is the US sliding into Fascism? Evidence for and against

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what the poor do give the rich? Those on top make money from the collection of those making less at the bottom.In order to just stay alive poor people will spend money and it is more of their total income than any rich person. Collectively they spend quite a bit and do form the fluid wealth of the nation. The rich on the other hand may have a lot of money and shift it around a lot, but are not actually creating as much need for jobs to exist as the poor are, because plain and simple... there are much less of them.If you want to run a McD's on the number of millionaires that will walk through your door, good luck. The number of poor people on the other hand... Ka ching!

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I kind of meant my response as a joke and not to be taken too seriously, though it relied on an element of truth. Since you took it seriously, I guess I will respond in kind... That's not how it works at all, unless you subscribe to some neofeudalistic-corporate model of economics.When I open a business, lets say I have some cash or take out a loan, who do I go asking for my money, ergo my job, ergo my income? You think it's the rich?Sure some people could try and cater solely to that class, but the majority cater to the mid to under classes. I need them to pay me back and then some so that I continue to have a job, ergo they are giving me my job.Even as I add employees because the demands of the public are higher than I can service, it certainly isn't me (mr moneybags) who is paying for those people. After all I am in it for profit, and not running a charity service for people who "want jobs". They stay as long as the public is willing to pay for them. Okay, now from what I understand you are in the military, which operates as close to capitalism as communism. Now maybe you have some outside experience or "education", but I sure as hell do as I have been in management for one company, helped found another (to some extent), and then founded and operated another.I like free markets. Yeah, the reason a company exists is to give the owner wealth. "Maximize" the wealth is simply part of some self-serving neofeudal corporate concept of how businesses do/should/must operate.You can check back to past bits of Americana (back when Americans had family values) for counterexamples of how businesses can operate. For example Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. The speeches in that film were fantastic. I guess if you want to spit on Jimmy Stewart and laud Greenstreet's character and thus spit on real hardworking American spirit, you can do that, but I wouldn't want to.The fact is as long as the income provides STEADY wealth, with some small measure or profit, for onesself and one's employees, things are going just fine. Indeed one can Minimize profit in order to grow the stature of the company through reinvestment in the physical and social aspects of the company. A good real world example is SAS institute. The owner of that never even took it public, specifically to avoid the "maximize profit" expectations of today's stock investors. The level of care he gives his employees (on top of their healthy salaries) is near legendary, and has been gaining notice in the business world as a very successful counterexample to greed first.But this is all to miss the point I was making. In order to get the income in the first place, they do not go to rich people, businesses and business owners go to the mid and lower classes. Yes, and unless the neofeudal corporate culture fully entrenches itself in the world, they always will. Its funny but I always remembered America as being touted as the only place where Rags to Riches stories could come true. Does that sound familiar to you? Rags to Riches? Its not Riches to Riches.Yeah, I know, the poor are now being bamboozled into lottery tickets instead of saving to open their own stores, but what the hey.In any case, most businesses always have and always MUST cater to the mid and low end of the economic scale. Thus they ask for their jobs from the mid and low end of the economic scale. You make up in volume what you lack in per unit price. That's also in basic business class. I did not intend to leave out the middle class, but the poor or low middle are a larger class and need to be taken care of.But let me educate you on the "use" and "borrow" of money to start a business. When you have a stash, or borrow a stash, of money you can do anything in the world with it. Buy a car, buy a home, get an education, get some healthcare, whatever.One thing you could also do is create something, an elaborate sign, which says to the public "may I help you with something"? The hope is that you will convince a bunch of people to say "yes" and EMPLOY YOU. It does not matter if you hired employees at first, or ran it with yourself and some family members (btw many businesses start that way and not as giant corporations). The point is that you as owner were hoping to find employment from the public such that you recouped your losses and wouold be able to continue living and perhaps expanding the business.You can learn this, and many rosycheeked Americans have, by opening up a lemonade stand. Just try it. By some lemonade and some cups, be industrious and find some cardboard and a marker, and open your own stand.You will find that you are making money from ordinary people and if you hope to keep getting money you will be catering to those people. Not only was a "rich person" not responsible for your employment, they are unlikely to have dropped a dime to help you by buying your product.Through this you can see exactly what rich people sitting on top of corporations are doing. They have a giant lemonade stand, and while they may employ lots of different people at that stand, they are not running a charity for those people, they are in fact asking the public for continued employment themselves, and keeping additional employees as long as the public demand stays up.Well I should add that corporations have additional factors if they go public. Then