okay maybe i've been sniffing glue for too long, but isn't this a republican talking points video? isn't this the kind of video (by the way, unfunny video) we would have seen on that failed fox political comedy show? have i accidentally landed on malkin's website? or did malkin hack crooks and liars and drop this post in?
can someone please explain to me what this post is doing here? seriously.
in case you were wondering this video is all over conservative blogs everywhere. just google it and see what i mean. or better yet go to a site named: http://antihippies.wordpress.com/
Sun, 09/21/2008 - 18:19 — ron gallegos (not verified)
i admit, i am old and slow, slow, so sloo-ow. but i honestly don't get it. watched it, but i don't get it. i can only attribute it to my age... and maybe lack of intellect which has been the case all along. please, someone explain what this is...very slowly and use small words.
Vote no on the Wall Street bailout plan! Those greedy Wall Street Criminals need to be charged with treason for putting our national security at risk! They are blackmailing America! They are stealing America's wealth! You can't let them get away with this! Don't bail them out, seize them and their assets, then charge them with treasonous conspiracy to destroy America's economy!
History Lesson:
"The refusal of king George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution." Benjamin Frandanklin, Founding Father.
Our country sought escape from this during the American Revolutionary war!
“All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit circulation.” — John Adams
The Federal Reserve has the power to regulate the money supply and it's value, which gives it the power to bring entire economies to it's knees.
"Give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes it's laws." -- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Founder of Rothschild Banking Dynasty.
The Federal Reserve is a private corporation. It makes it's own policies and is under no regulation by the government. It is a private bank that loans all the currency, at interest, to the government.
"The real truth of the matter is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson." Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933
That's right, Andrew Jackson killed the Central BANK currently known as The Federal Reserve, but banking cartel came back when Woodrow Wilson took office. Look it up, maybe we can figure a way out of this freaking mess!
The central bank, or Federal Reserve, does not simply supply the governments money, it loans it at interest.
The central bank, or Federal Reserve, regulates the value of the currency being issued.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies ... if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency ... the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson
"If you want to remain slaves of the bankers and pay for the costs of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control the nations credit." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, 1880-1941
"The Morgan interests took advantage ... to precipitate the panic [of 1907] guiding it shrewdly as it progressed." -- Fredrik Allen, Life Magazine.
Congressional investigation, lead by Nelson Aldrich, who had intimate ties to the banking cartels and later became part of the Rockefeller family through marriage. The Commission, lead by Aldrich, recommended a central bank be implemented, so a panic like 1907 could never happen again.
The Federal Reserve ACT was written by bankers. Woodrow Wilson promised to sign it into law in return for campaign support. Later Woodrow Wilson wrote in regret, "[Our] Great Industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ... who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No government by free opinion. No longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominate men."
Congressman Louis McFadden expressed the truth after the passage of the bill, "A world banking system was being set up here ... a superstate controlled by international bankers ... acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed has usurped the government."
From 1914-1919, The Federal Reserve increased the money supply by nearly 100%, resulting in extensive loans to small banks and the public. Then, in 1920, the FED called in mass percentages of the outstanding money supply, thus requiring the supporting banks to call in huge numbers of loans and just like 1907, bank runs, bankruptcy and collapse occurred. 5400 Banks went down.
Congressman Charles Lindbergh stepped up in 1921 and said, "Under the Federal Reserve Act, panics are scientifically created. The present of panic is the first scientifically created one, worked out as we figure a mathematical equation." That was just a warm-up.
From 1921-1929, the FED increased the money supply by 62%, resulting once again in extensive loans to the public and banks. The new type of loan was called a "margin loan" in the stock market. 10% down gets 100% control of the stock. The catch was at any time the loan could be called in. A 24 hour margin call could occur at any time.
A few months before October 1929, J.D. Rockefeller and other insiders quietly exited the market. Then on October 24th 1929, the New York financiers who furnished the margin loans started calling them in, in mass. Instantaneous massive sell off in market, everyone had to cover the margin loans. It then triggered mass bank runs for the same reason, callapsing 16 thousand banks, enabling conspiring international bankers to not only buy up rival banks at a discount, but to also buy up whole corporations at pennies on the dollar. It was the greatest robbery in American history. Rather than expanding the money supply to recover from this economic collapse, the FED actually contracted it, fueling one of the largest depressions in history.
Once again outraged, Congressman Louis McFadden, a long time opponent of banking cartels, began bringing impeachment proceedings against the Federal Reserve Board. Saying of the crash and depression, "It was a carefully contrived occurrance. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so that they might emerge the rulers of us all." Not surprisingly, after two assassination attempts, McFadden was poisoned at a banquet before he could push for impeachment.
Nearly all the illegal income tax goes to the FED to pay interest on the fraudulently produced currency! "If you ... examined [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment." -- U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox 2003.
There is no law in existence that requires you to pay the federal income tax. period.
The next tool for profit and control is WAR! WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
WWI: "The large banking interests were deeply interested in the world war, because of the wide opportunities for large profits." -- William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State.
The most lucrative opportunity of the banking cartels is war, for it forces the country to borrow even more money from the Federal Reserve, at interest.
Woodrow Wilson's top advisor and mentor was Colonel Edward House, a man with intimate connections with international bankers, who wanted in the war.
In a documented conversation between Colonel House and Sir Edward Grey, foreign secretary of england, regarding how to get america in the war:
Sir Edward Grey, "What will Americans do if Germans sink an ocean liner with american passengers on board?"
Colonel House, " I believe that a flame of indignation would sweep the United States and that by itself would be sufficient to carry us into war."
I bet you can connect nearly all wars to the greedy bankers on Wall Street. They make double money because they loan money to both sides! They supply materials to both sides!!
All the Federal Reserve and the Banking Cartel on Wall Street has given us is perpetual debt and wars!!!
It's funny because it has the word "sh*tty" in it. I agree it's not that funny. The one CMINCA linked to above is infinitely funnier and full of relevant satire instead of lazy jokes.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity."
"As an emergency physician, if I were taking care of a 72-year-old man with a history of melanoma who was having episodes of confusion I would be extremely concerned. High on my priority list would be to get a brain MRI to look for metastatic melanoma. When melanoma metastasizes it commonly goes to the brain. I do not think the American people should decide whether or not to vote for Senator McCain until he has had a brain MRI and we know the results.
Here's a quote from emedicine.com on melanoma:
"Melanoma has an increased incidence among other systemic cancers in terms of metastasizing to the brain. About 40-60% of patients with melanoma will have brain metastasis. Melanoma commonly metastasizes to the brain. Melanoma cells are closely related to CNS cells due to their embryonic origin and neural crest cells, and they share common antigens such as MAG-1 and MAG-2. After melanoma is detected in the brain, median survival is 3 months. These metastases are poorly responsive to all treatments."
