Comments on: Class war in the new Gilded Age

By: paintcan

paintcan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:56:56 +0000

@justine1939- In a few million words of less – what is the “center”.

I suspect very few people actually live in the center, or rather: they think wherever they are politically is the center.

To make matters worse; the political outlooks of so-called extreme positions aren’t exactly opposite the further from the theoretical center one goes but can exist in something like a bent or folded space. In other words. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (temporarily anyway).

Sometimes the extremes can actually see eye to eye because they have extremism in common. Politicians like to keep the greatest numbers of the constituents happy or their fickle constituents won’t support them for reelection. Neither side can make a move without alienating their supporters.

Lack of a coherent center leaves only the various degrees of extremism. The solution to the difficulty is something that is squeezed out by the conflict.

It has been said that a good solution to a political impasse is the one that doesn’t make any side particularly happy. It makes me think of the former government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the (now threatened) stability of Syria. But SH’s government had to impose his centrist solutions by force and imprisonment.

By: justine1939

justine1939 — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 02:48:31 +0000

I see a lot of rightist and leftist viewpoints here. When will you realize that the further you are from the center, the less effective you are? Witness the Tea Party, who has achieved exactly nothing. No element of their agenda has yet succeeded. The same is true of the leftists. I urge us all to consider the political center as the only effective use of our time.

By: ofilha

ofilha — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:34:29 +0000

What i see in this debate is the right win always trying to paint their opponents as communists, robbers of the wealthy, etc.. But at every turn as we in this last election it was the Republican party that was lying about the president, about the economy, pushing class warfare on the working people and the poor, repressing the vote with phony fraud issues – and it turned that the fraud was actually being perpetrated by the Republicans. We see the wealthy demanding that we become their slaves because we owe them our jobs, even though government could very well create those jobs if allowed, and what i saw was a party that if it had elected Mit and won the senate they would have turned the Republic into a fascist dictatorship.

By: ofilha

ofilha — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:25:27 +0000

more of the ignorant talk of takers and makers. This country was build on robbery, robbing the indians, robbing working people not on great men. But the bigger issue is that the 1% are nothing like the Rockefeller, they are users and takers who produce nothing and from our last great recession show that they are also extremely incompetent and it’s only because of their connections that they keep their lavish salaries, not because they built anything.

By: ofilha

ofilha — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:21:18 +0000

@sarkozyrocks. I bet that if the republicans had won not matter how small of a margin you would be talking about a mandate.
The fact is that that’s what democracies do, they vote and whoever wins has a mandate to govern, not necessarily dictate but nevertheless a mandate. But i bet that your view of a compromise is for the winning party to cave to every demand of the losing party and that’s what’s been wrong with the tea party zealots and republican party.

By: urownexperience

urownexperience — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:51:18 +0000

Too many people trying to make $100.00 an hour off of people making $7.00 an hour.

By: truthsaid

truthsaid — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 06:35:49 +0000

We are going to destroy the only true capitalism in the world. The class warfare is waging on and we just stand aside and watch the whole theatre play out. Let us pretend that the other half, and yes the takers are also worthy of taking part in the future of this country. No, they should not.
The great men who brought this country to were it is now were greedy men who didn’t want to share, they did not want to abide by regulations, their plan was to do great things and in the process get rich and yes, live a lavishly filthy rich life. Most importantly they didn’t apologize for it.
Nobody should be forced to share the fruits of their labor with those are not worthy of it. No distribution of wealth tax increase, and specially at the 250K group who are just starting to climb the ladder and promote growth in this country.
The critical point in this country is now, it might be too late to turn back, even in the near future.

By: trevorh

trevorh — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 02:53:08 +0000

Very unproductive piece of class warfare rhetorics..
The usual 1% and 99% percents, haves, have-nots scream.

If people want to have a constructive debate, they should focus on another issue that has some legitimate ground: The incompetence of some of the US 1%.

The 1% are not supposed to be there to ‘enjoy’ life, they are put in there because they are supposed to be the best, the gifted, the elites. They are there so that it is easier for them to make the best use of their gifted talents and make real progress.

Instead, many of the 1% are mediocre if not downright useless incompetent. If the left wants to attack the 1%, that should be how they do it. But they can’t do it either, because leaders on the left (also among the top 5%, if not 1%) generate as much value (as in close to zero) as the people they want to attack. Ironic isn’t it, good luck fighting yourselves…

End result is ‘solution’ that is not actually solution at all (as in making the problem worse).

By: rikfre

rikfre — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:12:12 +0000

further evidence that partisan politics supersede the common good…and a greedy & ignorant electorate will elect the greedy and ignorant.

By: GSH10

GSH10 — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 23:06:27 +0000

The difference in the popular vote was less than 3%, therefore, the Republican Congress is representing nearly half of all Americans. The structure of the Democrat’s new tax plan is punitive to upper middle class, not the wealthy, and will hurt small business, S-Corps the lareget employment sector.