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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez


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6 hours ago, EMAWesome said:

I'm implying that if I was a middle or upper class minority I would be a tad bit pissed at your post.  Also, if I was a poor white person I would a tad bit pissed at your post.

You are hilariously stupid. Please keep it up.

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23 hours ago, EMAWesome said:

It's a moot point anyway according to the U.N. we've all been fucked for almost two decades now.

https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0

 

 

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He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

Narrator: Its gone beyond human control.

 

You really are one dumb mother fucker. Wake up.

We can no longer stop global warming. We can only mitigate its effects slightly. The choice is now "Will central texas summers be only 5 or 10 degrees hotter?", not "Will central texas summers be hotter?'

Your strategy of deny deny deny deny until its too late for a solution worked. Congratulations.

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23 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Compared to the rest of the poor in the world they're all a bunch of Rockafellers. We have the best poor people in the world.  You wanna see poor, visit the "informal housing" in South Africa.

I'm going to use your post to target this line of thought. The notion that poverty and income inequality can be satiated or dismissed by looking at the availability of consumer products and relative comparisons to other nations and other eras in history:

Let's start with Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations:

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A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct.

See! Why should a laborer complain about his squalid existence? After all, no one has ever had access to the goods he can now acquire. Also, have you seen how things are in Africa?

All of this comes from this article I just read ( here.)  I'm sure many will have objections to his anti-capitalist position, and others will outright dismiss due to the author himself, but there are some interesting points:

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Specifically, as the scholars Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer reported in their 2015 book $2.00 a Day, the number of American households subsisting on almost no cash income at all doubled in the decade-and-a-half following welfare reform. Edin and Shaefer counted 1.5 million households surviving on less than $2 a day in 2011. They did not count how many of those households had color televisions because you can’t eat a color television.

You can’t even really sell one for cash because the reason they are so common even in the poorest households is that TVs have become incredibly cheap. That’s the story that allows this alternate narrative of American prosperity to keep reproducing itself. Over the last several decades, thanks to regular advancements in technology and supply chain logistics, capitalism has indeed made it possible for many more Americans, including the poor and especially the middle class, to afford what once seemed like luxuries.

 

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Yet still, despite the dirt cheap vacuums and flat-screen TVs, something seems wrong. People keep complaining about “income inequality” and writing books about how grindingly difficult it is for an alarmingly large number of Americans to get by.

Conservatives seem to have noticed that their primary argument—why do you feel so poor when you have such a large TV?—has had trouble making inroads among people who actually experience life in the United States and who don’t work within the think tank–lobbying firm–Council of Economic Advisers circuit. They’ve noticed, too, that while TVs, for example, are quite cheap, things essential to live—and things essential to “get ahead” in the United States—are only becoming more expensive.

The American Enterprise Institute even produced a chart illustrating the problem. It shows the prices of things like new cars, clothing, toys, and TVs staying steady or dramatically falling relative to the inflation rate, while food, housing, child care, and—especially—medical care skyrocket in price. If you want an explanation of why non-wealthy Americans feel so stretched thin even in a time of supposed abundance, there it is. They can afford to get their kids toys but not bachelor’s degrees.

 

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58 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm going to use your post to target this line of thought. The notion that poverty and income inequality can be satiated or dismissed by looking at the availability of consumer products and relative comparisons to other nations and other eras in history:

Let's start with Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations:

See! Why should a laborer complain about his squalid existence? After all, no one has ever had access to the goods he can now acquire. Also, have you seen how things are in Africa?

All of this comes from this article I just read ( here.)  I'm sure many will have objections to his anti-capitalist position, and others will outright dismiss due to the author himself, but there are some interesting points:

 

 

You might have missed the sarcasm of the post.  Poor is poor regardless of where you are in the world. My point is that what we consider as poor here would be almost middle class in other parts of the world.

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25 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

You might have missed the sarcasm of the post.  Poor is poor regardless of where you are in the world. My point is that what we consider as poor here would be almost middle class in other parts of the world.

You are the one that missed the point of his post. 

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2 hours ago, Foosters said:

They can afford to get their kids toys but not bachelor’s degrees.

And that's really the point and it's not an accident. Toys and gadgets and shit like that, in the context of this "prosperity" nonsense, appeal only to the very superficial-minded. Those are shiny objects that have a way of distracting the easily distractible. 

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21 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Vacations, income, and retirement?  Who wants any of those horrible things?  She's a monster.  Everyone would prefer to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week until death for a subsistence wage with no days off.

The most ridiculous thing is that his audience is mostly retired people collecting social security who are screaming at the TV "How dare those millennials want the same things I've been given!"

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21 hours ago, Chrispy said:

If the Green New Deal can eliminate bovine farts, are humans next? Asking for my wife. 