Why is this here? I'm thinking I must be a total dummy because I don't get it.
Maybe because you didn't realize it was SATIRE. Given how ridiculous Republican talking points have become, it can sometimes be pretty hard to tell.
Well sure it could be satirical of Republican talking points, the rediculousness of their talking points...but there's no mention of mccain anywhere in the ad, no mention of republicans anywhere in the video--so it seems a stretch to me to make the argument that this satirizes republicans somehow (that's just weak, pal). More reasonable (and supportable by the video itself) is that it satirizes Obama--his message of hope perhaps or his message of change or maybe his desire to bring jobs back home... No this video is about Obama and therefore it has no place on c & l--we don't need to help the other side, they get plenty of help as is. delete it.
(Surrounded by a laughing Gramm, Greenspan and Rubin.)
"...the feeling grew among some economists and the financial community that Glass-Steagall hampered America’s financial competitiveness. Among the many voices favoring this was Alan Greenspan along with former Goldman Sachs partner Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary."
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
Ssssssssssh. The unwashed will get a crumb from this. Its another "bold plan"...foreclosure relief for "Main Street".
I have been arguing with the Ronald Ray-Gun, Tom Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Bush 1 & 2, free market, deregulation, trickle down economic plans for 30+ years. Now at the point where all of the cards of the house of cards are falling I only hears whispers of their total responsibility when there should be deafening screams. This economic collapse is going to cause a tremendous amount of pain but I would hope that the one thing that might be good to come out of this would be a promise that never again will the American public be fools enough to buy what these cretins have been selling for so many years. I don't see that happening and that will be a grave grave mistake in the long run.
"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."
"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."
Even as satire this clip rests on a right-wing premise and probably shouldn't be on Crooks and Liars. The Onion buys into the 90s notion that industrial work is undesirable and should be shipped overseas to be replaced with white-collar, higher-paying, less labor-intensive, more fulfilling work. Problem is that doesn't happen, industrial jobs get replaced by minimum wage labor in the service industry if by anything at all. Sure industrial work can be dull, unrewarding and dangerous (especially with OSHA dwindled to irrelevance), but low-paying they are not. Union shops used to compensate their workers handsomely for the soul & finger crushing work they did day-in and day-out. There are few if any other sectors of the American economy where someone with a high school education or a vocational degree can support a family on his/her income. Sure they seem shitty to the college educated staff writers at the Onion who get paid to write jokes, but for many Americans the chance to earn $50,000/year screwing seat cushions into cars is still far better than earning $20,000 flipping burgers, or finding no work at all....
You think this is a joke, it is the most accurate report on what politicians are screaming for. Slogans, bring back our (Sh1tty) jobs. And why, because the U.S. system of government does not allow real information to be debated. So its not politics or economics, it's the SYSTEM STUPID.
archmunster @ 18:
(that's just weak, pal). More reasonable (and supportable by the video itself) is that it satirizes Obama--his message of hope perhaps or his message of change or maybe his desire to bring jobs back home... No this video is about Obama and therefore it has no place on c & l--we don't need to help the other side, they get plenty of help as is. delete it.
Pal? I didn't know it was "Bill-O Impersonation Day?" Give me a minute to find my plastic "pointing fingers" and I'll join in! :)
But no, I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as a satire saying that we've really reached a low point when the GOOD option is to fight to keep the jobs we used to consider tedious and back-breaking. That having a horrible, meaningless, dead-end job screwing seats on lawn mowers now seems like the good old days. I didn't take it as a satire on Obama at all. It was just a VERY subtle satire on the absurd situation we now find ourselves in.
Boy I remember when The Onion was funny. Back before they were trying to be funny with video and were actually funny with written words. My favorite headline:
If you live in Florida, feel free to vote for Ralph Nader or Ron Paul. Don't give a damn which. According to the last Florida polls, Obama and McCain are tied. Throw in Nader and Paul and Obama wins by 4%. (Not beyond the range of the Republican Election-Stealing Machine to be sure, but better than a tie.)
Both candidates have no clue what they are getting into and both are way in over their heads. Can we all come together and admit that we're screwed either way?
Even as satire this clip rests on a right-wing premise and probably shouldn't be on Crooks and Liars. The Onion buys into the 90s notion that industrial work is undesirable and should be shipped overseas to be replaced with white-collar, higher-paying, less labor-intensive, more fulfilling work. Problem is that doesn't happen, industrial jobs get replaced by minimum wage labor in the service industry if by anything at all. Sure industrial work can be dull, unrewarding and dangerous (especially with OSHA dwindled to irrelevance), but low-paying they are not. Union shops used to compensate their workers handsomely for the soul & finger crushing work they did day-in and day-out. There are few if any other sectors of the American economy where someone with a high school education or a vocational degree can support a family on his/her income. Sure they seem shitty to the college educated staff writers at the Onion who get paid to write jokes, but for many Americans the chance to earn $50,000/year screwing seat cushions into cars is still far better than earning $20,000 flipping burgers, or finding no work at all....
I agree completely. The very fact that manual labor is somehow considered "beneath" them proves that the Onion is elitist.
Jesus Christ. The dearth of good paying factory jobs is why we are in the mess we are in. WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Bring our jobs home and tell China to go fuck themselves.
The other day Ralph Nader had a convention to nominate himself as president.
The noise was deafening from the crowd
Of crickets
It almost woke the elderly night watchman.
Or is that what you hope will happen. Nader is polling 10 percent among independents in an Ohio newspaper poll. Nader is on the ballot in 45 states despite the best efforts of the Democrats, the [alleged] party of the people, to prevent that from happening [as they tried to do in 2000 and 2004]. You may want to ask yourself why is it that in the [alleged] best democracy in the world that only the two major parties are allowed to be heard in the debates. This resembles something out of Orwell's Animal Farm- two legs good, four legs bad. In this case, the network and cable executives have decided that Americans can decide to choose any presidential candidate as long as those candidates are either a Democrat or a Republican. Even liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars continue to genuflect at the altar of Barack Obama while completely ignoring the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militarist and anti-imperialist candidate running for president.
I think this Onion piece fails as satire for much the same reason that the New Yorker cover did: the real target ('pugs) didn't just fail to get it, but adopted it at face value.
It's as if the English landed gentry read Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and thought, "Woah, cool!"
Even as satire this clip rests on a right-wing premise and probably shouldn't be on Crooks and Liars. The Onion buys into the 90s notion that industrial work is undesirable and should be shipped overseas to be replaced with white-collar, higher-paying, less labor-intensive, more fulfilling work. Problem is that doesn't happen, industrial jobs get replaced by minimum wage labor in the service industry if by anything at all. Sure industrial work can be dull, unrewarding and dangerous (especially with OSHA dwindled to irrelevance), but low-paying they are not. Union shops used to compensate their workers handsomely for the soul & finger crushing work they did day-in and day-out. There are few if any other sectors of the American economy where someone with a high school education or a vocational degree can support a family on his/her income. Sure they seem shitty to the college educated staff writers at the Onion who get paid to write jokes, but for many Americans the chance to earn $50,000/year screwing seat cushions into cars is still far better than earning $20,000 flipping burgers, or finding no work at all....
