This could be the end for now.

[lsiberian]

If you were to come to Milwaukee and say the Milwaukee Public Schools aren't so bad, people would look at you like they were a dog watching TV. Their annual budget is in the $1.7B range and they're about the worst in the country. The Mayor and Governor want the city to take over the school system because it's that bad. The problem with that is the fact that the governor is a lying sack of crap and while you'd think that as a former State Atty General he would know the State's general Council should be licensed in this state to practice law, he acted like it was news to him, even though e-mails have been presented that prove he knew her status.

The interesting thing is that, as far as I know, MKE is the last city in the US to have a Socialist mayor. There hasn't been a Republican since 1908 and for the 1912-1916 term, they had one who's listed as Republican/Democrat fusion (couldn't make up his mind?). The rest in the 20th Century were Democrat or Socialist. (WTH am I doing here?????????)

Oddly enough, I read that when Mayor Daniel Hoan was in office, the city was in hte middle of a huge budget crisis and he scaled back on many areas, bringing the city back into a healthy financial position again. That's not typical of how things are done here.

If there's anything I do like about what I have heard about Communist countries, it's that they require people to go to school and actually know the material. What I don't like is the fact that they tend to be rather choosy about what information is presented to the students, in terms of what version of history they learn. Math and science are much less debatable unless you get into the theoretical physics area.

This to me is the example of one group having too much power. Regardless power needs to shift between groups to keep things going the right way.

Still while MKE has a bad education system relative to the rest of our nation let's not forget it's much better than the education systems in Calcutta.

What's bad here is relatively good compared to other places in the world. Don't forget that.

Also I can guarantee you teacher's are working very hard to educate the children in our nation. My wife works in one of the poorest districts in our state(well managed actually) yet she's got a school that was 1 kid in 1 category away from being the top status in our state for excellence.

Regardless of the system you need competent people running it. I think that plays more into success than the method.

 

[lsiberian]

this explains a lot of your posts and the thought process (or lack thereof) in them. you don't really need to think about anything if you view the world in terms of black and white.

I think it's a bit unnecessary to view his post that way.

He's seeing communism as what the Soviets had and it sucked believe me.

We are seeing communism in a more pure marxist like form.

I still think we have to be very careful and am ready to vote any government out of office when necessary.

 

[aberkowitz]

Every system fails. It's ups and downs with a slow progression towards up for humanity in general. By what metric does one claim it's the best there has ever been? The U.S. is very young by comparison to many. I'm fairly certain we will not outlast some of the greatest civilizations that inhabited the Earth.

Totally agreed. Some form of the Roman empire was around for 1200 years, the Ottomans were around for 600, the Assyrians were around for 1400, and technically the Chinese dynasty system ran virtually uninterrupted for almost 3000 years (with the exception of the Mongols).

At some point each of these systems failed because they did not evolve. As a country, we need to be open to new ideas and change in order to evolve over time and not fall into the same traps that every single one of our ancient ancestors fell into.

 

[Tomorrow]

Well, here you go. Democrat congresswoman Watson from California. Looks like a new Democratic Party to me. What do you all think of what she's saying? Should we embrace her concept?

 

[markw]

I'm quite aware of the 2 systems thank you. I'm also aware that extremes of these systems only work in Utopian societies with perfect people. The fact is all governments and economies are a cosmopolitan makeup of the different systems. There is no denying our public school system is a communist like institution.

FYI Marx is probably the best reading to understand communism. Why not go straight to the primary source?

No, you don't know the meaning of communism. If you were, you would know that the word you should be using is "socialism". There's a big, big difference.

"Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists assert that both capitalism and private ownership of the means of production must be done away with as soon as possible in order to make sure a classless society, the communist ideal, is formed. Socialists, however, see capitalism as a possible part of the ideal state and believe that socialism can exist in a capitalist society. In fact, one of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within the society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as the capitalism is controlled somehow by a centralized planning system.

Another difference between socialism and communism is centered on who controls the structure of economy. Where socialism generally aims to have as many people as possible influence how the economy works, communism seeks to limit that number to a smaller group."

