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Featured How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by poncho, Feb 17, 2014.

  1. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    We are number 1 right? USA! USA! No one can beat our wealth creation machine, our economic dynamism, our level playing field and our bastions of higher education. We have a middle class that is the envy of the world, right?

    Well, like so much of the “American dream” we have been force fed for a generation or more, this perception is not based in reality whatsoever. Sure it may have been the case for a couple of decades immediately after World War 2. Before the military-industrial-Wall Street complex fully took over the political process, but it certainly isn’t true any longer. Myths die hard and this one is particularly pernicious because it prevents people from changing things. As James Baldwin said:

    Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-23/how-does-america%E2%80%99s-middle-class-rank-globally-27

    U.S. Plunges to #46 in World Press Freedom Index, Below Romania and Just Above Haiti

    As you might expect, the economic decline of a nation into rule by a handful of corrupt oligarchs will have many other negative repercussions. One of these is a loss of civil rights and freedoms that many of us have taken for granted. Reporters Without Borders puts out their Press Freedom Index every year, and the 2014 ranking came out today. It was not a good showing for the USSA.

    Specifically, the U.S. registered one of the steepest falls of all nations, down 13 slots to the #46 position.

    http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/02/12/u-s-plunges-to-46-in-world-press-freedom-index-below-romania-and-just-above-haiti/
     
    #1 poncho, Feb 17, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 17, 2014
  2. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    The oligarchs, as you call them, and large corporations are responsible and these are the folk the GOP is protecting. Wake up folks.
     
  3. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government Including Elena Kagan.

    http://my.firedoglake.com/fflambeau/2010/05/08/an-updated-list-of-goldman-sachs-ties-to-the-obama-admin-including-elena-kagan/

    I already uncovered Obama's ties to the biotech giant Monsanto.

    Democrats like to play innocent when it comes to being in the pocket of the big banks and corporations folks. Both parties are owned lock stock and barrel by the financiers and the corporate monopoly men.
     
    #3 poncho, Feb 17, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 17, 2014
  4. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    The U.S. Rating goes up and down with every passing year. What does it mean to "drop 13 slots"? It's probably related to the Snowden leaks and the harassment of AP reporters. How can the press freedom index fall in a year when sensational news leaks are published?
     
  5. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    You're right 33rd place sounds much better.
     
  6. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    What is the rating based on?
     
  7. FollowTheWay

    FollowTheWay Well-Known Member
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    No. It's related to the concerted effort of the 1% to kill the middle class in America. Their best ally was Ronald Regan whose "trickle down economics" served as the launching pad for the destruction of the middle class.
     
  8. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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  9. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    You are so correct. Trickle Down was the beginning of the middle class going down. Money and wealth did not trickle down, but trickles up from the poor and middle class to the top.

    It is strange that Reagan was so against government helping people. He admitted that without FDR's programs instituted during the Great Depression his father/mother and family would not have survived.

    Reagan brought about the program that emptied the mental hospitals. That was when we began seeing homeless people sleeping on grates and under bridges. In the long run Reagan and the Republicans following him have done so much harm to the American people.
     
  10. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    It's based on a questionnaire sent out to journalists, researchers, and human rights activists. Then a complicated formula is applied to determine the level and severity of violence committed against reporters.
     
  11. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Okay so does that mean they're wrong?
     
  12. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Not necessarily. I'd need to read the questions.

    I find it hard to believe the freest press on earth is in Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, etc. as those nations are examples of socialism. Are we to believe they control most aspects of their citizen's lives, tax the majority of their earnings, yet let the press run free? Don't you see the contradictions? Have you ever known a socialist government with a free press?
     
    #12 InTheLight, Feb 17, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 17, 2014
  13. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    I couldn't tell you one way or another as most of my adult life was spent listening to a tightly conglomerated corporate controlled press that seems more interested in selling their sponsor's wares to their news consumers and keeping us all divided on the issues they neatly frame and present to give the impression that left leaning authoritarians and right leaning authoritarians are our only choice. It wasn't till the advent of the internet that I even knew there was more sides to a story than just two.

    All I can tell you for sure is that the only way to find out what's really going on in the USA is to turn to the foreign news outlets or the internet and sift through a ton of garbage and fluff to find something that even approaches reality.
     
    #13 poncho, Feb 17, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 18, 2014
  14. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    :laugh:

    And the "reasons" read like a guidebook of progressive socialist complaints against the evils of capitalism.

    :rolleyes:
     
  15. thisnumbersdisconnected

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    The author must be the Great Pretender, then. Of course, he's a Marxist, not a socialist.
     
  16. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    So, YES or NO...?

    Does it seem plausible that a government that controls most aspects of their citizen's lives would allow the press to say or print whatever they liked?
     
  17. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Yes or no?

    So you want me to answer a question based on what you say when I don't even know what you say is true or not?

    Prove what you are saying is true then maybe I'll be better able to give you an answer.
     
  18. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    I used to believe as you in your post. However, after being privileged to live in several countries I came to a different conclusion. We have a free press in that there not overt, policy controlled censorship of the press. However, there is censorship from corporations. New organizations are not going to publish news that will make their advertisers angry enough to withdraw funding for the ads. Thus, we do have a controlled press. The same is true with political talk shows. It drives me crazy when a politician is let off with softball questions on such shows when it is obvious they could be nailed to the wall. Of course, that show would be avoided by politicians and sponsors and would disappear.

    Have you noticed how different networks cover the same trivia in their reporting?
     
  19. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Do you even know the difference between capitalism and corporatism?

    Doesn't sound it to me.

    Capitalism, : a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government

    Corporatism, : the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction

    Maybe it would better if you actually took the time find out what kind of system you are living in before you start making uninformed statements. Just sayin.
     
  20. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    So you're saying we live in a corporatism society. Is that right? I have to ask because you rarely state anything concrete.
     
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