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spdrun
ParticipantFIH – the homeless have a hard enough life without “people” like you snitching them out to the cops.
Agreed about healthcare — but US tech corepirations don’t want tech workers to become “free agents.” They want it to be easy to keep ’em working 75 hours a week with a weeks of vacay per year.
ParticipantShoveler, you mean the Kaiser-kontrolled Kalifornia Kongress?
ParticipantA lot of the so called ecahhhhnamy in the US now involves destruction of health and privacy…
Either murder of the environment via resource extraction, or murder of personal privacy via technology/I.T. Electric cars are great, self-driving/connected cars stink for privacy. And a “smart TV” aka telescreen and an Amazon/Google blabber-box. Not in my fucking home.
The only good news is that the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Hope the hangover will be long, hard, and painful, setting dirty energy and privacy-stealing technologies back by a few decades.
ParticipantWhat? Trump is doing his best to provoke Iran and fan the conflict…
ParticipantCalling soldiers “pawns” doesn’t diminish them as people. It diminishes the government that sends them to be killed or maimed in wars that aren’t about self-defense or defense of human rights…
I wish they’d play “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” instead of patriotic music every Memorial Day:
It’s closer to the reality of what happens to humans in a war. People being used, lip service given to honoring them, but in the end it’s a big racket. The only real winners are Exxon, Lockheed, and Goldman Sachs.
ParticipantIt’s more about politics than about status. The US is a violent culture.
They’d rather send military advisors to commit murder in coca-producing countries than go after the root of drug problems by paying for treatment and making sure that people aren’t trapped in hopelessness.
They think that Iran is bad, Saudi good because politicians and media are connected to Saudi oil producers, whereas Iran had the temerity to expropriate US/British oil company assets in 1979. It’s not about human rights, Saudi’s record is just as vile as Iran’s.
A war is a quick fix and a way to rally stupid people around the flag. “Grooooowk! HEROES! Grooooowk! Freedom!” Diplomacy is slow, hard, and often doesn’t have visible results to show for years.
I’m not saying all war is unjustified, but military and violence in general are often reached for as a quick fix by US officials.
Goes for internal law enforcement as well. As a recent case in NJ shows, it’s clearly better to harass people for drinking a beer on the beach, instead of living and letting live as most normal, non-theocratic countries would do. It’s about control — US governments (Fed, states, locals) know that they’re powerful, so they reach for the fist even when it’s often best to sit by and ignore victimless “crimes.” OMG, a 20-year-old girl had a beer on the beach! The world would end if that was allowed to continue! Bring out the cops! Call the Marines! Call out the WCTU!
ParticipantPersonally, I’d take house in a moderately urban area of a country where it’s cheaper to live in but has good health care. Southern Europe, parts of Latin America and Asia.
ParticipantAnd who says that CA can’t default on those obligations if things get dire? Overpaid ex-cops are a very small voting bloc…
ParticipantSkype is great if you like audio compression. Not being an Apple drone, I don’t use Fecetime much.
ParticipantThe good quality rental phones are easily found on EBay and pretty darn cheap. Search for “AT&T 2500”, “WECO 2500”, or “Western Electric 2500” for the touch-tone models. The rotary phones are model 500.
Participant“Growth” is another word for a terminal disease. Stability is more important than growth for growth’s sake.
ParticipantEconProf — why is population growth in an already-crowded area a good thing?
ParticipantBut (judging from your nickname), you’re OK getting government funds yourself. Why should we pay to support you?
As far as Iran, they’re not interested in nuclear war with the US (they’re not suicidal as a society). They may be interested in defending themselves from neighboring countries.
ParticipantA pragmatist is a person that deals with real problems. Problem is that Trump sees problems where they don’t exist and ignores actual problems.
(1) Iran has no direct fight with the US. It’s less of a boogeyman than the Saudis (who actually fund and support terrorism) are.
(2) Our streets are safer than they were since the 1960s. There’s no massive crime wave sweeping the US, other than in isolated local cases like Chicago.
(3) High cost of college is a real problem. I see no problem with free/cheap community or public college. His home city of NYC has had CUNY, which was either free or dirt-cheap (and GOOD) for the last 100 years. Heaven forbid that we spent a bit more on public education and less on coercive policing and military bullying abroad.
(4) His current attitude to the War on Drugs is straight out of the 1960s through 1980s. Moral panic. He’s seeing it as a numbers game (jail more people) instead of a medical problem (treat addicts, make sure people can get treatment for painful conditions instead of self-medicating).
(5) Coercive, racist, and excessive policing are real problems in the US, no matter how much he may thump his fist about “law and order.” The goal should be to reduce the number of crimes, not jail people, and generally live and let live as far as victimless crimes. -
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