freshwest
freshwest's JournalOh, I could listen to his beautiful voice all night! Thanks!
Christmas trees are my favorites, in the wild and in forests. The way they grow reminds me of this:
TREES by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Sorry I'm so late, but I bring kitteh pix! Thanks so much for all these and Happy Xmas, SCE!
And last but not least:
Called teabag relation yesterday although I didn't expect to do much good in Glennbeckistan.
Sounded the most rational I'd heard in years after the absolute hysteria I'd endured just before the election. It had been building up since 2008 and got worse from 2010 on. This is the post of what happened in November:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021449535#post15
So now I call her, not expecting much at all. Her mood was completely changed, she was relaxed and happy talking about how they are going to go on Medicare and all of that.
I deliberately hadn't called her for over a month. She didn't feel any need to talk about Obama at all this time. What happened, I didn't dare ask.
An important expansion on George Monbiot's piece:
How Freedom Became TyrannyDecember 19, 2011
Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th December 2011
Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?
In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws(1); big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.
Right-wing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange(2). Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.
So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms...
Check the rest at:
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/
(emboldening mine)
I actually described three things which will destroy the deficit, without dividing, undersand?
Over time the sunsetting of the Bush tax breaks on the wealthy takes back what the subsidized, especially those who are the richest, have been taking from other taxpayers with the defense business, fossil fuel and other breaks, credits and those subsidies have been doing to bleed other people and the government.
The Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, combined with gifts to the fossil fuel industry and defense industries through two wars, gave them thrice the benefit that they had in the Clinton era, or even before that. That is three things that mean the deficit is going down greatly. Not just one thing.
Do you agree that Clinton ended up with a deficit or a surplus from the tax rate in effect before Bush?
Did the Bush wars blow up the debt and the wars were on a credit card, without contribution from the richest who traditionally had their tax rates go up, including the punitive rates that Eisenhower forced on them to pay some of the profits they made off WW2, but were outrageously ignored?
Do fossil fuel subsidies raise the deficit, while they made record profits, impoverishing the tax payers directly? Not only that, did the tightening of money not punish those in the states who had to make up for their needed public works and infrastructure because it was going to wars?
I've read your other data on your other posts, that go on the same theme, but are interesting. I'm speaking generally, if you think it's worth mocking my words, just go on ahead and do so.
Wonderful, healing post. Thanks sheshe!
I love the consequences for them:
1. The tax cuts expire.2. Sequestration ($1 trillion Budget Control Act), which includes $500 billion in defense cuts, automatically kicks in.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022054555#post14
This is what will happen automatically. Tax cuts expire and destroy the deficit. Half a trillion in defense cuts, and it won't be a political gambit - they agreed to it, because of the sacred deficit.
This will be first real cut to the MIC in my lifetime and a move to a peacetime economy.
The deficit that they want paid off by those who have no money to pay, so that the only thing they have left to pay with is their lives. That is wrong and should not be happening. To the GOP, Tea Party and Libertarians, worshippers of Ayn Rand, yes. To Democrats it will never be.
This accomplishes two essential things that these people resisted all year long. Yes, their time may be over with, which is why their media is going to continue to promote armed rebellion. Because war is their only solution to everything, that and the fossil fuel industry is how they became wealthy beyond any need and their method for creating winners and losers:
Thanks to Whovian who used that graphic in a thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2033923
And many thanks to jtuck004 who gave me some links identifying this group:
http://public-accountability.org/2012/12/operation-fiscal-bluff/
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2012
The CEO Campaign to "Fix" the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks
http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/12955-the-ceo-campaign-to-fix-the-debt-a-trojan-horse-for-massive-corporate-tax-breaks
Those are good reads there. This is a big loss for them but they still have plenty of money. The Koch brothers also figure into this, and their shill Grover Nordquist promises to unleash what he calls Tea Party Two because of Obama's resisting.
Koch wealth grew from $7.5 billion to $50 billion in 7 years ripping us off w/ oil speculation
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/21/324969/forbes-koch-brothers-now-worth-50-billion/?mobile=nc
This is worth a read and is from a thread posted by RepublicansRZombies . The last post explains what is happening. The Koches and their followers resist taxes and they brainwashed a generation to think it's evil to fund government. But there is never an end to having to pay. Read the words of AZ Progressive:
This is the Koch Brother's TAX on the American people
They've peddled the ultimate reverse robin hood scheme, taxing the American people at the pump through oil speculation, making $43 billion dollars in the process and putting undeserved hardship on Americans (which is what Republicans love to do.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021276224
This is all shades of what Eisenhower warned us of over half a century ago, of wealthy oil men who he called few and stupid, who he didn't believe would be able to take over the GOP. He was wrong.
The GOP resisted every bill the president asked for in his first few years, with demands he agree to the Keystone pipeline in any budget deals, or personhood riders. He did neither and they will be mounting another 2010 campaign from 2013 thorugh 2014. This battle is ours to lose.
It was Obama's poison pill. They thought they could beat him in November.
Failing that, they would obstruct and find causes to enrage conservatives and simultaneously demoralize Democrats. They won't stop this, but they have suffered almost a mortal blow in this.
First, the Bush tax cuts will finally expire. After all they did to bring in the Tea Party for that one purpose only, and it worked. They fired up the right with the social issues to keep the right and left busy. but it was about the money.
Second, this blow to their masters who make the most profit off fossil fuels and weaponry, and the two are interbred, will divert money from them and back to the people. Voters who supported them because those things were their livelihood, will shift their allegiances. They knew this.
So I think they thought it wouldn't happen, yes. And they did all they could with their media, to prevent it and still obey their masters. If this goes as intended, it is a permanent game changer. It needs to happen as Americans and mankind are facing challenges unknown to us.
But it's not over, there is still a change they can start something that will fire people up to do as they say. Other than that, we may see a lot more peace in this world from this - but not quickly.
I like it, really laid back view. Here's a New Age one:
An entire belief system is being espoused there. Hope no one who was into that is going to be angry or disappointed Saturday morning. Hold on tight kids, every ending really is a beginning.
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