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-socialism-and-communism.htm

So, let's examine very carefully what we have now, and where this mook has us headed, what with all his "czars".

 

[Tomorrow]

Or maybe you like Mark Lloyd, Obama's FCC Diversity Czar. Note how he praises the Chavez takeover of the government and media in Venezuela while doing away with those pesky business people and private media outlets. He'll take care of our media alright. No more free speech allowed! Is he good for this country? You decide.

 

[highfigh]

I don't view anything in black and white, but rather right and wrong. communism is dead wrong! To think otherwise is ignorant at best and a total disregard to history.

Feel free to enlighten us all with what good communism might be. I would love to hear about this utopia.

This is about the only thing I like about the original concept of communism:

..."the mentality behind Communism is to keep the corporations from having too much political control."

The short life of most utopian societies is pretty odd, I think. They thought they had everything figured out and someone always tries to find a way to get more. Pullman (of the railroad car fame) tried it and I don't think it lasted more than 10 years. It was supposed to be a place where his workers could live, have good influences and become more productive, but he reduced their pay without reducing their expenses (he rented to employees and they lived in his houses). The link tells more of the story.

http://www.chicagohs.org/history/pullman.html

Here are some others that didn't work for various reasons:
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/utopia/utopcom.html

The real issue is whether Socialist aspects should be brought into our form of government. Corporations have too much power, through their paying lobbyists to influence politicians and this is something the general population has no access to. However, if our corporations all went elsewhere for they manufacturing operations, this country would be completely screwed in the event of a large war, especially if the time between being a manufacturing country and a non-manufacturing country is more than a decade, or so.

I can't think of a single Communist or Socialist-run country where the people have the freedoms we do and with more government controls, more freedoms are removed.

 

[Tomorrow]

Come on you guys of profound wisdom. Is Dave McC the only person who wants to talk about what this means?! Why is Obama saying this? Who is the target enemy? Why do we need this? Why do we need to spend trillions of dollars on such an idea?

I'm all ears. Is the sky falling? I'd really like a NON-scary, but reasoned answer for this little bit of "CHANGE".

 

[lsiberian]

This is about the only thing I like about the original concept of communism:

..."the mentality behind Communism is to keep the corporations from having too much political control."

The short life of most utopian societies is pretty odd, I think. They thought they had everything figured out and someone always tries to find a way to get more. Pullman (of the railroad car fame) tried it and I don't think it lasted more than 10 years. It was supposed to be a place where his workers could live, have good influences and become more productive, but he reduced their pay without reducing their expenses (he rented to employees and they lived in his houses). The link tells more of the story.

http://www.chicagohs.org/history/pullman.html

Here are some others that didn't work for various reasons:
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/utopia/utopcom.html

The real issue is whether Socialist aspects should be brought into our form of government. Corporations have too much power, through their paying lobbyists to influence politicians and this is something the general population has no access to. However, if our corporations all went elsewhere for they manufacturing operations, this country would be completely screwed in the event of a large war, especially if the time between being a manufacturing country and a non-manufacturing country is more than a decade, or so.

I can't think of a single Communist or Socialist-run country where the people have the freedoms we do and with more government controls, more freedoms are removed.

To become Communists these are the generally applicable steps

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.


I can see some of your arguments but much is missing especially the property distribution parts.

Only 2 out of the 10 are even arguable positions to attribute to Obama in my view and most certainly the 10th is good. This is straight from Marx's communist manifesto Chapter 2.

It seems a lot of hype too me to call him a communist. A socialist according to Mark W's definition seems to be a good thing in my view. Makes me wonder if that author is a pro-socialist person.

 

[highfigh]

This to me is the example of one group having too much power. Regardless power needs to shift between groups to keep things going the right way.

Still while MKE has a bad education system relative to the rest of our nation let's not forget it's much better than the education systems in Calcutta.

What's bad here is relatively good compared to other places in the world. Don't forget that.

Also I can guarantee you teacher's are working very hard to educate the children in our nation. My wife works in one of the poorest districts in our state(well managed actually) yet she's got a school that was 1 kid in 1 category away from being the top status in our state for excellence.