I agree completely. The very fact that manual labor is somehow considered "beneath" them proves that the Onion is elitist.
Jesus Christ. The dearth of good paying factory jobs is why we are in the mess we are in. WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Bring our jobs home and tell China to go fuck themselves.
Oh, please. Just because a factory job is better than a fast-food job doesn't mean that a factory job isn't shitty. It's not elitist to not want a fucked-up back or a chewed-up hand or legal blindness when you retire. Just because factory jobs don't, as a matter of geographical statistical probability, get replaced with white-collar office jobs doesn't mean that individuals can't move from the factory floor to the cubicle farm and enjoy the "elitist" benefit of not having to wear ear protection and goggles all day.
What is your argument? That the Onion writers are elitist because they think ill of today's factory jobs, which no longer pay well and are unreliably available and have vanishing retirement funds and dwindling benefits... oh, yeah, and you mentioned OSHA's increasing irrelevance... Come to think of it, today's factory jobs DO suck. Wouldn't you agree? Or at least concede that the golden days of blue-collar American breadwinning are behind us?
Listen, I worked a couple of blue-collar jobs when I was growing up. I was a stock worker in a supermarket (occasionally bagging stuff at the registers), and I flipped burgers (and did breakfast) [and occasionally made baked potatoes] at Roy Roger's. I'm not ashamed of that work, nor should anybody be. I don't think the Onion writers were going for that. But I can tell you, I was pretty fucking happy to get out of that situation into something where I could use my mind more and get grease spattered on my face and hands a little less. Being able to take pride in one's work and being ambitious for something better are two different and non-contradictory things.
I don't want to fight. Let the robots build shit. We can focus on programming them (and occasionally making them fight). Is that an unrealistic goal? Well, you're just an elitist for thinking that! ;)
The other day Ralph Nader had a convention to nominate himself as president.
The noise was deafening from the crowd
Of crickets
It almost woke the elderly night watchman.
Or is that what you hope will happen. Nader is polling 10 percent among independents in an Ohio newspaper poll. Nader is on the ballot in 45 states despite the best efforts of the Democrats, the [alleged] party of the people, to prevent that from happening [as they tried to do in 2000 and 2004]. You may want to ask yourself why is it that in the [alleged] best democracy in the world that only the two major parties are allowed to be heard in the debates. This resembles something out of Orwell's Animal Farm- two legs good, four legs bad. In this case, the network and cable executives have decided that Americans can decide to choose any presidential candidate as long as those candidates are either a Democrat or a Republican. Even liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars continue to genuflect at the altar of Barack Obama while completely ignoring the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militarist and anti-imperialist candidate running for president.
Listen, you, I was at Nader's 2000 convention, where we all chuckled to ourselves about how "Gush and Bore" were exactly the same, and we snorted in delight as we gazed upon morphed combinations of Gore's and Bush's faces. Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Not so funny now, though! Ralph Nader's hopes for campaign matching funds helped put Bush in the White House. End of conversation on that.
I'm enough of an adult to admit that, had so many people not bought into that Gush/Bore bullshit, President Gore would be on TV right now, talking about our continued economic prosperity. I'm enough of an adult to admit, after Gore has won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for trying to save the fucking world, and Bush is currently holding a gun to the world's head and is holding a big bag with a dollar sign on it and going "GIMME ANOTHER TRILLION!!!", that I was totally wrong about Bore/Gush. Are YOU?!?
Ralph Nader is a pest. You understand? Yes, he has a DESPERATELY important point to make, we KNOW. We GET it. He's absolutely RELENTLESS about it. Is he running because he wants to be President, or because he has this massive axe to grind and he wants to rub our noses in it? Because if he wants to be President, fine, run for President. Nobody's stopping him. He's going to lose, though, of course. (You do realize that even 10% in a minority?) But your shrill, short-sighted, obtuse, self-important pontificating -- not to mention insults -- aren't campaign literature. They're not even a campaign ad. They're just YOU... being YOU. So now you're done. THANKS.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to writing tomorrow's sermon, on how Obama healed the sick and parted the waters at Galveston...
Even as satire this clip rests on a right-wing premise and probably shouldn't be on Crooks and Liars. The Onion buys into the 90s notion that industrial work is undesirable and should be shipped overseas to be replaced with white-collar, higher-paying, less labor-intensive, more fulfilling work. Problem is that doesn't happen, industrial jobs get replaced by minimum wage labor in the service industry if by anything at all. Sure industrial work can be dull, unrewarding and dangerous (especially with OSHA dwindled to irrelevance), but low-paying they are not. Union shops used to compensate their workers handsomely for the soul & finger crushing work they did day-in and day-out. There are few if any other sectors of the American economy where someone with a high school education or a vocational degree can support a family on his/her income. Sure they seem shitty to the college educated staff writers at the Onion who get paid to write jokes, but for many Americans the chance to earn $50,000/year screwing seat cushions into cars is still far better than earning $20,000 flipping burgers, or finding no work at all....
I agree completely. The very fact that manual labor is somehow considered "beneath" them proves that the Onion is elitist.
Jesus Christ. The dearth of good paying factory jobs is why we are in the mess we are in. WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Bring our jobs home and tell China to go fuck themselves.
Oh, please. Just because a factory job is better than a fast-food job doesn't mean that a factory job isn't shitty. It's not elitist to not want a fucked-up back or a chewed-up hand or legal blindness when you retire. Just because factory jobs don't, as a matter of geographical statistical probability, get replaced with white-collar office jobs doesn't mean that individuals can't move from the factory floor to the cubicle farm and enjoy the "elitist" benefit of not having to wear ear protection and goggles all day.
What is your argument? That the Onion writers are elitist because they think ill of today's factory jobs, which no longer pay well and are unreliably available and have vanishing retirement funds and dwindling benefits... oh, yeah, and you mentioned OSHA's increasing irrelevance... Come to think of it, today's factory jobs DO suck. Wouldn't you agree? Or at least concede that the golden days of blue-collar American breadwinning are behind us?
Listen, I worked a couple of blue-collar jobs when I was growing up. I was a stock worker in a supermarket (occasionally bagging stuff at the registers), and I flipped burgers (and did breakfast) [and occasionally made baked potatoes] at Roy Roger's. I'm not ashamed of that work, nor should anybody be. I don't think the Onion writers were going for that. But I can tell you, I was pretty fucking happy to get out of that situation into something where I could use my mind more and get grease spattered on my face and hands a little less. Being able to take pride in one's work and being ambitious for something better are two different and non-contradictory things.