they have some nagging relatives who helped by allowing use of the faucet, or supplied the lemonade pitcher, to demand that they be counted as employees and get a cut themselves. If demand falls then they will take their pitcher and stop usage of the faucet. The public will dictate this, not the suppliers.Once you show me that the rich are not seeking employment from the public and in fact are starting and running businesses based on charity just to see able bodied people able to go to work, well you just let me know.In the mean time, the good ol' USA will continue to produce Rags to Riches stories, as well as examples like SAS Institute, and watch with tear filled eyes as Jimmy Stewart leaves Sydney Greenstreet to squirm his wretched. twisted life of maximizing personal wealth over honest gain. That's right, honest gain, which helps real redblooded Americans get along.Sniff sniff. Now there ya gone and done it, made me all weepy over the wonders of the market system.This message has been edited by holmes, 05-11-2005 05:44 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I guess I can't know this, but it seems to me Tal must never have been to an office to get his own business license. From my experience the rather extensive lines, seen on just about any day of the week, are filled with low to middle income people and not just a couple of Trumps.I'm never sure whether to take Tal seriously and so be scared, or as a joke and have a laugh. It appears that to him:1) Patriotism is listening to what the gov't says and not raise questions as well as sacrificing freedom for security,2) Conservatism is spending billions of dollars on schemes which patently weaken our military and economic position in order to instrument a humongous social welfare scheme for nonamericans, as well as growing the gov't exponentially, and3) Capitalism is sucking up to rich people for a job and to be thankful if you get one instead of picking yourself up by your bootstraps and getting rich by serving the public market which consists of the masses.I think I'll go lower my flag to half mast, a piece of America just died somewhere.This message has been edited by holmes, 05-11-2005 08:59 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I suppose it can depend on the nature of the business (solo artists for example may get treated differently), and it certainly changes from state to state and country to country, but the main answer is YES.If you plan on running a commercial business, that is make an entity which will sell goods and service to the public in a regular way, then you have to get a business license of some kind. That is especially true if you are going to have employees or sell items which will be taxed.Getting a license and dealing with all the bureacracy of running a business (taxes and buying supplies are handled differently... more byzantine) is really not fun.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, that list is pretty near identical to the types available in illinois, with sole trader the equivalent of "sole proprietor". However, that class requires more than just registering as "self- employed", you also need a full business license with the city.Actually I guess I should have said it all breaks down on the state, county, and city level. To operate in Chicago one definitely needs a license for even the simplest of proprietorships. I believe the license is actually from the county though, so you probably need it anywhere within the county. Outside that area, but elsewhere in the state, maybe you don't need one.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Awww Tal, dodging my star spangled reply to your communist view of a free market system? Oh well, I thought it was funny. Yeah that was a great list of quotes. For some of those people it should be an embarrrassment, for others it should not because it does not suggest he had the capabilities claimed by this administration, nor that the actions taken by Bush were the appropriate ones.In particular, some of these were generated by the faulty US intelligence system, headed by Bush. What happened to the buck stops at his desk for major failures? Guess that went out with guts.Of course what you didn't cite were those quotes that did not necessarily agree with some of these. Indeed they came from Bush's own staff.Oh, make no mistake, I love doing this to you... From Secretary Colin L. Powell Cairo, Egypt (Ittihadiya Palace) February 24, 2001, on Iraqi sanctions...And then again in May 2001, Powell testified before the Senate... And gosh darn it if he wasn't right the first time.And in July 2001, Condoleeza Rice said... And you know what? It turns out she was right too.What about these quotes?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I hope you are able to discern actual information, from disinformation, which is what Tal has just brought you.While it shows that people were concerned about Iraq, and had bought into certain US intelligence reports, none of them suggest support for the course of action that Bush actually took.There is a world of difference between viewing Saddam as someone to keep in check vs someone that ought to be overthrown, and if overthrown, through what mechanisms.Remember even Bush is now dismissing that WMDs were the main reason and it is about a humanitarian social welfare program for the Iraqi people, in order to spread democracy... at US taxpayer expense.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Would that be like the war on porn, the war on drugs, and the war on Iraq?By the way what is the difference for it to be PC in some circles to say gays should be married, and it being PC to say gays should not be married in another? Eventually one gets instituted... why not the one with expanded ideas of freedom?Conservatives are for freedom, right?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Wrong again, read some history. The far left was active against Hussein when Bush Sr and Rumsfeld were helping him butcher the very people we are now claiming to be avenging.Do you want a picture of Rumsfeld smiling and shaking hands with Hussein around the same time the massacres took place? What you won't find is a member of the far left doing it, they were busy pleading with the US gov't to stop helping him.Whoops.