Actually I think they are arguing to increase bovine farts so that the outside external air quality would equal the inside internal Crispy fart air quality of your house.  Asking for your wife.

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On 3/5/2019 at 10:23 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

It would be awesome if we had more conservatives that could argue and defend their positions with thoughtful analysis. 

Sadly true.  Unfortunately, the GOP hasn't put forth a defensible position on anything in a decade or more.  Well, wait, prison reform.  They did that, in a very half-ass fashion, but they did it.

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On 3/6/2019 at 9:55 AM, jimmyjazz said:

Good lord.  Let's walk through this:  there are more minorities than whites below the poverty level.  If we assume climate change adversely affects the poor as compared to middle or upper class Americans, then we can easily conclude climate change will disproportionately affect minorities.  

Here, look at these numbers and try some simple arithmetic.  We're all rooting for you:

 Picture

 

You are right about climate change affecting the poor more than any other class. All of the solutions being proposed or implemented are resulting in higher food and energy costs which is another regressive tax. 

If I were an advocate of legislation to control climate change, I would avoid the impact on the lower economic class argument. 

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1 hour ago, FondrenRoad said:

Vacations, income, and retirement?  Who wants any of those horrible things?  She's a monster.  Everyone would prefer to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week until death for a subsistence wage with no days off.

The most ridiculous thing is that his audience is mostly retired people collecting social security who are screaming at the TV "How dare those millennials want the same things I've been given!"

my dad is exactly like this.  he has the best American Socialism has to offer - not one (social security) but two (government pension) guaranteed paychecks until he dies and his healthcare is free (tricare) without any costs for his lifetime.  but "by god he's here to protect America from the socialists".... by watching FoxNews and posting vile shit on facebook no less.  makes me want to fucking puke.  I'm glad he got his, but the hypocrisy is sickening.  and for the record, I have zero issues with folks having to pay for healthcare as long as its truly affordable, and I have zero issues with any guaranteed paycheck for retirement being low and just enough to scrape by unless one does the hard work that comes with getting better.  I just can't stand the patchwork of socialism we already have and the inefficient healthcare system we have and the jacked up retirement system we already have.  there's enough going through the system to rework the whole damn thing intelligently and making it work for everyone.  him included.

Edited by troph
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6 minutes ago, troph said:

my dad is exactly like this.  he has the best American Socialism has to offer - not one (social security) but two (government pension) guaranteed paychecks until he dies and his healthcare is free (tricare) without any costs for his lifetime.  but "by god he's here to protect America from the socialists".... by watching FoxNews and posting vile shit on facebook no less.  makes me want to fucking puke.  I'm glad he got his, but the hypocrisy is sickening.  and for the record, I have zero issues with folks having to pay for healthcare as long as its truly affordable, and I have zero issues with any guaranteed paycheck for retirement being low and just enough to scrape by unless one does the hard work that comes with getting better.  I just can't stand the patchwork of socialism we already have and the inefficient healthcare system we have and the jacked up retirement system we already have.  there's enough going through the system to rework the whole damn thing intelligently and making it work for everyone.  him included.

 

Show_your_work_Sticker_300x300.jpg?heigh

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3 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

You might have missed the sarcasm of the post.  Poor is poor regardless of where you are in the world. My point is that what we consider as poor here would be almost middle class in other parts of the world.

Almost middle class? 

$32,400 a year and you are in the top 1% of the world. 

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1 hour ago, JimmyHoffa said:

 

Show_your_work_Sticker_300x300.jpg?heigh

Rich don’t need SS only the disabled and poor unable to work at the end of life.  We can graduate the payments for those like my dad who could make it without but is in no way rich. 

affordable healthcare - look at the rest of the western world.  Don’t want single payor? Well, that’s what works everywhere else and it’s noticably more affordable.  We talk about Medicare but the payor of last resort in many cases is a local governmental entity - in Texas its counties unless something is done - like in Travis county the hospital district.  The money flows through the system cut out the insurers, redirect local dollars through the feds and have one system. 

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3 hours ago, troph said:

Rich don’t need SS only the disabled and poor unable to work at the end of life.  We can graduate the payments for those like my dad who could make it without but is in no way rich. 

affordable healthcare - look at the rest of the western world.  Don’t want single payor? Well, that’s what works everywhere else and it’s noticably more affordable.  We talk about Medicare but the payor of last resort in many cases is a local governmental entity - in Texas its counties unless something is done - like in Travis county the hospital district.  The money flows through the system cut out the insurers, redirect local dollars through the feds and have one system. 

I'm fine with a graduated SS payment system. As long as I have the option to opt out of paying it and forfeit whatever I've already paid in.

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Omar is so much better than AOC.  

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As she saw it, the party ostensibly committed to progressive values had become complicit in perpetuating the status quo. Omar says the “hope and change” offered by Barack Obama was a mirage. Recalling the “caging of kids” at the U.S.-Mexico border and the “droning of countries around the world” on Obama’s watch, she argues that the Democratic president operated within the same fundamentally broken framework as his Republican successor.