Regardless of the system you need competent people running it. I think that plays more into success than the method.

"This to me is the example of one group having too much power."

This doesn't work well with any kind of Communism or Socialism. It's also bad for a former Constitutional Republic.

The thing that really dictates who is elected in any city is the demographics of each area. While MKE has some small areas where wealthy people live, the vast majority of the city is low-moderate income people who have generally been blue collar. There aren't that many blue collar conservatives, so in the city, Democrats rule. Also, MPS makes all of the teachers live in the city. Outside of the city, it's a completely different story and we can't vote for their mayor.

 

[highfigh]

Come on you guys of profound wisdom. Is Dave McC the only person who wants to talk about what this means?! Why is Obama saying this? Who is the target enemy? Why do we need this? Why do we need to spend trillions of dollars on such an idea?

I'm all ears. Is the sky falling? I'd really like a NON-scary, but reasoned answer for this little bit of "CHANGE".

He knows exactly what the Posse Comitatus Act does (it's a post Reconstruction rule limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement) and if he does anything that causes the masses to rise up, he wants a way to stop it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

His 'Civilian Force" would be used against us. The military are for protecting us from the outside only. This is extremely dangerous ground. First, they would need to remove the guns from circulation and hte ones they can't remove, they'll want to know the location. Then, the Civilian Force is rolled out. Once these two events take place, we'll have no power against the government. They can shut the cell phone system off and call it an emergency and if they get their way with the internet, communication efficiently with anything more than a CB will be extremely difficult. Even CBs can be jammed. If Morse code is brought back using signal lights, it wouldn't be hard to stop that, either.

Anyone can call me paranoid but I don't like where this could go. I also don't like the Japanese electing a Liberal government so suddenly.

 

[aberkowitz]

I can't think of a single Communist or Socialist-run country where the people have the freedoms we do and with more government controls, more freedoms are removed.

Actually- the first few years of Bolshevik Russia were run this way. They pulled out of WWI, they opened up voting to everybody, eliminated corporate control over land, removed restrictions against minorities, and homosexuals, and separated church from state. In fact, Lenin was more than willing to allow some aspects of capitalism to come into play.

The biggest problem with utopian systems is the same problem that bugs democratic systems- the fact that power corrupts and those in power want more power. In a democratic society you can conceivably vote the person out of office, although as we're learning in our system now the problem is not just politicians but lobbyists. However, in a utopian society where everybody is willing to buy into the system its very easy for a "dictator" to take advantage of members of the society and get them to buy into "new rules". The best literary examples, IMO, are Animal Farm and Star Wars.

 

[highfigh]

To become Communists these are the generally applicable steps

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.


I can see some of your arguments but much is missing especially the property distribution parts.

Only 2 out of the 10 are even arguable positions to attribute to Obama in my view and most certainly the 10th is good. This is straight from Marx's communist manifesto Chapter 2.

It seems a lot of hype too me to call him a communist. A socialist according to Mark W's definition seems to be a good thing in my view. Makes me wonder if that author is a pro-socialist person.

2) If the tax is heavy enough, why work, be creative and for that matter, why even stay? What's the point? Do you like having money after expenses? Do you plan to work your whole life or would you like to retire how, when and where you prefer?

10) It's not free now and it's not working. Property tax payers pay for it and a huge number of the kids in public schools are from families that don't pay property tax. Obviously, some are and even in the cities, many parents choose to send their kids to Montessori and other schools that offer better education. While it's true that not all of every school system is bad, much of many systems is in serious need of replacement.

Too many kids don't want to be in school, period. There's nothing that makes them want to be there, they don't think toward the future and if they do, they're not being very optimistic. We supposedly cracked the race barrier but for these kids, it means very little. The school systems need to make the kids want to be there, to learn, to make them aware that if they do the work and get good grades, tehy can get out of the hell they're in. Right now, it's like throwing lit matches at a saucer full of water in hopes that it will ignite. You can't force kids to learn.