I don't want to fight. Let the robots build shit. We can focus on programming them (and occasionally making them fight). Is that an unrealistic goal? Well, you're just an elitist for thinking that! ;)
And who the hell do you think you are..there are a lot of people in this country who can't afford to go to college. You want to replace these people with robots? Americans used to take pride in the products we built. Now it's all crap from China.
this was funny. I really don't see what the big fuss is about. Its called Satire. I also think the New Yorker cover was ingenious. It made the Repubicans look as dumb as they really can be... The spin and hatred they spewed was spit right back into them with that cover... I think Obama should have embraced it instead of being uptight about it
I agree completely. The very fact that manual labor is somehow considered "beneath" them proves that the Onion is elitist.
Jesus Christ. The dearth of good paying factory jobs is why we are in the mess we are in. WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Bring our jobs home and tell China to go fuck themselves.
Oh, please. Just because a factory job is better than a fast-food job doesn't mean that a factory job isn't shitty. It's not elitist to not want a fucked-up back or a chewed-up hand or legal blindness when you retire. Just because factory jobs don't, as a matter of geographical statistical probability, get replaced with white-collar office jobs doesn't mean that individuals can't move from the factory floor to the cubicle farm and enjoy the "elitist" benefit of not having to wear ear protection and goggles all day.
What is your argument? That the Onion writers are elitist because they think ill of today's factory jobs, which no longer pay well and are unreliably available and have vanishing retirement funds and dwindling benefits... oh, yeah, and you mentioned OSHA's increasing irrelevance... Come to think of it, today's factory jobs DO suck. Wouldn't you agree? Or at least concede that the golden days of blue-collar American breadwinning are behind us?
Listen, I worked a couple of blue-collar jobs when I was growing up. I was a stock worker in a supermarket (occasionally bagging stuff at the registers), and I flipped burgers (and did breakfast) [and occasionally made baked potatoes] at Roy Roger's. I'm not ashamed of that work, nor should anybody be. I don't think the Onion writers were going for that. But I can tell you, I was pretty fucking happy to get out of that situation into something where I could use my mind more and get grease spattered on my face and hands a little less. Being able to take pride in one's work and being ambitious for something better are two different and non-contradictory things.
I don't want to fight. Let the robots build shit. We can focus on programming them (and occasionally making them fight). Is that an unrealistic goal? Well, you're just an elitist for thinking that! ;)
And who the hell do you think you are..there are a lot of people in this country who can't afford to go to college. You want to replace these people with robots? Americans used to take pride in the products we built. Now it's all crap from China.
I think I'm someone who wants everybody to be able to afford to go to college. Obviously, that's part of my plan. I don't want to "replace" anybody. The only people I want to replace with robots are boxers, Ultimate Fighters(tm) and maybe washroom attendants.
Americans used to make their own houses and furniture from trees growing on their own land, too, and sew their own clothes from wool they got from their own sheep. We used to have whole winters with nothing to do and no way to travel or communicate with anyone. (Funny how much spare time that gives you.) Times change; now, we have computer-machines -- typewriters attached to TVs that let us write letters to each other! (In fact, you could even GO TO COLLEGE through your computer-machine! Fancy that!)
The products in which I have historically taken pride -- whether it's my Leatherman multitool or my ... well, that's the only American-made thing I can think of... aren't really made in factories that feature shitty, risky jobs. I don't think the Leatherman company has children chained to toxic workstations... In fact, I think it's fair to say that "shitty job" does not axiomatically equal "factory job". It's just that shitty factory jobs can be more easily outsourced than, say, shitty construction jobs. (For those, you need to import foreign labor.)
You keep trying to put words in my mouth. I'm in favor of nobody needing to take a shitty job. I don't think that's too lofty a goal. A lot of people used to be slaves, and we kinda decided to be 100% against that, too. You don't *have* to settle. I understand that things are what they are at any given time, but I'm talking about aspirations, not delusions, brother!
The other day Ralph Nader had a convention to nominate himself as president.
The noise was deafening from the crowd
Of crickets
It almost woke the elderly night watchman.
Or is that what you hope will happen. Nader is polling 10 percent among independents in an Ohio newspaper poll. Nader is on the ballot in 45 states despite the best efforts of the Democrats, the [alleged] party of the people, to prevent that from happening [as they tried to do in 2000 and 2004]. You may want to ask yourself why is it that in the [alleged] best democracy in the world that only the two major parties are allowed to be heard in the debates. This resembles something out of Orwell's Animal Farm- two legs good, four legs bad. In this case, the network and cable executives have decided that Americans can decide to choose any presidential candidate as long as those candidates are either a Democrat or a Republican. Even liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars continue to genuflect at the altar of Barack Obama while completely ignoring the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militarist and anti-imperialist candidate running for president.
Listen, you, I was at Nader's 2000 convention, where we all chuckled to ourselves about how "Gush and Bore" were exactly the same, and we snorted in delight as we gazed upon morphed combinations of Gore's and Bush's faces. Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Not so funny now, though! Ralph Nader's hopes for campaign matching funds helped put Bush in the White House. End of conversation on that.
I'm enough of an adult to admit that, had so many people not bought into that Gush/Bore bullshit, President Gore would be on TV right now, talking about our continued economic prosperity. I'm enough of an adult to admit, after Gore has won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for trying to save the fucking world, and Bush is currently holding a gun to the world's head and is holding a big bag with a dollar sign on it and going "GIMME ANOTHER TRILLION!!!", that I was totally wrong about Bore/Gush. Are YOU?!?
Ralph Nader is a pest. You understand? Yes, he has a DESPERATELY important point to make, we KNOW. We GET it. He's absolutely RELENTLESS about it. Is he running because he wants to be President, or because he has this massive axe to grind and he wants to rub our noses in it? Because if he wants to be President, fine, run for President. Nobody's stopping him. He's going to lose, though, of course. (You do realize that even 10% in a minority?) But your shrill, short-sighted, obtuse, self-important pontificating -- not to mention insults -- aren't campaign literature. They're not even a campaign ad. They're just YOU... being YOU. So now you're done. THANKS.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to writing tomorrow's sermon, on how Obama healed the sick and parted the waters at Galveston...
You are right. Nader is a pest who has the temerity to be heard in a debate that is run by the Democrats and the Republicans. "He's going to lose, though, of course." Certainly if enough people like you say so then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But then it appears I run the risk by saying such things of being labeled by you as being "obtuse" and "pontificating" as well as "insulting." How, by pointing out how the Democrats tried along with the media to bar Nader from a 2000 debate even though he even had a ticket to attend the debate? Or by stating how the Democrats, who claim to be so tolerant, tried to block Nader from being on the ballot in a number of states in 2000 and 2004? Or even that Nader has actually a constitutional right to run for president and that he is by far the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militant candidate in the field? Apparently to bring these issues to the forefront by less than tolerant Democrats like yourself is to be considered rude. Or is because Democrats realize that if Nader is on the same floor as Obama he would expose him to be a fraud for claiming to be a man of the people and especially an antiwar candidate? I think Obama would be most concerned about both of them being brought up by Nader.
