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jethro -- you hillbilly you
odd -- you lay the blame on those cities being liberal
sorry -- there are huge economic factors here. big cities naturally have lots of crime.
first -- lets writei Clinton off as a relapsed liberal, shall we, that is, he renounced liberalism some time ago in favor of getting elected. NAFTA wasnot his idea, of course; it was a conservativie idea -- looking at the '90 elections, it almost seems that Clinton's election was virtually arranged so that NAFTA would pass. Because its primary champion, Bush I, would not have been able to get it through a Democratic controlled congress.
Liberal ideas have brought us higher wages, better health insurance and paid benefits, better education, that economic safety net of "welfare" that helps keep millions from resorting to crime in order to survive, gov provided food programs to maintain the health of children so that they can learn better in school, gov provided health pmts for the poor so that hospitals don't have to raise their rates for others to provide these services, and again on the job front -- employee safety regulations -- also pollution controls so that our lives are longer and healthier.
liberal ideas brought us the prosperity of Detroit and other industrial cities.
conservative ideas allowed companies to relocate their factories first, to the rural South, where there were no unions so wages and benefits could be less, thus providing more profit, then to Mexico via NAFTA and then to Se Asia and China, so that more American people are out of work, or having to work for half the wages and hardly any benefits.
the poverty of Detroit, then, is the result of what?
because of less government involvement in helping improve the lot of people in the various big cities, providing educational opportunities that would break the cycle that we find in the poorer areas, whether urban or rural (oh -- yes -- conservative Jefferson County in Missouri -- the meth producing capital of the world -- how could liberal policies be involved in that?) -- we have higher crime. It's lack of lieberal policies and "government off our backs" that is producing larger crime figures there.
government off our backs -- that translates into less gov interference in corporate policies, such as worker safety, reasonable wages, benefits, work-week hours and such. It translates into "laissez=faire", or leaving alone, a bankrupt 190th century policy that did not regulate corporations so that they ran rampant, mistreating their workers and caring little for how their activities harmed the environment of cities and water, etc.
were we still to have the conservative policies of the 19th century such as twodog and jethro and ccnews and others of their ilk promote, we would be in very sad shape indeed.
It has been liberal policies that have produced the real prosperity of the 50's 60's and 70's. conservative policies have produced nothing of the sort -- just covering the real problems up with propaganda -- and eventually that whole house of cards will come crashing down -- and the problem is, it will come crashing down on all of us, not just on the perpetrators of the disaster.
posted by
Xeno-x
on September 10, 2005 at 10:54 AM
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Follow up for you Jethro
I decided to look up Oakland's history to see if there was any pattern and it was the same as Detroit and Gary. As Big business moved out, leaving the city to fall, crime popped up and took over. It is amazing that the cities Big Business has basically destroyed have become liberal and 'hell holes' as you have put it. The thing is they become Liberal after their falls, most likely due to a great fear of ever having Big Business gain that much power over them again. It was Conservative thinking that ruined those cities and so far they just have not been able to recover from what Big Business did to them.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 8, 2005 at 8:37 PM
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jethro
Anyone with common sense (So you obviously do not fall in this category) should be able to see the true problem with Detroit and Gary come fully from Conservatives ideas of old and that Big Business actually created the problem by building the cities up and then running out when profits were going down, leaving both cities in the state they are today. When the whole of a city is based on one basic enterprise and that enterprise fails and those who are running things then just gives up, that is what happens. I am not surprised they become Liberal after being screwed in such a way, but it is not he Liberal ideas that caused the problem. It was the Conservative greed and letting Big Business take such control over those cities.
DC's problem are purely due to the fact that that is where the county's greatest criminals (The politicians) spend their time. Only a truly ignorant person would think you could blame one side or the other for that.
I won't get into Oakland, since it is California and California as a whole is another world. Things do not always make sense in California.
The problem in New Orleans had nothing to do with Liberal ideas and everything to do with poor preparations at EVERY LEVEL, including federal. It was just as much the fault of Liberals as it was the Conservatives, although it does clearly point to the fact that president's plan in reacting to such events clearly does not work.
Yes the population has been growing out here, which is part of the problem. We would actually being doing better with less population growth. We are lucky that the more Liberal thinking is coming into play and we are seeing the benefits of it. Colorado was doing really good, the greatest it had ever done under Liberal control. We can only hope ot get back to those glory days.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 8, 2005 at 8:29 PM
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OH MY.........
