General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI don't know about you but I am getting sick of the wealthy in this country
and if we ever have an other country invasion I think giving them your bunker location might be interesting as you are the richest ones to plunder. Oh I see you think using the poor and middle class to fight and die for you will work. We know how important and "special" you are.
sop
(19,185 posts)Dave Bowman
(7,403 posts)C Moon
(13,721 posts)We're definitely in a class war.
Dave Bowman
(7,403 posts)TheProle
(4,061 posts)ret5hd
(22,580 posts)when they retreat to their gated enclaves
we only have to keep them from getting back out, and the gates can be locked from the outside also.
justsomeguy01
(53 posts)In the age of telecommunications and internet they can do great damage without ever leaving their mansions/bunkers
ret5hd
(22,580 posts)usonian
(26,461 posts)
Ponietz
(4,400 posts)OGBuzz
(526 posts)It's not like they use any public services such as roads, airports, water, electricity, waste management, police, firefighting, EMS, etc., etc., etc. The nerve of us to ask the rich to pay their fair share to maintain everything that keeps society going. Shame on us all!
OGBuzz
(526 posts)ColoringFool
(1,002 posts)🧶🧶🧶🧶 1️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣
Figarosmom
(13,104 posts)We ARE way past the HALL OF MIRRORS.
sop
(19,185 posts)
ChicagoTeamster
(1,209 posts)wealthy are doing great in their stock portfolios and we can't let the government get more of their measly 15% tax that they'll be paying on all of this after all of their other tax breaks
OldBaldy1701E
(11,475 posts)Where have you been for the last 50 years or so?
(I am joking around.)
It is not a question of 'thinking' the world would be better off, it is the truth. The fact that we have convinced so many other countries that this corrupted version of capitalism is anything other than a rich person scam is what is the most horrifying aspect of the 'legacy' of the United States.
We are going to be historically seen as no different than any other two-bit conquerors at the rate we are going. That is partly due to what I just said. Our desire to make the entire planet a capitalistic nightmare so we can control it all.
History is not going to be kind about it.
Bluetus
(3,048 posts)OK, if a person is just getting out of high school and only now coming to the realization that the rich have been exploiting this count since -- well since forever, welcome aboard. But if a person is an adult who has ostensibly living in the real world, for a decade or two, it is way past time to wake the fuck up.
We don't need "course corrections." We don't need a "return to normal". We don't need "solutions ar the margins".
We need to be thinking in revolutionary terms. And let's give the MAGA people some credit. They aren't very good at processing information to arrive at clear understandings and appropriate solutions, but dammit, they DO understand this system is really fucked up and we are all in big trouble if we can't overthrow this class of oligarchs
We actually have a lot more in common with the MAGA people than we do with the "moderates" and "Institutionalists" who have enabled this fascist machine to establish itself over the past 45 years. Talarico, Platner, AOC are talking to these people in terms they can understand. Trump is losing this crown. We need to take this opportunity to educate them and bring them to our side. I am not talking about the Confederate flag-waving racists and gun-totin' nut cases. They are lost causes. But there are many who have felt an affinity with MAGA because they sense just how fucked up the system is and nobody else was acknowledging that.
Eat the Rich.
Stargazer99
(3,547 posts)the training did not work on you, I conclude you must be more intelligent than the average citizen
VanceFan
(149 posts)Mangione had the right solution.
MichMan
(17,353 posts)That's fucked up. No normal person would advocate for something like that.
Skittles
(172,670 posts)you're for gunning people down in the streets without due process? WTF
Grim Chieftain
(1,982 posts)The others, not so much.
I'm reminded of an encounter my husband had a few months ago when the lottery was very high. He was at the liquor store and several people buying lottery tickets were discussing what they would do with the money if they won. An elderly gentleman turned to my husband and said "I'd walk up and down Main Street and give $1,000 to each person I pass". That pretty much says it all. Some people are about "ME", but the truly good among us are about "WE".
cksmithy
(514 posts)A married couple, who started their own company, worked hard and were good people, lived in a working class neighborhood. Well, once when the lottery was really high, Mrs. Custodian, said she would buy up a lot of houses and help get homeless people back on their feet. They had adult children, married, doing the best they could, but when the conversation turned to the lottery, she wanted to help truly desperately poor. She didn't say she was going to spend the money on herself or her family.
Grim Chieftain
(1,982 posts)Thank heaven for them. Thanks for sharing this, cksmithy.
jmbar2
(8,131 posts)Extreme wealth isolates people, and shields them from exposure to life outside of their bubbles.
They don't fill their gas tanks, shop for groceries, cook, raise their own children, maintain a house, garden, clean, wander around a fair or festival without a phalanx of guards, create household budgets, go to potlucks, help out a neighbor, comfort someone who has just been laid off, or injured on the job.
They have NONE of the life experiences or exposure that would help them care about, or even think about other human beings. Their spawn grow up in the same bubble and never leave.
Let them wallow inside their bubble, but NEVER give them power over other people's lives.
Fil1957
(838 posts)into a selfish, power hungry, psychopathic fascist".
Skittles
(172,670 posts)hey, is that a pun?
Response to Stargazer99 (Original post)
kimbutgar This message was self-deleted by its author.
tetedur
(1,427 posts)They will not be happy until they have it all. That is the source of all struggles today.