What C&L put up here barely passes for satire. Satire is primarily clever and skewers wrong, and injustice, as when Johnathan Swift classically satirized the British as being so greedy that they would eat the children of impoverished Irish families without so much as a thought as to whether it was right or wrong and in fact would consider themselves to be entitled to do so. This trash is just pathetic gutter humor that diminishes the very nature of C&L. This video says nothing useful or thought provoking. This video really ought to be bumped in favor of what CMINKA has shared with us - this is clever, skewers media hypocrisy, and through humor pushes us to see how really silly these allegations of elitism are. All in all a good example of satire.
Oh, please. Just because a factory job is better than a fast-food job doesn't mean that a factory job isn't shitty. It's not elitist to not want a fucked-up back or a chewed-up hand or legal blindness when you retire. Just because factory jobs don't, as a matter of geographical statistical probability, get replaced with white-collar office jobs doesn't mean that individuals can't move from the factory floor to the cubicle farm and enjoy the "elitist" benefit of not having to wear ear protection and goggles all day.
What is your argument? That the Onion writers are elitist because they think ill of today's factory jobs, which no longer pay well and are unreliably available and have vanishing retirement funds and dwindling benefits... oh, yeah, and you mentioned OSHA's increasing irrelevance... Come to think of it, today's factory jobs DO suck. Wouldn't you agree? Or at least concede that the golden days of blue-collar American breadwinning are behind us?
Listen, I worked a couple of blue-collar jobs when I was growing up. I was a stock worker in a supermarket (occasionally bagging stuff at the registers), and I flipped burgers (and did breakfast) [and occasionally made baked potatoes] at Roy Roger's. I'm not ashamed of that work, nor should anybody be. I don't think the Onion writers were going for that. But I can tell you, I was pretty fucking happy to get out of that situation into something where I could use my mind more and get grease spattered on my face and hands a little less. Being able to take pride in one's work and being ambitious for something better are two different and non-contradictory things.
I don't want to fight. Let the robots build shit. We can focus on programming them (and occasionally making them fight). Is that an unrealistic goal? Well, you're just an elitist for thinking that! ;)
And who the hell do you think you are..there are a lot of people in this country who can't afford to go to college. You want to replace these people with robots? Americans used to take pride in the products we built. Now it's all crap from China.
I think I'm someone who wants everybody to be able to afford to go to college. Obviously, that's part of my plan. I don't want to "replace" anybody. The only people I want to replace with robots are boxers, Ultimate Fighters(tm) and maybe washroom attendants.
Americans used to make their own houses and furniture from trees growing on their own land, too, and sew their own clothes from wool they got from their own sheep. We used to have whole winters with nothing to do and no way to travel or communicate with anyone. (Funny how much spare time that gives you.) Times change; now, we have computer-machines -- typewriters attached to TVs that let us write letters to each other! (In fact, you could even GO TO COLLEGE through your computer-machine! Fancy that!)
The products in which I have historically taken pride -- whether it's my Leatherman multitool or my ... well, that's the only American-made thing I can think of... aren't really made in factories that feature shitty, risky jobs. I don't think the Leatherman company has children chained to toxic workstations... In fact, I think it's fair to say that "shitty job" does not axiomatically equal "factory job". It's just that shitty factory jobs can be more easily outsourced than, say, shitty construction jobs. (For those, you need to import foreign labor.)
You keep trying to put words in my mouth. I'm in favor of nobody needing to take a shitty job. I don't think that's too lofty a goal. A lot of people used to be slaves, and we kinda decided to be 100% against that, too. You don't *have* to settle. I understand that things are what they are at any given time, but I'm talking about aspirations, not delusions, brother!
One person's "shitty" job is another person's career. Some people take pride in bolting seats into cars all day long, they like working with their friends, they're proud to take care of their family, provide food shelter and clothing for them. They feel a part of something bigger than themselves even though their job might be boring and routine to another person. In a word - dignity. The fact is that for decades now big business has been stripping the dignity out of such jobs. They yearly threaten layoffs and cuts in benefits, making workers feel small and worthless, while expanding the bank accounts of those at the top. This is not just in manufacturing. This happens in banking (my wife gets threatened with a lay off scare every single year, always before christmas, sometimes twice), publishing, retail, IT, etc., etc. This has become the modus operandi for corporate america - 'you have no right to dignity, you're lucky to have another paycheck coming'. This is why this stupid video is hitting a sore spot for a bunch of people here - it crudely treats work as disrespectfully as the Bush administration and corporate america.
What about child labor? What the fuk would the Onion have said about that had they been around then? Adults humiliated by being forced to engage in child's play for half the day, at exorbitant wages?
"I have have to spend half my day in this damn romper room. Then they throw money at me like it grows on trees. My entire family is gaining weight now. My son is threaten to grow taller than me and go to college! We're losing the signature family back hunch and full body arthritis with all this nutrition and rest and medical care!"
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OK. Obama has a bold plan.
So do I.
So do most posters here, if they want to admit it.
Bold plan. Yeah.
Fuck America, as you and I know it.
this also from the Onion. Obama ought to read it, because it sums it up pretty accurately:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_succumbs_to_7_year_battle_with
I wouldn't be surprised if some Repubnican decided this was for real. Gotta love The Onion
okay maybe i've been sniffing glue for too long, but isn't this a republican talking points video? isn't this the kind of video (by the way, unfunny video) we would have seen on that failed fox political comedy show? have i accidentally landed on malkin's website? or did malkin hack crooks and liars and drop this post in?
can someone please explain to me what this post is doing here? seriously.
We only need one plan, the plan where we bring our jobs back from Communist China and demand Fair Trade not Free Trade.
Want an economic plan?
Catch a cab from the San Francisco Airport to the St. Francis Hotel.
Listen to your cab driver.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/portrayal_of_obama_as_elitist
My favorite Onion News Report
in case you were wondering this video is all over conservative blogs everywhere. just google it and see what i mean. or better yet go to a site named: http://antihippies.wordpress.com/
c & l, do us a favor and delete this post.
i admit, i am old and slow, slow, so sloo-ow. but i honestly don't get it. watched it, but i don't get it. i can only attribute it to my age... and maybe lack of intellect which has been the case all along. please, someone explain what this is...very slowly and use small words.
Why is this here? I'm thinking I must be a total dummy because I don't get it.
Vote no on the Wall Street bailout plan! Those greedy Wall Street Criminals need to be charged with treason for putting our national security at risk! They are blackmailing America! They are stealing America's wealth! You can't let them get away with this! Don't bail them out, seize them and their assets, then charge them with treasonous conspiracy to destroy America's economy!