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Disinformation is not just using fake quotes. Disinformation is using real quotes and facts out of context to suggest something they don't really suggest.Tal was engaging in disinformation by making it look like people actually held similar views of Saddam Hussein as the Bush administration claimed to have. This is not true and evident even from the quotes that were cited.There is no question that some indicate that certain individuals were accepting the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq at the time. Those people can be made fum of for that, though that does not incriminate everyone on th left for having believed all of the intel including some of the other people cited.Furthermore, I really didn't see any quote that suggested they were for what Bush did. Indeed the Kerry quotes were pretty indicative of a different line of reaction to the threat he viewed Hussein posed, not to mention the TYPE of threat Hussein posed. That's the point I was making. There was no need to interpret them. Yet Tal presented them in a list and in a context to give them his own interpretation (i.e. spin). If you believe those listed quotes supported Tal's position, then you did believe his interpretation, rather than reading the statements for themselves.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Evidence is better. The only weapons were old, abandoned ones which were likely not even recognized as such by the Iraq regime. If "militia" have them they likely are unaware of what they have. That's why you found some being detonated as simple explosives instead of in a way that would be appropriate for chemical munitions.What they did have is chemical, perhaps some biological, and spent nuclear material. That is different than having weapons. It is already public knowledge that the US did not secure known sites the UN requested and so such stocks have made it into the hands of the public. Just as bad as having been obtained with intent, are the many people who simply looted such material and have no idea of their danger. Of course another even will someday happen. I will note that 9-11 did not require WMDs, and neither did the Oklahoma city bombing. On the flip side the Japanese subway poisoning, as well as the US Anthrax attack, while being WMD material attacks, did not come from Jihadists... one was Japanese and the other is currently believed to be the work of an American (at the very least it was OUR ANTHRAX).If you fear another 9-11 coming from a bunch of Jihadists using foreign made WMD tech, you will likely be looking the wrong way when it comes. Uh, while I agree with this sentiment towards Jihadists, it is a bit onesided. All fundamentalists need some help, and that includes here.We went to Iraq, met the enemy, and the enemy was us.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Just a note for you to answer Schraf's list of quotes answering this question. I would have done it, but she beat me to the punch. Material =/= weapons. Remember the W in WMD is Weapons. Thus your comment of material we captured (which as you sources cited note was already known before the invasion), is immaterial.As far as your "can't prove a negative" comment, have you read the ISG conclusions? How about the comments from Bush, Powell, Rice, etc etc (except Rummy I guess)?You are all alone soldier. The first set of facts (up till 1990) detail Saddam's rise to power with the aid of the Republican administration of the US. We fully supported the war with Iran as they had just converted to an Islamic state and threw out our puppet gov't. Saddam was secular and would help keep them at bay. Reagan, Bush Sr, and Rummy had no interest in the Kurds and allowed them to be slaughtered while the left petitioned them to stop supporting this madman.At 1990, we see Saddam cross a line with Bush Sr, by invading Kuwait which was NOT on our agenda. There is evidence he was allowed to believe it was okay to do this, and perhaps he would have been allowed to do it if outcry wasn't as loud.The question to YOU is why did Reagan and Bush Sr not do what they did for oil rich Kuwait, when it was simply the Kurds getting gassed en masse?You have the timeline, you answer the question using your common sense test. This second timeline is wholly fallacious in that it is contructed with mined quotes, to make it appear that Blix was indicating that inspections were not working and that Saddam was successfully hiding weapons/obfuscating inspectors.In fact, while Blix said the sliver of words you managed to mine, he also stated that the Iraq was increasingly cooperative and the inspections process was working.The January quote you have from Blix was NOT an end determination that Iraq had not complied nor ultimately failed to prove anything, as the process was still engaged and Blix had an estimated timeline for completion such that a proper verdict could be rendered. Near the final hours of Bush's rush to war, the French publicly stated that they would be willing to back a resolution openly allowing for use of force, if the inspections were allowed to be completed according to the proper inspection timetable, which was a delay of just a few months.It was Bush's declaration that we were going in anyway, which forced the inspections to end and the inspectors to leave.You are getting worse at this game.