Skittles
(172,670 posts)do these people EVER have enough fucking money?
lastlib
(28,550 posts)"the first thing we do, let's kill all the billionaires."
I approve this message......
what is that, some kind of Mangione thing?
lastlib
(28,550 posts)however you want to interpret it.
displacedvermoter
(4,947 posts)lastlib
(28,550 posts)...and I have YET to see one use their tax cut to improve the levees around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
BlueTsunami2018
(5,056 posts)And yet, somehow, were allowing them to rule everything and return nothing to the People. We get nothing for our tax money. No healthcare, education, food security, housing, jobs
..nothing.
Theyve managed to convince huge swaths of the country that not only is this acceptable but its desirable. This is how it should be, which is absurd. Were allowing the greediest, most self-centered wealth hoarding scumbags to present themselves as victims. I mean, what the fuck are we doing?
We need a complete overhaul of this entire system.
misanthrope
(9,610 posts)And they aren't getting any more tolerable.
gulliver
(14,059 posts)Capitalism is as inevitable as DNA, gravity, and an oxygen-containing atmosphere. The only choice you have is how you regulate capitalism. The human species is natively capitalistic, even in intangible values.
Haggard Celine
(17,900 posts)Capitalism is hard to avoid. It's a far-from-perfect system, but nobody's come up with anything better yet. Just about every country has capitalism to some degree, but they regulate it in different ways. How you regulate makes all the difference in the world. Capitalism in the U.S. needs to be regulated more. Some people seem to think that the few safeguards we have will keep the stock market from crashing again and causing a depression. It can happen, and it probably will happen. We probably won't do any serious adjustments to our economy until we have another depression. Seems we can't get anything done until we have a catastrophe.
GoodRaisin
(11,024 posts)That is how bad I hate them. Im to the left of Bernie on this issue. I want to tax these greedy people out of existence.
PCB66
(172 posts)with anybody making more money than me.
I don't like Bill Gates. To me he is an asshole. However, he created a company that employs tens of thousands of very high paying jobs. He also pays more in taxes in one day than I will in my entire life.
I'm also using his products to type this post.
I live in a neighborhood where almost everybody is richer than me. I get along with them. I want them to continue to make money so they can pay Social Security and Medicare for my wife and me.
I have a lot of problem with many kinds of injustice but hating on the rich ain't one of them.
AZ8theist
(7,593 posts)MichMan
(17,353 posts)Quanto Magnus
(1,373 posts)are mostly made up of sociopathic leeches.....
somsai
(261 posts)Democratic politicians too.
I'd say the 10% at least, more likely the 20%. We've become so anti tax that no one wants to pay anymore. We've cut out our social insurance to the point of almost a million homeless. No one, including many in our party, want to pay taxes. Taxes are how we build roads and clean the environment. We've cut the incomes of the working class to the point where they'll vote for Trump.
modrepub
(4,176 posts)Like there's nothing we can do to reverse this. We outnumber them. If we don't like what's going on we can change it but we seem resigned to our fate.
As someone else put it, we're being "managed".
LogDog75
(1,360 posts)Don't get me wrong, but we too often use ambiguous terms like "rich," "wealthy," "uber rich," to describe those whose assets run into the millions or billions. What we don't do is quantify what it means to be "wealthy." For example, I live and owned a home in a small city where the average housing price is over $2 million; does that make me "wealthy" or "rich?" For me, someone who is wealthy are those who assets exceed $10 million and who make over $500,000.
We, supposedly, have a tax system that is progressive so those who earn more pay more in taxes but in reality the tax laws are written to protect those with tens of millions/billions of dollars and not the average or lower income earners. I believe those should and must pay more in taxes since they tend to use their wealth to influence government officials at all levels to benefit themselves and others like them. So, if they're going to use their wealth to unduly influence government then the price for that influence is higher taxes on them. I'm in favor of the federal tax rate of 45-50% with few deductions for those making over $500,000.
I know there's been talk of a billionaire's tax that is, IMO, unrealistic. The problem is how do you identify the assets of a billionaire? Does anyone actually think they'll tell the government all their assets? For me, it would be best to raise the tax rate on these people with few deductions and at the state level, impose a 1 - 5% increase in state tax rate. That way, the tax wouldn't be a one-time tax and the federal and state governments would receive more money to address the needs of their citizens.
moondust
(21,344 posts)(Feel free to disagree. I think it explains a lot.)
The Founders opposed democracy or any form of majority rule. They instead created a republic, based on the model provided by Plato[1]. Plato argued that only a small minority had the required virtue to govern. This small minority would be protected by a second class--the soldiers. Both the rulers and the soldiers would be supported by the largest class--the workers. This was the model for Athens, which was a slave-based society[2].
The key Founders and eight of the first ten presidents were slave owners[3]. Contrary to popular belief, the Founders did not think that "all men are created equal." This phrase comes from John Locke[4]. It omits the key part of Locke's claim--that men are only equal if they are of the same class and species.
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_and_the_United_States_Founding_Fathers
"required virtue to govern"?
The Tech Bros would seem to be the latest gang of predatory control freaks who want to own and control everything.
Ford_Prefect
(8,658 posts)proud patriot
(102,562 posts)I'm so sick of their greed and utter lack of social responsibility.
Buns_of_Fire
(19,210 posts)https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221231194
Notable because they're so rare.