'There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed'


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/06/wire

That's why it is extremely important that Obama and Biden win. In my opinion, this is our last chance.

Baltimore Maryland is singled out by the Guardian for its story regarding depravity.

What's most interesting is that both Maryland and Baltimore have been governed by liberals for decades. You certainly can't blame the Republicans for the mess Baltimore finds itself in.

Is this the kind of change Obama has in mind for the rest of America?

I doubt it, but at least the Democrats will whisper sweet things in your ear and kiss ya before they fuck you.

Got link?

If McStupid/Liar win, then we're screwed. Honestly, I was thinking earlier today about what I'd do if they will. Honestly, I'm thinking about what my options would be, including emigrating to another country. But, where? If those two horrors win, then I would have to really think that the elections were stolen again. How the hell can there really be an excess of 50% of the American people who actually buy into their shit? If they win, will it be like living in Germany during the early Hitler years of the late 1920s? Will we need to escape?

I truly am very afraid.

Now, I'll go do something about my sig line and profile, as I am a new poster here, but an old reader.

Zink, aka Di, aka Dabe, aka lots of other personas, all truthful and honest, and a registered Democrat, though not a Polosi supporter (very disappointed, actually), and honestly looking forward to the dubya and his dick regime going down for war crimes.

That's what ignorant greedy big businesses does in a country, they create worker slaves.

I just posted this article in the Media Section.



Its obvious you didn't read the article. Baltimore wasn't singled out. The head writer of the TV show, The Wire, (which is about Baltimore) is writing about the series, what it means about America and also the European response to it. He specifically states that The Wire is not an complete representation of America or even Baltimore. There are aspects of it that are true and the issues that the show tries to address are true. His main conclusion is that its a shame that those issues aren't being addressed by the political leadership in America any longer.



Maryland and Baltimore in particular have been devastated by a conservative economic philosophy. Union busting, de-regulation, outsourcing of jobs overseas because of free trade agreements, and cutting federal aid. Baltimore is suffering from a major economic depression as a result of losing so many blue collar jobs.

Maryland may be run by Democrats, but just like the rest of the country it has been affected by the conservative leadership at the national level and the corporate run media. The Federal Government has cut funding to the States that have addressed issues of poverty, drug addiction, healthcare and education etc.

The whole concept of being "touch on crime" which is addressed in the article, is part of the overall conservative shift in American thinking, promoted by the corporate run media. Conservatives treat the symptoms, but not the causes of crime. There solution is to throw everyone in jail. Being perceived as "touch on crime" is used as a stepping stone for many law enforcement officials to launch a career in public office. Getting the crime stats down became more important than respecting civil liberties. That has back fired because it has made many black citizens distrustful of government, the courts and the police. That is also one of the main issues being addressed in the article.

There are areas of this country run by Republicans that are just as affected by crime and poverty. Just as some of the wealthiest areas of America are run by Dems. Democratic leadership is not the route cause of poverty and crime in the inner city. The reason that inner city citizens vote for the Dems time and time again are because the Dems have traditionally tried to addressithe issues inflicting the inner city, while the Repubs, just sit back and blame the citizens.

The problems of the inner city are not an accident. There are specific policies that are responsible for its decline, some of which I mentioned above. Unfortunately those issues are never addressed in the media. Politicians from both political parties eventually adopted a more conservative way of addressing socio-economic issues. Its time to throw off the failure of conservative thinking and re-embrace a progressive agenda.



No. The fact that you would state that is disturbing because it lacks proper historical perspective and reality.

You're being willfully obtuse again peak.

I think it's beneath you but go ahead - be a jerk.