As I've noted before: the two most liberal voting cities in the country are Detroit then Gary, Ind. These cities are absolute hell-holes. Berkely, CA ,
Washington D.C., and Oakland, CA round out the tope five. With the exception of Berkely, these cities are all rampant with crime and poverty. We now find that New Orleans has been run exclusively by Democratic mayors for the last twenty-seven years and largely for the last sixty years. For all your bellyaching about the new conservative trend in Colorado the facts are that its population has grown far above the national pace over the last decade.
SO WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT LIBERAL IDEAS????
posted by
jethro
on September 8, 2005 at 6:12 PM
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twodog
Well, let's see. Stop rewarding Big Business that is not supporting America. Basically those businesses who have taken their factories and such overseas, will not longer get tax breaks. That way we promote the idea of keeping jobs here in America and making it more profitable to do so. I have been at times talking about how tax breaks should be based more and more on percent of profit compared to amount of money going to the employees. Basically saying that is you pay fair wages for once you can get better tax breaks. Basically reward companies that are actually putting money back in to the hands of the average guy and really doing something to help the economy.
I know that the idea of making it so Big Business has to act responsible somehow scares Conservative thinkers, but time and time again such actions have proven to be what is needed to get our economy back on track. Whenever we have in the history of this country allowed Big Business to get out of control we have seen the decline in the economy that we are seeing right now. And each of those time the real solution was to get Big Business under control and make it so they had to behave responsible. Just given tax cuts across that board does not do that at all, and really has had the opposite effect allowing Big Business to be less responsible and grow more out of control.
That right there is the basic Liberal stand. It says the people are more important than the greed of Big Business. If we could get laws to reflect that then we would have a much healthier economy.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 6, 2005 at 6:56 AM
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kooka_lives
What Liberal ideas? I haven't heard a liberal state a single viable alternative to anything. All they do is tell us how wrong this idea is, or that policy is, or the administration is. But, do they offer a single alternative? I haven't heard one, not one, and believe me, if a Liberal can come up with a better way of doing something, I'll vote for her/him in a heartbeat.
posted by
twodog
on September 5, 2005 at 9:37 PM
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NAFTA
under Clinton's watch, was the beginning of the end of American prosperity. It just took a few years to feel its monumental effect. One thing under Reagan that was beneficial to the economy was his admonishment to all business folks to "hire just one more" person. I benefited from that. Clinton also destroyed the welfare system that, though it was paultry, people could get education benefits and work towards a better income when they did go to work. Now, poor women with children are forced to work minimum wage jobs and pay for child care, have their food stamps reduced and their medical benefit jepordized. By the time the dust settles, these women are leaving the home (costing the society untold dollars for the disasterous effects of abandonment children experience) for $1.00/hr benefit which gets eaten up in work related expenses. Things were better under Clinton, but the foundations of today's economic troubles have been laid long ago and Bush added the master stroke with his very bad tax relief program that should never passed congress. Our Congress is also sold out to corporations and no longer do the will of the living people of the United States.
Good post Kooka, love your work.
Peace, FR
posted by
freerain
on September 5, 2005 at 5:59 PM
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Flame-Thrower
In general I do not defend Democrats, since most of the time they really seem to be Republicans who are not so stuck up and a little bit more concerned about actually helping the average citizen instead of Big Business. Clinton I really rarely defend, it is just in comparison to Bush he is as easy as can be to defend. I had a hard time sleeping at night when I knew we were either getting Bush or Gore as our president. Both of them scared me because neither seemed to be worth a damn and I was proven right about Bush at least. I did not care for Kerry, but after seeing what Bush had done, it was clear that Kerry would have been a much better president by far.
You see when you have events such as 9/11 that will drag down the economy, you do not start a war like what we have in Iraq. There is no logic to starting such a war at any point, but in the after math of 9/11 it just dragged things down all the more. The economy is just finally starting to appear better, but that is all superficial if anyone is really looking at what is going on out here in the real world. Unless something is done soon to get Big Business to take up responsibility and start acting with some level of integrity, we are going to see some serious nose diving here real soon. And that is all due to Conservative ideas.
I honestly could go on showing just where the flaws in Conservative thinking are, but that would take to long. Maybe I'll try to write up another post that shows the downfall of the tax cuts, which really do little for the small business, but lines the pocket of those in Big Business.
posted by
kooka_lives
on September 5, 2005 at 1:07 PM
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Propaganda
Before I could read you I did not know the Liberals were that all round good. However, I do not think the American economy has fallen because Conversatives have come to power. As concern the sainted Bill Clinton, he has made his time, the Liberals need to find another person rather than keep on crying. I sincerely think that about economic management, put in no politics and be honest.
posted by
Flame-thrower
on September 5, 2005 at 12:43 PM
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