveyed (mostly). However, I too shall disagree with that last statement.
The last thing I would want to see is both main political parties devolving into a circus side-show wherein they just try and out-crazy the other party. To me, that's just going to stoke the flames of further division along the center and entrench the outliers of the party more firmly in their positions. A great short-term strategy to accomplish nothing, and a horrendous long term strategy to make real comprehensive changes.
What the democratic party needs, in my opinion, is a two-fold strategy. First, there needs to be some agreement amongst the rank and file over both near term and long term strategies. It cannot just be a focus on the short term wins, there needs to be end-game discussions/strategy sessions and multiple paths to achieving those goals. The GOP utilizes think tanks a great deal and its something I don't see the Democrats doing as often. They need to understand that as intelligent as they are, there is always someone more intelligent out there as well as people with distinct perspectives on how to achieve those end-run goals. Second, and here's where I agree with you @yukbon, they need a party lead (not even necessarily an official party-head) who thinks like a chess player. Long-term strategists who don't mind sacrificing pieces in order to enhance positioning on the board. It may not feel as satisfying in the near term, but the current brand of Dem strategy isn't aggressive enough to win the game. If anything, it just results in more stalemates.
Dems need to create a new think tank and invite Magnus Carlsen. LOL