Thats a strange thing to say As i remember when the dems controlled the white house things ran pretty well! You must know that when the Republicans control the checks in government nothing will be done to help the less able in our country but there is no problem helping the more affluent in our world.Tell me do you really believe Maryland and Baltimore really were on the Republican "A" list for aide or help of any kind ??
'

The Republicans Are Trying To Brake US Than Perhaps We Should Go Get'er Fixed
With 29 more days to Reregister Voters and 24 days before the Voting starts hear In Ohio as a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign.
With the knocking on doors and putting new voters on the rolls and I'm on a roll with a 20 % per contacted and requested For Them To Fill out Voter Registration And Or Update Voters Registration with a 4% pickup of potential New Additional Volunteers The wave is building And The Debate Is taken to The Door steps And The Frustrations are The Hyperinflation And the irritation of the lies and denunciation By the Republican Disseminators acting as intimidators in the quest to maintain the same and resist the change updates the Elect Is Fed Up With The Hate based And The Culture Of Lies Republican Campaign Nothing About Health Care Nothing About Good Paying Jobs For Americans Nothing But The Same From McCain. And We Need To Change control of the Executive Branch With The Republicanc Entrenched Contempt.
We are Going To work Very Hard For That Chance So we All Can Advance.


Yes We Can And That's The Boots On the Ground Community Canvassing For The 44 President Of The United States For We The People of the United States And on behalf of Our Constitution Of the United States Vote For Barack Obama
Yes We Can

It is ironic that the repug administrations are responsible for the removal of our infrastructure, and claim no responsibility for the demise of the middle class. They are great at the blame game. I would just like to point out, if the repugs get in this time, all of us on this board will be labeled terrorists and will one day just be gone.

I don't hear anything coming from McCain and Co. to help the poor and destitute in our mist caused by the Republican rule just check out heating oil and gas prices in the last 8 years then let's hear the cheering for Republican programs..
'

I stand corrected, in my statement regarding Governors. A Republican governor served from 2003 to 2007. Outside of that, Baltimore and Maryland has been solidly under democratic control.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_Baltimore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_Maryland

My question regarding Obama was rhetorical and was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, by the time I realized I forgot the appropriate Emoticon, my edit time had expired.

Your post is a cop out, blaming bad local and state decisions on the federal government.

Its ironic that there are cities and states who are able to get it right, despite supposed interference by the federal government.

They may even buy you dinner first!

Yeah, I really recommend using emoticons or stating in the post that you're kidding. Its especially hard when you are the token conservative on a board full of liberals.

Now does that make you the long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs or the lone mouse in a room full of long-tailed cats?

This is too complicated for a Saturday night!

So state and local mismanagement is responsible for the inner city plight in Baltimore, yet it is the federal goverment's fault because they aren't pumping in federal dollars? If there is a problem, wouldn't it be more prudent to go after the root cause of the problem than to treat the symptoms with federal aid?

Funny the republican controlled federal government doesn't mind helping out big corps that run into money problems why not help out people in poor areas of city government? Most of the root cause is the cost of fuel that runs our economy and that is placed right at the white house door .

Yes, and it is very simple. Take the infrastructure we sent to Japan, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the middle east, and start building our infrastructure. That is our government, not theirs so let them find their own support structure. This government pulled the plug on our jobs, and broke out the credit card to artificially keep this infrastructure afloat. The bill is coming due.

this reminds me of a book I read

Authority and Freedom in Education
Paul Nash

Why should the federal government be responsible for every city in every state in America?

Because that is what we pay for. Is it really that hard to understand? They should not use our money against us which is exactly what they are doing. It is OUR government, we paid for it with blood. Any questions?

isnt that what federal means?


but I think modern day bush era republicans have it backwards as they try to thwart the means with wich individualism is attained and then whine about what a huge task it is dealing with the aftermath of their interference. constantly attacking those things that protect a persons ability to grow and develop be it education, infrastructure, healthcare, worker safety, labor unions, enviromental safety ect. rather than fighting these things they should be helping to strengthen them as they result in self reliance and rugged individualism.

My post is not a cop out. It is rooted in history. You managed to ignore all my other points about the economic philosophy that has been hurting America for decades.

Instead you made a cheap shot about blaming state and local government. You don't know a thing about how government works in America, which proves yet again that you don't know a thing about recent American history. I work in local government. I know how things work. I've seen it first hand.

