Homeland Security
- Thread starter waggie945
- Start date
No, Mav, I think it is for investigating the mating habits of orangutans.Quote from Maverick74:
Waggie, 65 million is like .000000000000001% of our national budget. In fact, I think our government sets aside a larger sum of money for investigating the mating habits of squirrels. LOL. And guess who probably gets that grant? UC Berkeley!
Only you and your fiscally free-spending Bush Administration that has now put this country into budget deficits as far as the eye can see would think that $65 million is chump-change, let alone have no problem with the fact that oil companies with billions of dollars in revenues are able to obtain this "public" money from Homeland Security even though they are "private" corporations.
The last time that I checked, $65 million could go a very long way to securing the commuter railsystem of one very large metropolitan city in this country.
Once again, you have shown your ignorance and your partisanship. It's always about left and right for you, and never about right or wrong.
The last time that I checked, $65 million could go a very long way to securing the commuter railsystem of one very large metropolitan city in this country.
Once again, you have shown your ignorance and your partisanship. It's always about left and right for you, and never about right or wrong.
Amazing! Fascist corruption as far as the eye sees in this country.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor).
"By Sheldon Drobny
THE VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY
The pundits mocked Hillary Clinton unmercifully for saying in early 1998, after the Monica Lewinsky scandal first broke, âThe great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.â[1]
Her accusation was not quite true.
It was actually a relatively small right wing group that tried to destroy her husband. Ms. Clintonâs statement was understandable, though, when you consider the power of the group, well documented by David Brock in Blinded By The Right. As the old joke goes, youâre not paranoid if everyone really is against you.
There is not a vast right wing conspiracy, at least not one organized with any sort of chain of commandâlike the Republican Party, for example. The real story is that there are a number of powerful right wing organizations in this country that significantly influence government policy, and these organizations will stop at nothing to advance their agenda. It was easy to criticize Hillary when she said that there was one big organization out to get her husband. But her general warning about the right wing having vast power is something that we must spotlight, because that power is largely invisible to the average American.
The right wing organizations that have significantly affected American policy are too numerous to mention. They are aligned with large corporations and people of wealth and power. Current examples are: GE and its former chairman Jack Welch; News Corporation and its head Rupert Murdoch; and that loveable old curmudgeon, Richard Melon Scaife. As a group, they push various right wing agendas and have a major influence on government policy. Collectively, but not individually, they essentially dictate what the government doesâand all for their own individual benefit. Sometimes they work in tandem, but most of the time they each work to advance their particular favorite elitist protectionist policy. Money from their corporations donated to politicians is one of their seemingly benign activities. Collectively, the process is quasi-fascist.
Fascism in modern terms has the following characteristics:
· The state has the ultimate authority over production and distribution without (as in socialism) actually owning the means of production and distribution.
· Control is generally accomplished through cartelization, the creating of industry-wide councils in which the representatives of the most powerful firms set policy in conjunction with representatives of government.
Some economists have renamed fascism corporatism[2], which really describes the inter-relationship we see today between business and government. Although the U.S. is a democratic republic, the economic power structure is corporatism. And that isâor should beâa very disquieting thought. The recent corporate accounting scandals, though they involved billions of dollars, are minor compared to the continuing corruption associated with government contracts, especially contracts for military expenditures. The real scandal of waste and corruption rests in what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex.
Nazi Germany's military industrial complex allowed it to rearm and start a second world war. Much of the support for Germanyâs rearmament came from American and international businesses, a scandal that has never been completely made public. Very few Americans know that Prescott Bush, our president's grandfather, supplied Nazi Germany with such assistance. He did not stop until President Roosevelt, in 1942, froze some of his assets under the Trading With The Enemies Act.[3] The information is documented, but is not known by most Americans because, as in any successful fascist regime, the press is prevented from publishing it.
