Look, I'm not putting Obama up on a pedastal. However, it would be nice if everyone would quit trying to politically head-shot him. He's made some mistakes, but you have to admit that the man is honestly trying to make the best out of what is a dog's breakfast. Now, if you can show me evidence that Obama KNEW what the situation was with Solyndra before he signed on the dotted line, then I'd be more inclined to side with you.
And yes, I agree that Congress wasn't working out. But I feel that we've swung too far to the Right. I mean, look and Boenher and his push to cut the government down to the bones just so his buddies in the upper crust can enjoy their low taxes. I fell absolutely no sympathy for these people whatsoever. The living standards of this country cost money - money that the Middle Class are starting to lack because the Republicans want to do things like get rid of worker's rights. They're already stripping unions of their rights, so what's next on the chopping block? The forty-hour work week? Overtime? Health insurance? Or maybe of Gingrich or Romney get elected they'll just let all the jobs get outsourced to India, China, and Mexico because the labor's cheaper in those countries, and that's good for the American Corporations. (They'd better be careful or else they won't have anyone to sterilize their phones and prevent an outbreak.)
Okay, Douglass Adams references aside, let's take a good hard look at this. How many people does a major corporation employ to run their operations? Not the industrial side of things, just the red tape and the number crunching. All the white collar work. We'll still have services like grocery stores and gas stations. We'll still have government service jobs (but a lot of those will go away if the Republicans have their way). We'll still have farms, but ten will get you twenty that's mostly gonna be migrant workers. Illegal and otherwise. But my question is this: do these corporate blowhards really think their doing the country a favor by doing away with as much blue collar labor as possible? Do they know and understand that without Americans gainfully employed they will lose their customer base?
It simply cannot work. Americans need to work. And the wealthy need to pay what they can afford to the Nation's coffers. (I think you can live pretty goddamn comfortably on a million or two a year. If they have a problem with it, then maybe they should get together with their buddies and come to the agreement that maybe if they weren't so concerned about turning a huge profit they could afford to lower the prices on things... including luxury items.)
Besides, if we REALLY put effort into getting Americans to work, into making sure that there's good paying jobs out there for them, then that's going to be a huge load off our welfare system. People will be able to set aside their own money for retirement, and that will be a huge load off Social Security.
This is a bit aside, but I have to wonder... Why have we gutted NASA so viciously over the last decade or so? It kinda comes back to Jobs. In the 60's and 70's NASA employed hundreds of thousands (over 400,000 in fact). A veritable army of engineers, mathematicians, scientists, technicians and skilled laborers. We put men on the Moon, sent probes to Venus, Mars, and on a tour of the outer system and beyond. We built a flying U-Haul truck to get ridiculously big things in and out of LEO.
The dream that John F. Kennedy must have died with him. Nixon effectively cancelled Apollo by cutting their budget. I have to wonder what the hell he was thinking. Because of those cuts even more NASA programs got canned, like The Grand Tour. Skylab barely made it in there, as did Voyager, Viking, and the Space Shuttle.
Really, the problem with Americans' apathy towards the space program was that they were expecting the next Big Thing. My mother told me once that after the Apollo Program ended a survey was taken to see just how many people would voluntarily go to a lunar colony. Th result was unprecedented - nearly everyone surveyed said they would do it, even if it meant working in adverse conditions, no real pay (pretty much a socialist system of sorts), and an obligation to start making babies at some point. After putting men on the moon, the next big thing would have been to have an outpost there, eventually followed by a colony. And, of course, missions to Mars. A lunar outpost would have been the perfect jump-off point for that. But instead, we cut back on NASA's budget, feeling our money was better spent elsewhere.
Seriously? Where else is it better spent than on keeping Americans employed? Where else is it better spent then inspiring Americans... no, not simply inspiring. Instead, providing a means to achieve big dreams and lofty goals. It is things like this that make us a great nation. Not the size of our army or the accuracy of our missiles. Its what we build, not what we can destroy.
Republican, Democrat, Left, Right, Socialist, Capitalist... I really am sick and tired of hearing both sides go at it. I don't understand why the hell both sides can't just hammer out some kind of compromise. Granted, there's some things that can't be compromised on. Civil liberties for one. Copyright law, the way things are going, is going to be the end of Freedom of Speech. At least in digital formats. Groups like RIAA and MPAA are really pushing to turn America into the sort of corporate-ruled nightmare we've all dreamed about.
This all goes back to who's paying who. Certainly not the voters. The amount of money Congressmen make off our taxes certainly aren't enough to satisfy them, so they gorge themselves off campaign funds offered by the lobbyists, selling themselves to the highest bidder. You'll give me five-hundred thousand for my campaign if I vote for drilling in national parks in Alaska? You got a deal!
Corporations aren't the only ones. Religious interest groups are just as bad at time. You'll give me a huge sum of money for my campaign if I vote against civil unions for homosexuals? Done!