History Lesson:
"The refusal of king George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution." Benjamin Frandanklin, Founding Father.
Our country sought escape from this during the American Revolutionary war!
“All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit circulation.” — John Adams
The Federal Reserve has the power to regulate the money supply and it's value, which gives it the power to bring entire economies to it's knees.
"Give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes it's laws." -- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Founder of Rothschild Banking Dynasty.
The Federal Reserve is a private corporation. It makes it's own policies and is under no regulation by the government. It is a private bank that loans all the currency, at interest, to the government.
"The real truth of the matter is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson." Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933
That's right, Andrew Jackson killed the Central BANK currently known as The Federal Reserve, but banking cartel came back when Woodrow Wilson took office. Look it up, maybe we can figure a way out of this freaking mess!
The central bank, or Federal Reserve, does not simply supply the governments money, it loans it at interest.
The central bank, or Federal Reserve, regulates the value of the currency being issued.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies ... if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency ... the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson
"If you want to remain slaves of the bankers and pay for the costs of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control the nations credit." -- Sir Josiah Stamp, 1880-1941
Dominate Banking Families:
J.D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Paul Warburg, Baron Rothschild.
"The Morgan interests took advantage ... to precipitate the panic [of 1907] guiding it shrewdly as it progressed." -- Fredrik Allen, Life Magazine.
Congressional investigation, lead by Nelson Aldrich, who had intimate ties to the banking cartels and later became part of the Rockefeller family through marriage. The Commission, lead by Aldrich, recommended a central bank be implemented, so a panic like 1907 could never happen again.
The Federal Reserve ACT was written by bankers. Woodrow Wilson promised to sign it into law in return for campaign support. Later Woodrow Wilson wrote in regret, "[Our] Great Industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ... who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No government by free opinion. No longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominate men."
Congressman Louis McFadden expressed the truth after the passage of the bill, "A world banking system was being set up here ... a superstate controlled by international bankers ... acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed has usurped the government."
From 1914-1919, The Federal Reserve increased the money supply by nearly 100%, resulting in extensive loans to small banks and the public. Then, in 1920, the FED called in mass percentages of the outstanding money supply, thus requiring the supporting banks to call in huge numbers of loans and just like 1907, bank runs, bankruptcy and collapse occurred. 5400 Banks went down.
Congressman Charles Lindbergh stepped up in 1921 and said, "Under the Federal Reserve Act, panics are scientifically created. The present of panic is the first scientifically created one, worked out as we figure a mathematical equation." That was just a warm-up.
From 1921-1929, the FED increased the money supply by 62%, resulting once again in extensive loans to the public and banks. The new type of loan was called a "margin loan" in the stock market. 10% down gets 100% control of the stock. The catch was at any time the loan could be called in. A 24 hour margin call could occur at any time.
A few months before October 1929, J.D. Rockefeller and other insiders quietly exited the market. Then on October 24th 1929, the New York financiers who furnished the margin loans started calling them in, in mass. Instantaneous massive sell off in market, everyone had to cover the margin loans. It then triggered mass bank runs for the same reason, callapsing 16 thousand banks, enabling conspiring international bankers to not only buy up rival banks at a discount, but to also buy up whole corporations at pennies on the dollar. It was the greatest robbery in American history. Rather than expanding the money supply to recover from this economic collapse, the FED actually contracted it, fueling one of the largest depressions in history.
Once again outraged, Congressman Louis McFadden, a long time opponent of banking cartels, began bringing impeachment proceedings against the Federal Reserve Board. Saying of the crash and depression, "It was a carefully contrived occurrance. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so that they might emerge the rulers of us all." Not surprisingly, after two assassination attempts, McFadden was poisoned at a banquet before he could push for impeachment.
Nearly all the illegal income tax goes to the FED to pay interest on the fraudulently produced currency! "If you ... examined [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment." -- U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox 2003.
There is no law in existence that requires you to pay the federal income tax. period.
The next tool for profit and control is WAR! WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
WWI: "The large banking interests were deeply interested in the world war, because of the wide opportunities for large profits." -- William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State.
The most lucrative opportunity of the banking cartels is war, for it forces the country to borrow even more money from the Federal Reserve, at interest.
Woodrow Wilson's top advisor and mentor was Colonel Edward House, a man with intimate connections with international bankers, who wanted in the war.
In a documented conversation between Colonel House and Sir Edward Grey, foreign secretary of england, regarding how to get america in the war:
Sir Edward Grey, "What will Americans do if Germans sink an ocean liner with american passengers on board?"
Colonel House, " I believe that a flame of indignation would sweep the United States and that by itself would be sufficient to carry us into war."
I bet you can connect nearly all wars to the greedy bankers on Wall Street. They make double money because they loan money to both sides! They supply materials to both sides!!
All the Federal Reserve and the Banking Cartel on Wall Street has given us is perpetual debt and wars!!!
JRUSSELLB @ 10:
Maybe because you didn't realize it was SATIRE. Given how ridiculous Republican talking points have become, it can sometimes be pretty hard to tell.
It's funny because it has the word "sh*tty" in it. I agree it's not that funny. The one CMINCA linked to above is infinitely funnier and full of relevant satire instead of lazy jokes.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford
"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity."
~ Abraham Lincoln
From Americablog:
President Palin. NIghtmare scenario.
Orangutan. @ 15:
and
Orangutan. @ 15:
Excellent posts, good quotes!
Pericles @ 12:
Well sure it could be satirical of Republican talking points, the rediculousness of their talking points...but there's no mention of mccain anywhere in the ad, no mention of republicans anywhere in the video--so it seems a stretch to me to make the argument that this satirizes republicans somehow (that's just weak, pal). More reasonable (and supportable by the video itself) is that it satirizes Obama--his message of hope perhaps or his message of change or maybe his desire to bring jobs back home... No this video is about Obama and therefore it has no place on c & l--we don't need to help the other side, they get plenty of help as is. delete it.
Who's the elitist? http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/3/MvO_compare.jpg
Vote Nader.
I just heard a MILF pundit twice refering to the Congressional rescue of financial institutions as a watershed moment
I prefer woodshed moments.
So his bold plan is to lock the barn door?
Uh, Senator... the horse has been gone since Bubba signed the Glass-Steagall Repeal.
(Surrounded by a laughing Gramm, Greenspan and Rubin.)
"...the feeling grew among some economists and the financial community that Glass-Steagall hampered America’s financial competitiveness. Among the many voices favoring this was Alan Greenspan along with former Goldman Sachs partner Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary."
Beeeeuuutiful.
20 Alice X
The other day Ralph Nader had a convention to nominate himself as president.