The Federal Government provides aid and funding for services to state and local governments. The funding for anti-poverty programs that started under LBJ's Great Society programs have been systematically reduced or eliminated starting with the Regan Administration theory on "de-evolution".

De-evolution is essentially the theory that state and local government can be empowered by giving them more control on the kinds of programs and services they provide. The theory goes that state and local governments have a better sense of what the needs of their community are. That sounds great, but in reality the only thing that happened was that the federal government cut spending and passed along the burden of funding social services to the state and local governments. That has continued to this day and its getting more pronounced under the Bush Administration due to Bush's tax cuts and the countries economic woes. In fact the cuts to federal aid involve so many areas now that they are causing budget deficits, services cuts and causing taxes to rise at the state and local level.

Local and state government are not being poorly managed. They are being overwhelmed with trying to provide basics services to citizens with less and less money from the federal government. This is best explained by the principle of economies of scale. The larger your tax base the less something costs because its being distributed to more people, so each person pays less. The smaller your tax base the larger amount of money each person has to pay for the same services.

Sadly this is all by design. Republican deficit spending is reducing the available money for government services. More and more of the national government is being consumed by debt which means there is less money available for everything else, except military spending. The GOP stumbled upon this by accident under Reagan, but have continued doing so under both Bush Administrations.

Here is how it works: The Feds cut funding to the States while the State governments cut funding to the local governments. Americans see basic government services eroding. Americans will be told to blame the government itself for its failure. The solution that will be offered is to privatize everything. Lo and behold private contracts will be made out to Republicans and their buddies. A great example of this are states selling off their highway system to foreign companies and putting up tolls roads.

You should read The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Govern by Thomas Frank. He sums things up nicely.

THEY DON'T HAVE TO READ "THE WRECKING CREW" THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT IT .THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA STARTED WITH RON REAGAN AND IS CONTINUING TODAY. I BELIEVE THIS IS THE LAST ELECTION FOR SAVING THE U.S.A.

P.S. There are liveable cities in the US. There is economic revitalization going on in cities all across the country. The younger generation of Americans is moving back into the cities. The reason that cities were allowed to fall under such harsh economic conditions was about choices, attitudes and priorities decades ago. The reason that some cities or certain areas of cities are seeing a rebirth has to do with choices, attitudes and priorities.

Certain corporates such as housing developers, car manufacturers, tire and oil companies made a whole lot of money creating suburbia. Just as certain corporations are making a lot of money shipping jobs overseas to a lower paying work force. You must start to learn about the forces that are shaping modern day America. Corporate media outlets will not help you along your path of self discovery.

There is always something to make one afraid.

I tend to agree with you, sir!
This is the Democrats last chance to save or re-coop what's left of our once great country before it was hijacked by greedy politicians, religious clergy and CEOs.

By your logic then, since Bush was president on 9/11/2001, it's clear republican presidents cause major and succesful terrorist attacks on our country.

Funny... It was tongue in cheek since you've now discovered you were wrong.

I'm sure you were only kidding.

Conservative Lexicon entry #19, "Federal dollars".

"Federal dollars": euphemism for "stop giving MY MONEY to THOSE BLACKS you COMMUNISTS!!!"

Do you know what the federal government is?

Someone tried to hijack this thread to Baltimore.



Class warfare. That's the extreme end of what began in 1981. If we have a President McCain, you can be sure he'll one day give a speech that includes the line: "Gated Communities no longer protect us." Which might happen first? World War III or Civil War II? Or do we get them like Katrina and Rita without even a Brownie to call?

QUOTE (Starbuck @ Sep 6 2008, 07:57 PM)

My post is not a cop out. It is rooted in history. You managed to ignore all my other points about the economic philosophy that has been hurting America for decades.

Instead you made a cheap shot about blaming state and local government. You don't know a thing about how government works in America, which proves yet again that you don't know a thing about recent American history. I work in local government. I know how things work. I've seen it first hand.

The Federal Government provides aid and funding for services to state and local governments. The funding for anti-poverty programs that started under LBJ's Great Society programs have been systematically reduced or eliminated starting with the Regan Administration theory on "de-evolution".