This needs to end. There should be a cap on how much money any one individual should be able to contribute to a candidate or incumbent's campaign. We cannot have these people being bought by lobbyists!
And yes, I agree that Congress wasn't working out. But I feel that we've swung too far to the Right. I mean, look and Boenher and his push to cut the government down to the bones just so his buddies in the upper crust can enjoy their low taxes. I fell absolutely no sympathy for these people whatsoever. The living standards of this country cost money - money that the Middle Class are starting to lack because the Republicans want to do things like get rid of worker's rights. They're already stripping unions of their rights, so what's next on the chopping block? The forty-hour work week? Overtime? Health insurance? Or maybe of Gingrich or Romney get elected they'll just let all the jobs get outsourced to India, China, and Mexico because the labor's cheaper in those countries, and that's good for the American Corporations. (They'd better be careful or else they won't have anyone to sterilize their phones and prevent an outbreak.)
Okay, Douglass Adams references aside, let's take a good hard look at this. How many people does a major corporation employ to run their operations? Not the industrial side of things, just the red tape and the number crunching. All the white collar work. We'll still have services like grocery stores and gas stations. We'll still have government service jobs (but a lot of those will go away if the Republicans have their way). We'll still have farms, but ten will get you twenty that's mostly gonna be migrant workers. Illegal and otherwise. But my question is this: do these corporate blowhards really think their doing the country a favor by doing away with as much blue collar labor as possible? Do they know and understand that without Americans gainfully employed they will lose their customer base?
It simply cannot work. Americans need to work. And the wealthy need to pay what they can afford to the Nation's coffers. (I think you can live pretty goddamn comfortably on a million or two a year. If they have a problem with it, then maybe they should get together with their buddies and come to the agreement that maybe if they weren't so concerned about turning a huge profit they could afford to lower the prices on things... including luxury items.)
Besides, if we REALLY put effort into getting Americans to work, into making sure that there's good paying jobs out there for them, then that's going to be a huge load off our welfare system. People will be able to set aside their own money for retirement, and that will be a huge load off Social Security.
This is a bit aside, but I have to wonder... Why have we gutted NASA so viciously over the last decade or so? It kinda comes back to Jobs. In the 60's and 70's NASA employed hundreds of thousands (over 400,000 in fact). A veritable army of engineers, mathematicians, scientists, technicians and skilled laborers. We put men on the Moon, sent probes to Venus, Mars, and on a tour of the outer system and beyond. We built a flying U-Haul truck to get ridiculously big things in and out of LEO.
The dream that John F. Kennedy must have died with him. Nixon effectively cancelled Apollo by cutting their budget. I have to wonder what the hell he was thinking. Because of those cuts even more NASA programs got canned, like The Grand Tour. Skylab barely made it in there, as did Voyager, Viking, and the Space Shuttle.
Really, the problem with Americans' apathy towards the space program was that they were expecting the next Big Thing. My mother told me once that after the Apollo Program ended a survey was taken to see just how many people would voluntarily go to a lunar colony. Th result was unprecedented - nearly everyone surveyed said they would do it, even if it meant working in adverse conditions, no real pay (pretty much a socialist system of sorts), and an obligation to start making babies at some point. After putting men on the moon, the next big thing would have been to have an outpost there, eventually followed by a colony. And, of course, missions to Mars. A lunar outpost would have been the perfect jump-off point for that. But instead, we cut back on NASA's budget, feeling our money was better spent elsewhere.
Seriously? Where else is it better spent than on keeping Americans employed? Where else is it better spent then inspiring Americans... no, not simply inspiring. Instead, providing a means to achieve big dreams and lofty goals. It is things like this that make us a great nation. Not the size of our army or the accuracy of our missiles. Its what we build, not what we can destroy.
Republican, Democrat, Left, Right, Socialist, Capitalist... I really am sick and tired of hearing both sides go at it. I don't understand why the hell both sides can't just hammer out some kind of compromise. Granted, there's some things that can't be compromised on. Civil liberties for one. Copyright law, the way things are going, is going to be the end of Freedom of Speech. At least in digital formats. Groups like RIAA and MPAA are really pushing to turn America into the sort of corporate-ruled nightmare we've all dreamed about.
This all goes back to who's paying who. Certainly not the voters. The amount of money Congressmen make off our taxes certainly aren't enough to satisfy them, so they gorge themselves off campaign funds offered by the lobbyists, selling themselves to the highest bidder. You'll give me five-hundred thousand for my campaign if I vote for drilling in national parks in Alaska? You got a deal!
Corporations aren't the only ones. Religious interest groups are just as bad at time. You'll give me a huge sum of money for my campaign if I vote against civil unions for homosexuals? Done!
This needs to end. There should be a cap on how much money any one individual should be able to contribute to a candidate or incumbent's campaign. We cannot have these people being bought by lobbyists!