“We can’t be only upset with Trump. … His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar says. “And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/ilhan-omar-dean-phillips-minnesota-democratic-party-225696

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12 hours ago, housious said:

I'm fine with a graduated SS payment system. As long as I have the option to opt out of paying it and forfeit whatever I've already paid in.

 

LOL. No kidding. 

Cue the 10 men drinking beer and splitting the bill story..........

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I was listening to Michael Berry for a few minutes on the way home yesterday and he was discussing Omar, and while the times I have listened to him in the past he has not been afraid to mock AOC, it was interesting to contract the difference in tone in the way he (and i'm sure many others on the right) criticize AOC and Omar.  AOC is characterized as a dumbass lightweight but someone who does damage through her sheer ignorance and failure to grasp why her beliefs are incorrect.  On the other hand, the way Omar was discussed was far more serious in tone and incredibly racist - basically implying that she is some kind of crypto-Islamist seeking to destroy America from within.  There was real hatred there.  

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2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

On the other hand, the way Omar was discussed was far more serious in tone and incredibly racist - basically implying that she is some kind of crypto-Islamist seeking to destroy America from within.  There was real hatred there.   

And the Democrats aren't smart enough to lean into it. It's absolutely pathetic and makes me think nothing in this country is going to get better.

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13 hours ago, housious said:

I'm fine with a graduated SS payment system. As long as I have the option to opt out of paying it and forfeit whatever I've already paid in.

Only if I can opt out of paying into the military and forfeit what I've already paid in. I would also like to opt out of what I've paid into FEMA. Of course I'll be willing to forfeit whatever I've already paid into FEMA.

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1 minute ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Only if I can opt out of paying into the military and forfeit what I've already paid in. I would also like to opt out of what I've paid into FEMA. Of course I'll be willing to forfeit whatever I've already paid into FEMA.

I wonder how the budget would look if we were allowed to choose where our tax money goes. I bet we end up with better social services and a smaller military. We also end up with unpaid congressmen.

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12 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

And the Democrats aren't smart enough to lean into it. It's absolutely pathetic and makes me think nothing in this country is going to get better.

I have a very progressive Jewish friend from Minneapolis and he despises her.  He is absolutely convinced she is a hard-core anti-Semite.  It's a very complicated story for some people.  I can't even try to get a clear bead on his disgust because he gets very emotional about it whenever the subject is broached.  I've given up.  I honestly don't know what to think of her.

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10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I have a very progressive Jewish friend from Minneapolis and he despises her.  He is absolutely convinced she is a hard-core anti-Semite.  It's a very complicated story for some people.  I can't even try to get a clear bead on his disgust because he gets very emotional about it whenever the subject is broached.  I've given up.  I honestly don't know what to think of her.

Please tell me how her actual comments are anti-Semitic.  Do you think criticizing the KSA and its lobby is anti-Arab?

 

 

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This is awesome stuff.

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And sometimes… there are cities in my state where the gas stations have written on their bathrooms “assassinate Ilhan Omar”. I have people driving around my district looking for my home, for my office, causing me harm. I have people every single day on Fox News and everywhere, posting that I am a threat to this country. SO I know what fear looks like. The masjid I pray in in Minnesota got bombed by two domestic white terrorists. So I know what it feels to be someone who is of a faith that is vilified. I know what it means to be someone whose ethnicity that is vilified. I know what it feels to be of a race that is, like I am an immigrant, so I don’t have some of the historical drama of some of my sisters and brothers have in this country, but I know what it means for people to just see me as a black person, and to treat me as less than a human.

And so, when people say ‘you are bringing hate’, I know what their intention is. Their intention is to make sure that our lights are dimmed. That we walk around with our heads bowed. That we lower our face and our voice. But we have news for people. You can call us any kind of name. You can threaten us any kind of way. Rashida and I are not ourselves. Every single day we walk in the halls of Congress and we have people who have never had the opportunity to walk there walking with us. So we’re here, we’re here to stay and represent all the people who have been silenced for many decades and many generations. And we’re here to fight for the people of our district who want to make sure that there is actual prosperity, actual prosperity, being guaranteed. Because there is a direct correlation between not having clean water, and starting endless wars. It’s all about the profit and who gets benefit.

There’s a direct correlation between corporations that are getting rich, and the fact that we have students who are shackled with debt. There is a direct correlation between the White House and the people who are benefiting from detention beds that are profitized. So, what people are afraid of is not that there are two Muslims in Congress. What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress that have their eyes wide open, that have their feet to the ground, that know what they’re talking about, that are fearless, and that understand that they have the same election certificate that everyone in Congress does. 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-ilhan-omar-25142297

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