De-evolution is essentially the theory that state and local government can be empowered by giving them more control on the kinds of programs and services they provide. The theory goes that state and local governments have a better sense of what the needs of their community are. That sounds great, but in reality the only thing that happened was that the federal government cut spending and passed along the burden of funding social services to the state and local governments. That has continued to this day and its getting more pronounced under the Bush Administration due to Bush's tax cuts and the countries economic woes. In fact the cuts to federal aid involve so many areas now that they are causing budget deficits, services cuts and causing taxes to rise at the state and local level.

Local and state government are not being poorly managed. They are being overwhelmed with trying to provide basics services to citizens with less and less money from the federal government. This is best explained by the principle of economies of scale. The larger your tax base the less something costs because its being distributed to more people, so each person pays less. The smaller your tax base the larger amount of money each person has to pay for the same services.

Sadly this is all by design. Republican deficit spending is reducing the available money for government services. More and more of the national government is being consumed by debt which means there is less money available for everything else, except military spending. The GOP stumbled upon this by accident under Reagan, but have continued doing so under both Bush Administrations.

Here is how it works: The Feds cut funding to the States while the State governments cut funding to the local governments. Americans see basic government services eroding. Americans will be told to blame the government itself for its failure. The solution that will be offered is to privatize everything. Lo and behold private contracts will be made out to Republicans and their buddies. A great example of this are states selling off their highway system to foreign companies and putting up tolls roads.

You should read The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Govern by Thomas Frank. He sums things up nicely.

Nice post That de-evolution theory is exactly the same thing that is occurring with our healthcare system. The profit-based system has healthcare cost skyrocketing. We have some of the worse healthcare rates (with regard to developed countries) in fairness, morbidity and mortality, life expectancy, etc. The Repub mantra has been "personal responsibility" which amounts to the same thing as de-evolution with regard to state/local relations with the federal. Under this personal responsibility mantra, we pay higher deductibles and co-pays... or elect for healthcare savings accounts that significantly reduce the risk pool... It all results in even higher costs, less people receiving preventative care because they want to avoid the co-pays they can't afford... which means they end up finally getting care for catastrophic events that end up costing the tax payer more to cover the cost... (or a person with insurance ends up having declare bankruptcy because of cancer or some other random disease that wasn't their fault)... and other people with insurance end up paying more because of the group of people that are at-risk of not paying. Repubs really just believe in defunding everything until the burden is all on the individual.

QBC misses the point: failed economic policies have been causing this downward spiral since Reaganomics started. Free trade has American corps outsourcing our job market for cheap labor, Enron loopholes (which allow the financial rape of the American public), tax breaks for the rich and tax breaks for corporations all equal one thing... a widening gap between the rich and poor/broke. Defunding of education for "choice" in schooling really creates a gap in information-wealth between the rich and poor/broke. Like Starbuck said, Dems and Rebubs alike are guilty of implementing/enabling Reagonomics and other failing Repub economic strategies...

So under McCain we can say goodbye to more jobs... goodbye to fair healthcare (even though we already don't have it)... goodbye to America (we'll end up being a subsidiary of China )

http://www.economyincrisis.org/

Great site.

Dell: Victim of Free Trade

In what capacity do you work in the local government?



This article would seem to contradict your argument.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-0...-spending_x.htm

I'm betting this is what you are referring to.

http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache:uVkpnG...;cd=7&gl=us



Some of them are and some of them aren't. Those that aren't can't seem to get their act together no matter how much money the federal government pumps into them. Those that are, seem to manage despite supposed federal neglect.



You misunderstand the purpose of taxation. Taxation is not a tool for wealth redistribution.



Would like to see some links regarding the design you refer to.




In a liberal sort of way.

I would love to hear you explain how a federal cradle to grave security blanket promotes self reliance and rugged individualism.

Yep. Do you?

Err...if taking wealth from one place and putting it another (which is exactly what taxation IS) isn't wealth redistribution, I don't know what it would be. Kinda how I understand the English language.