The noise was deafening from the crowd
Of crickets
It almost woke the elderly night watchman.
Orangutan. @ 14:
Ssssssssssh. The unwashed will get a crumb from this. Its another "bold plan"...foreclosure relief for "Main Street".
That'll keep their mouth's shut.
I have been arguing with the Ronald Ray-Gun, Tom Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Bush 1 & 2, free market, deregulation, trickle down economic plans for 30+ years. Now at the point where all of the cards of the house of cards are falling I only hears whispers of their total responsibility when there should be deafening screams. This economic collapse is going to cause a tremendous amount of pain but I would hope that the one thing that might be good to come out of this would be a promise that never again will the American public be fools enough to buy what these cretins have been selling for so many years. I don't see that happening and that will be a grave grave mistake in the long run.
What is this garbage? Is this trying to appeal to the right wing nuts to read here ?
David Sirota has the best bail plan
http://www.credoaction.com/sirota/
Phil Gramm's Role in the Financial Meltdown
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&fo...
Here is a favorite from the Onion, from 2001 when Bush became president. They hit the nail on the head! Read the whole article here.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784
Wonderful!
Laughter is medicinal and - BOY - do we need it.
*
ysbaddaden @ 23:
Ralph will die happy, knowing he tried.
*
Even as satire this clip rests on a right-wing premise and probably shouldn't be on Crooks and Liars. The Onion buys into the 90s notion that industrial work is undesirable and should be shipped overseas to be replaced with white-collar, higher-paying, less labor-intensive, more fulfilling work. Problem is that doesn't happen, industrial jobs get replaced by minimum wage labor in the service industry if by anything at all. Sure industrial work can be dull, unrewarding and dangerous (especially with OSHA dwindled to irrelevance), but low-paying they are not. Union shops used to compensate their workers handsomely for the soul & finger crushing work they did day-in and day-out. There are few if any other sectors of the American economy where someone with a high school education or a vocational degree can support a family on his/her income. Sure they seem shitty to the college educated staff writers at the Onion who get paid to write jokes, but for many Americans the chance to earn $50,000/year screwing seat cushions into cars is still far better than earning $20,000 flipping burgers, or finding no work at all....
You think this is a joke, it is the most accurate report on what politicians are screaming for. Slogans, bring back our (Sh1tty) jobs. And why, because the U.S. system of government does not allow real information to be debated. So its not politics or economics, it's the SYSTEM STUPID.
Vote Obama, but NADER is Correct.
think beautiful thoughts about Obama.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/29/21040/3558/576/577074
archmunster @ 18:
(that's just weak, pal). More reasonable (and supportable by the video itself) is that it satirizes Obama--his message of hope perhaps or his message of change or maybe his desire to bring jobs back home... No this video is about Obama and therefore it has no place on c & l--we don't need to help the other side, they get plenty of help as is. delete it.
Pal? I didn't know it was "Bill-O Impersonation Day?" Give me a minute to find my plastic "pointing fingers" and I'll join in! :)
But no, I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as a satire saying that we've really reached a low point when the GOOD option is to fight to keep the jobs we used to consider tedious and back-breaking. That having a horrible, meaningless, dead-end job screwing seats on lawn mowers now seems like the good old days. I didn't take it as a satire on Obama at all. It was just a VERY subtle satire on the absurd situation we now find ourselves in.
Wow.
Boy I remember when The Onion was funny. Back before they were trying to be funny with video and were actually funny with written words. My favorite headline:
"Clinton Feels Nation's Pain, Breasts"
Alice X - (Let Nader Debate) - status quObama - change you can pretend in - @ 20:
But only in Florida!
If you live in Florida, feel free to vote for Ralph Nader or Ron Paul. Don't give a damn which. According to the last Florida polls, Obama and McCain are tied. Throw in Nader and Paul and Obama wins by 4%. (Not beyond the range of the Republican Election-Stealing Machine to be sure, but better than a tie.)
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Victory Over SCLM, DIEBOLD, ESS and SEQUOIA! @ 34:
Can I have that thirty seconds back?
With this Section 8 crap, the
Cheney AdministrationBush Administration is holding the world hostage for a trillion dollars.Criminy.
Both candidates have no clue what they are getting into and both are way in over their heads. Can we all come together and admit that we're screwed either way?
matric208 @ 32:
I agree completely. The very fact that manual labor is somehow considered "beneath" them proves that the Onion is elitist.
Jesus Christ. The dearth of good paying factory jobs is why we are in the mess we are in. WE DON'T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE.
Bring our jobs home and tell China to go fuck themselves.
ysbaddaden @ 23:
Or is that what you hope will happen. Nader is polling 10 percent among independents in an Ohio newspaper poll. Nader is on the ballot in 45 states despite the best efforts of the Democrats, the [alleged] party of the people, to prevent that from happening [as they tried to do in 2000 and 2004]. You may want to ask yourself why is it that in the [alleged] best democracy in the world that only the two major parties are allowed to be heard in the debates. This resembles something out of Orwell's Animal Farm- two legs good, four legs bad. In this case, the network and cable executives have decided that Americans can decide to choose any presidential candidate as long as those candidates are either a Democrat or a Republican. Even liberal blogs like Crooks and Liars continue to genuflect at the altar of Barack Obama while completely ignoring the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militarist and anti-imperialist candidate running for president.
I think this Onion piece fails as satire for much the same reason that the New Yorker cover did: the real target ('pugs) didn't just fail to get it, but adopted it at face value.
It's as if the English landed gentry read Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and thought, "Woah, cool!"
Morons don't know when they're being mocked.
Jo @ 41:
Oh, please. Just because a factory job is better than a fast-food job doesn't mean that a factory job isn't shitty. It's not elitist to not want a fucked-up back or a chewed-up hand or legal blindness when you retire. Just because factory jobs don't, as a matter of geographical statistical probability, get replaced with white-collar office jobs doesn't mean that individuals can't move from the factory floor to the cubicle farm and enjoy the "elitist" benefit of not having to wear ear protection and goggles all day.
What is your argument? That the Onion writers are elitist because they think ill of today's factory jobs, which no longer pay well and are unreliably available and have vanishing retirement funds and dwindling benefits... oh, yeah, and you mentioned OSHA's increasing irrelevance... Come to think of it, today's factory jobs DO suck. Wouldn't you agree? Or at least concede that the golden days of blue-collar American breadwinning are behind us?
Listen, I worked a couple of blue-collar jobs when I was growing up. I was a stock worker in a supermarket (occasionally bagging stuff at the registers), and I flipped burgers (and did breakfast) [and occasionally made baked potatoes] at Roy Roger's. I'm not ashamed of that work, nor should anybody be. I don't think the Onion writers were going for that. But I can tell you, I was pretty fucking happy to get out of that situation into something where I could use my mind more and get grease spattered on my face and hands a little less. Being able to take pride in one's work and being ambitious for something better are two different and non-contradictory things.