The news media are controlled by the same corporations that participate in the great partnership between government and business. Should it not be worthy of note in a presidential campaign that the wealth and power of one of the candidates was built in part by treacherous acts of one of the familyâs founders? Knowing it might have made some people who intended to vote for George W. Bush reluctant to do so.
War benefits the armaments and oil industries. The corporate masters and their current spokesman, George W. Bush, promote a dangerous policy of pre-emptive warfare. They use exactly the same excuses Hitler used to sell to the public his maniacal desire to conquer Europe. The real power for Hitler came from his corporate backers, who willingly supplied him the tools to execute his plan, their reward being profit.
We can never know the inner thoughts or motives of those businessmen who profited from Hitler's aggressive military policy. The ones who were rational must have known Hitler was an extremist. Nevertheless, they were willing to ignore a dangerous and self-destructive policy for a shortsighted profit incentive. Among the results were the deaths of nearly 40 million people and the destruction of Germany. A similarly short-sighted profit incentive by today's war entrepreneurs may lead us into a holocaust far greater than the one caused by Nazi Germany.
Hillary Clinton was right when she suggested that the real story is about the vast power of the right wing. And though she was wrong to describe it as a conspiracy, which normally has an organized hierarchy, uncontrolled corporate greed and the partnership of members of government with their corporate masters do naturally lead to results similar to those suffered in Germany. "
January 2003
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/drobny/030117_VastConspiracy.htm
Waggie, 65 million is chump change. The billions on top of billions you want to spend on securing our borders is not! I wouldn't lecture me on fiscal conservatism. As I'm sure you already know buddy, the terrorists are already in this country. Spending billions to secure our borders will not change the facts. All it will do is give you a false sense of security at the expense of the US taxpayer.
You know Waggie, if you were really a Reagan conservative like you claim you are, you would be much more up in arms over our government using our tax dollars to subsidize abortion. But of course we know you are not a Reagan conservative when you freely admitted on here that you want to see liberal Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown President. LOL.
Former Governor Jerry Brown wanted to put the entire "tax-code" on a postcard along with advocating a 13% flat tax on income in an effort to simplify the tax system.
I wholeheartedly supported his proposal back in 1992.
Too bad you have a problem with that.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1992/03/03-27-92tdc/03-27-92dnews-07.asp
I wholeheartedly supported his proposal back in 1992.
Too bad you have a problem with that.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1992/03/03-27-92tdc/03-27-92dnews-07.asp
Waggie, I know all about Brown's flat tax. The guy is a flaming liberal though. I give him kudos for the flat tax but Waggie, that does not change the fact that he is probably right next to Al Gore and John Kerry on the political spectrum. Do you think Reagan would ever endorse Brown for President? LMAO!
Come on man, stand up for your principles. I am probably the biggest anti-tax person on ET. I think all federal income taxes should be abolished, but not at the expense of my principles and core beliefs. What kind of conservative did you say you were again?
The last time that I checked, this thread had to do with the Department of Homeland Security and the ridiculous lack of fiscal retraint that the current Administration has shown.
But leave it to you to place everything in a nice little rhetorical box about liberals and conservatives.
Once again Mav, you are incapable of having a discussion on actual fiscal policy without succumbing to the absurd "trap" that you always find yourself in . . . arguing about "liberals and conservatives".
I merely mentioned former Gov. Jerry Brown because of his advocacy of a flat 13% tax on income. Yet, you are incapable of staying on topic. That is why it is a complete waste of time even discussing "policy" with you.
Go figure.
But leave it to you to place everything in a nice little rhetorical box about liberals and conservatives.
Once again Mav, you are incapable of having a discussion on actual fiscal policy without succumbing to the absurd "trap" that you always find yourself in . . . arguing about "liberals and conservatives".
I merely mentioned former Gov. Jerry Brown because of his advocacy of a flat 13% tax on income. Yet, you are incapable of staying on topic. That is why it is a complete waste of time even discussing "policy" with you.
Go figure.