Fresh pot, peak?

You are contradicting your previous post.

In the previous post you spoke of the federal government as being the cause of our inner city problems. Then with this post, you state that these problems were the result of bad choices.

I'm wide awake this morning.


You might want to review the following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_redistribution

Dells decision has nothing to do with NAFTA.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,23295...3069TX1K0001121

The PC world is evolving and Dell is keeping pace.

From the fist WIKI link:

You might want to actually READ what you post links to, lol...




Taxation has four main purposes or effects: Revenue, Redistribution, Repricing, and Representation.^[3]

A second is redistribution. Normally, this means transferring wealth from the richer sections of society to poorer sections. This function is widely accepted in most democracies, although the extent to which this should happen is always controversial.

Also...I stand by my last post, as a general definition.

From Wiktionary:


tax (countable and uncountable; plural taxes)

1. Money paid to the government for financing public expenses.

Wealth taken from private sources and transferred to public IS redistribution, since it was already distributed once by the market.



to distribute (third-person singular simple present distributes, present participle distributing, simple past and past participle distributed)

1. (transitive): To divide something into portions and dispense it. He distributed the bread amongst his followers
   

You have to read between the lines Q... The article I cut before stated that Dell was trying to keep its sources as American as possible. Free trade has caused many corps to outsource for low wage labor (i.e. the loss of American jobs at home, more jobs to China. ) Dell needs to cut cost to improve profitability. The article you pasted has the obvious correlation stating the following:



http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,23295...3069TX1K0001121

Each party likes to use taxation as a form of wealth redistribution.

The Republicans use taxation to take the wealth of the poor and middle class and give it to corporations through corporate welfare and military spending.

The Democrats use taxation to take the wealth of the rich and corporations to sustain the infrastructure they consume and degrade and sustain the lives of the workers they refuse to pay a living wage.

I find it fascinating how many employees of Wal Mart need to be on food stamps and other assistance programs because Wal Mart will only pay them below subsistence wages. So as I see it the government taxes the robber barons running Wal Mart to help sustain the workers they refuse to, at least directly.

Exactly.



Well, since the bulk of all taxes still come from the middle classes, we are still financing the Wal Mart thing more than the robber barons.

It's a win-win situation for the corporation and the corrupt neo-con government.

I have a Masters Degree in Public Administration and have worked as a Budget Analyst and Strategic Planner in local government for 8 years. I'm not going to reveal where I work because that is an invasion of privacy. What I wrote is not something a novice without government experience or knowledge of public administration theory would bring up.



No it doesn't. You do not fully grasp the full historical dimensions of this debate. That is partially not your fault, because this article doesn't provide a full picture of what is going on. For starters that article is 2 years old, which means its not taking into account the housing crisis. Many state and local governments rely upon property taxes, this is currently causing major havoc on state and local budgets. Nor does the article discuss the long term decline of federal spending to the States that began under Regan. Just because the Bush Administration increased spending to the States by 2% doesn't mean that a short term reversal in funding can make up for the decades of bleeding the state and local funding, not to mention make up for the federal mandates that they place on state and local governments, but do not provide the funding, for such as Child Left Behind. So a 2% increase in spending to the States might seem great, but in reality it can not make up for the 5% increase spending need to meet federal mandates.

From the article:



And that is exactly what has happened.



That's a neat little outline, but it hardly paints the full picture. I wish I could recommend a book, but I've sadly given away most of text books from grad school.



You are speaking with what authority? What do you do for a living? What is your education background?



How can I misunderstand the nature of taxation when I never mentioned it to begin with? This is going off on tangent and not addressing the article or my previous posts, which is about the decline of American cities. I addressed funding issues, not taxation.

Oh and for the record I agree taxation shouldn't be used to redistribute wealth. The wealthy have been given to many tax cuts and the wealth of this nation has been redistributed upwards, causing the rest of us to pay more to make up for the lost revenues.



I have no idea what your talking about.



Yes ignore what has been going on in Washington the last 30 years and 8 years in particular, because reality has a liberal bias.