I don't want to fight. Let the robots build shit. We can focus on programming them (and occasionally making them fight). Is that an unrealistic goal? Well, you're just an elitist for thinking that! ;)
Erroll @ 42:
Listen, you, I was at Nader's 2000 convention, where we all chuckled to ourselves about how "Gush and Bore" were exactly the same, and we snorted in delight as we gazed upon morphed combinations of Gore's and Bush's faces. Ha, ha! Ho, ho! Not so funny now, though! Ralph Nader's hopes for campaign matching funds helped put Bush in the White House. End of conversation on that.
I'm enough of an adult to admit that, had so many people not bought into that Gush/Bore bullshit, President Gore would be on TV right now, talking about our continued economic prosperity. I'm enough of an adult to admit, after Gore has won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for trying to save the fucking world, and Bush is currently holding a gun to the world's head and is holding a big bag with a dollar sign on it and going "GIMME ANOTHER TRILLION!!!", that I was totally wrong about Bore/Gush. Are YOU?!?
Ralph Nader is a pest. You understand? Yes, he has a DESPERATELY important point to make, we KNOW. We GET it. He's absolutely RELENTLESS about it. Is he running because he wants to be President, or because he has this massive axe to grind and he wants to rub our noses in it? Because if he wants to be President, fine, run for President. Nobody's stopping him. He's going to lose, though, of course. (You do realize that even 10% in a minority?) But your shrill, short-sighted, obtuse, self-important pontificating -- not to mention insults -- aren't campaign literature. They're not even a campaign ad. They're just YOU... being YOU. So now you're done. THANKS.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to writing tomorrow's sermon, on how Obama healed the sick and parted the waters at Galveston...
Niko Griffin @ 44:
And who the hell do you think you are..there are a lot of people in this country who can't afford to go to college. You want to replace these people with robots? Americans used to take pride in the products we built. Now it's all crap from China.
"On the shit-job training?"
ROTFLMBBAO!!!
:<[)
this was funny. I really don't see what the big fuss is about. Its called Satire. I also think the New Yorker cover was ingenious. It made the Repubicans look as dumb as they really can be... The spin and hatred they spewed was spit right back into them with that cover... I think Obama should have embraced it instead of being uptight about it
Jo @ 46:
I think I'm someone who wants everybody to be able to afford to go to college. Obviously, that's part of my plan. I don't want to "replace" anybody. The only people I want to replace with robots are boxers, Ultimate Fighters(tm) and maybe washroom attendants.
Americans used to make their own houses and furniture from trees growing on their own land, too, and sew their own clothes from wool they got from their own sheep. We used to have whole winters with nothing to do and no way to travel or communicate with anyone. (Funny how much spare time that gives you.) Times change; now, we have computer-machines -- typewriters attached to TVs that let us write letters to each other! (In fact, you could even GO TO COLLEGE through your computer-machine! Fancy that!)
The products in which I have historically taken pride -- whether it's my Leatherman multitool or my ... well, that's the only American-made thing I can think of... aren't really made in factories that feature shitty, risky jobs. I don't think the Leatherman company has children chained to toxic workstations... In fact, I think it's fair to say that "shitty job" does not axiomatically equal "factory job". It's just that shitty factory jobs can be more easily outsourced than, say, shitty construction jobs. (For those, you need to import foreign labor.)
You keep trying to put words in my mouth. I'm in favor of nobody needing to take a shitty job. I don't think that's too lofty a goal. A lot of people used to be slaves, and we kinda decided to be 100% against that, too. You don't *have* to settle. I understand that things are what they are at any given time, but I'm talking about aspirations, not delusions, brother!
Niko Griffin @ 45:
You are right. Nader is a pest who has the temerity to be heard in a debate that is run by the Democrats and the Republicans. "He's going to lose, though, of course." Certainly if enough people like you say so then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But then it appears I run the risk by saying such things of being labeled by you as being "obtuse" and "pontificating" as well as "insulting." How, by pointing out how the Democrats tried along with the media to bar Nader from a 2000 debate even though he even had a ticket to attend the debate? Or by stating how the Democrats, who claim to be so tolerant, tried to block Nader from being on the ballot in a number of states in 2000 and 2004? Or even that Nader has actually a constitutional right to run for president and that he is by far the most progressive and anti-corporate and anti-militant candidate in the field? Apparently to bring these issues to the forefront by less than tolerant Democrats like yourself is to be considered rude. Or is because Democrats realize that if Nader is on the same floor as Obama he would expose him to be a fraud for claiming to be a man of the people and especially an antiwar candidate? I think Obama would be most concerned about both of them being brought up by Nader.
CMINCA @ 7:
What C&L put up here barely passes for satire. Satire is primarily clever and skewers wrong, and injustice, as when Johnathan Swift classically satirized the British as being so greedy that they would eat the children of impoverished Irish families without so much as a thought as to whether it was right or wrong and in fact would consider themselves to be entitled to do so. This trash is just pathetic gutter humor that diminishes the very nature of C&L. This video says nothing useful or thought provoking. This video really ought to be bumped in favor of what CMINKA has shared with us - this is clever, skewers media hypocrisy, and through humor pushes us to see how really silly these allegations of elitism are. All in all a good example of satire.
Niko Griffin @ 49:
One person's "shitty" job is another person's career. Some people take pride in bolting seats into cars all day long, they like working with their friends, they're proud to take care of their family, provide food shelter and clothing for them. They feel a part of something bigger than themselves even though their job might be boring and routine to another person. In a word - dignity. The fact is that for decades now big business has been stripping the dignity out of such jobs. They yearly threaten layoffs and cuts in benefits, making workers feel small and worthless, while expanding the bank accounts of those at the top. This is not just in manufacturing. This happens in banking (my wife gets threatened with a lay off scare every single year, always before christmas, sometimes twice), publishing, retail, IT, etc., etc. This has become the modus operandi for corporate america - 'you have no right to dignity, you're lucky to have another paycheck coming'. This is why this stupid video is hitting a sore spot for a bunch of people here - it crudely treats work as disrespectfully as the Bush administration and corporate america.
I guess anyone who didn't go to college and isn't making a six figure income must be working in a shitty job.
If you want smart satire from the onion... written Before 9/11
January 17, 2001
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784
Yeah, let's all write for the Onion. Get a real fuking job you office scum!
What about child labor? What the fuk would the Onion have said about that had they been around then? Adults humiliated by being forced to engage in child's play for half the day, at exorbitant wages?
"I have have to spend half my day in this damn romper room. Then they throw money at me like it grows on trees. My entire family is gaining weight now. My son is threaten to grow taller than me and go to college! We're losing the signature family back hunch and full body arthritis with all this nutrition and rest and medical care!"
Fuk you Onion. I don't luv you any more!
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