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Monk, read the available documents again. It was known before we entered Iraq that absolutely no nuclear WMDs would be found. This was not even a question.Perhaps you should have been paying more attention at the time. Whether he had programs designed to try and make one was a legitimate question. While he certainly had an interest in acquiring the tech and some supplies, the only evidence that he was actively trying to acquire the supplies was throughly discredited.The evidence we provided in October was revealed to be rather embarassing forgeries BEFORE Bush mentioned them in the State of the Union address. The press should have hit him harder but there was enough rumblings that even before we went in, Bush had changed his tune such that we were not worried about nukular things he had now, but rather that he might eventually build 5 to 10 years from now.What was left unsaid is that that would only happen if we allowed him free reign, but no one (not even France) was suggesting that option.If you were suprised that we did not find nukes... you were a definite victim of the disinformation campaign. Anyone slightly in the know, knew better.As far as everything else you wrote, did you vote for Bush in 2000? If you did then you were for his policy against invading Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, correct? Remember he was against nation building programs?And then you can look at the quotes I supplied in my earlier reply to Tal's list of quotes. In that you will find Powell and Rice stating what Bush's stance was regarding the nature of Iraq's threat and the appropriate methods to deal with him.Having a policy in support of regime change does not require invasion, unless you decide that change must be immediate and reckless, rather than in comparison to the threat posed, keeping in mind priorities (we had just been attacked by non Iraqi groups and were still under imminent threat of attack by them), and what we'd need as far as cooperation to get the job done with a minimum loss of life.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

There is nothing you can disagree with, what I stated was a fact. Although other WMDs were a possibility, and certainly there were chemical and bio stocks, as well as a nuclear tech program, before we invaded it was already known that there would be NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS found.This is part of history and was so even before we invaded. It is not relying on monday morning quarterbacking, and if you repeat that you will simply be a liar.The program had been interrupted before it produced anything and everyone including our own intel service knew that they had no materials to produce a nuclear device. If you can remember, or simply go back and read, Powell implied that they were attempting to get the materials they would need from outside. The only material they had inside would be (at best) for dirty bombs... which are NOT nuclear devices.As it turned out the info Powell cited was thoroughly discredited before the invasion and Bush's speeches reflected this change shortly before we went in. If you don't believe me go back and look for yourself. Other weapons were a possibility, nuclear devices were a threat thought to be possible in 5 to 10 years. THAT IS WHAT BUSH SAID... BEFORE THE WAR.What I find sad is the repeated accusations of monday morning quarterbacking I get, when using knowledge that was public before the invasion. You really should be ashamed. Not at all. I agreed with the original position of Bush, Powell, and Rice. You know, the one that got him elected into office. We don't invade because nationbuilding is not a proper use of our military and Iraq presented no imminent threat to us or his neighbors.Furthermore, we were engaged in a hot war with a live enemy that had killed thousands on our soil. My feeling is they were top priority. After that would come threats from N Korea, or at the very least the AQ threat throughout Malaysia/Indonesia/Africa. And I wasn't too hot for Musharaf either.What to do with Iraq? Exactly what was recommended... That was to NOT stick with currently failed policies in Iraq, and revamp them with threat of real force if not complied with. In hopes of?????? Didn't you watch the footage that came out of Iraq? Didn't you see the analyses before and after the war? The Iraqi military was rotted out. Okay, see this is completely untrue and I have already shown this to be untrue, so what are you basing your claim on? Before 9/11 and the rise of the hawks within his administration, Bush and co were arguing NOT to invade as part of a strategy to remove Hussein. He ran for President on a platform that would never have allowed that to happen.There is only so much you can distort the facts before they break.As it stands, I don't have to choose from any of the lame stock dilemma choices you pose as a solution for Iraq. There were more and there were better.But let me get this straight, what you believe was the best solution for securing our nation from attack, was to AVOID putting our full military and intelligence community strength into fighting the organization which attacked the US, killing thousands, and with threats to do more damage, so as to instead attack a nation that posed no imminent threat to us or the region, was an enemy of the group that attacked us, that all intel said would only become a danger (including proliferation of wmd material) if we attacked, because back in 1998 Clinton and nationbuilding democrats who thought regime change would be good decided to vote for such an action?I'm sorry, that sounds good to you?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. While Monk's stock dilemma choices were ridiculous in their specifics, there was merit to the fact that something had to be done with Hussein.He was a tyrant and if not kept in check one way or the other, would rise to become a threat to the region and perhaps one day... us. His ambitions were strong and clear.Is it possible we could have turned him using less stick and more carrot? I think so, as his ambition was not overtly anti-US. Indeed he loved us up till the day we stabbed him in the back after our greenlight to invade Kuwait. But I have to say his nuclear and other nonconventional weapons interests were not something we could simply back away from, even if he was US friendly.Imagine his having acquired such technology and using it against Iran. Even if they are an Islamic gov't not very friendly to the US, that would be a mess.Containment and serious inspections regimes, backed by a nice carrot-stick incentive program, as well as oversight to make sure he could not take money and starve the population, was certainly in order.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)