 

[lsiberian]

He knows exactly what the Posse Comitatus Act does (it's a post Reconstruction rule limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement) and if he does anything that causes the masses to rise up, he wants a way to stop it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

His 'Civilian Force" would be used against us. The military are for protecting us from the outside only. This is extremely dangerous ground. First, they would need to remove the guns from circulation and hte ones they can't remove, they'll want to know the location. Then, the Civilian Force is rolled out. Once these two events take place, we'll have no power against the government. They can shut the cell phone system off and call it an emergency and if they get their way with the internet, communication efficiently with anything more than a CB will be extremely difficult. Even CBs can be jammed. If Morse code is brought back using signal lights, it wouldn't be hard to stop that, either.

Anyone can call me paranoid but I don't like where this could go. I also don't like the Japanese electing a Liberal government so suddenly.

the internet isn't a switch that can be flipped off. There is no way to shut it down. Even if you tried you'd probably face a stiff resistance.

I think you are paranoid.

 

[highfigh]

Actually- the first few years of Bolshevik Russia were run this way. They pulled out of WWI, they opened up voting to everybody, eliminated corporate control over land, removed restrictions against minorities, and homosexuals, and separated church from state. In fact, Lenin was more than willing to allow some aspects of capitalism to come into play.

The biggest problem with utopian systems is the same problem that bugs democratic systems- the fact that power corrupts and those in power want more power. In a democratic society you can conceivably vote the person out of office, although as we're learning in our system now the problem is not just politicians but lobbyists. However, in a utopian society where everybody is willing to buy into the system its very easy for a "dictator" to take advantage of members of the society and get them to buy into "new rules". The best literary examples, IMO, are Animal Farm and Star Wars.

And how long did Bolshevik Russia last? Until Lenin died, in 1924. When they gave the lowest people the same as what the wealthy got, why wouldn't they let everyone vote? There's no way those people would vote against them.

I'd really like people to know for what and for whom they're voting. This last election was not a good example of that. It was reactive voting, nothing more.

 

[lsiberian]

2) If the tax is heavy enough, why work, be creative and for that matter, why even stay? What's the point? Do you like having money after expenses? Do you plan to work your whole life or would you like to retire how, when and where you prefer?

10) It's not free now and it's not working. Property tax payers pay for it and a huge number of the kids in public schools are from families that don't pay property tax. Obviously, some are and even in the cities, many parents choose to send their kids to Montessori and other schools that offer better education. While it's true that not all of every school system is bad, much of many systems is in serious need of replacement.

Too many kids don't want to be in school, period. There's nothing that makes them want to be there, they don't think toward the future and if they do, they're not being very optimistic. We supposedly cracked the race barrier but for these kids, it means very little. The school systems need to make the kids want to be there, to learn, to make them aware that if they do the work and get good grades, tehy can get out of the hell they're in. Right now, it's like throwing lit matches at a saucer full of water in hopes that it will ignite. You can't force kids to learn.

2) is only arguable. The taxes aren't so heavy you wouldn't take a pay raise even if they slightly go up.

10) I've found many kids like school and many teachers work hard to make it fun. And most kids will learn if motivated. Which a good teacher can do. You can argue this to high heaven, but I have personally seen my Wife's kids who love being their and have made significant progress. They wouldn't have a chance if it wasn't for the school there.

Property taxes are the stupidest thing ever IMO.

 

[highfigh]

the internet isn't a switch that can be flipped off. There is no way to shut it down. Even if you tried you'd probably face a stiff resistance.

I think you are paranoid.

I'm not saying a private individual or organization would do that but you don't think there's a way for the government to shut it down? Ever had a denial of service issue? It wasn't hard for someone to make that happen, was it?

 

[jeffsg4mac]

I'd really like people to know for what and for whom they're voting. This last election was not a good example of that. It was reactive voting, nothing more.

You got that right. Let's just hope the laws of physics holds out and we get an opposite and equal reaction in 2010

 

[highfigh]

2) is only arguable. The taxes aren't so heavy you wouldn't take a pay raise even if they slightly go up.

10) I've found many kids like school and many teachers work hard to make it fun. And most kids will learn if motivated. Which a good teacher can do. You can argue this to high heaven, but I have personally seen my Wife's kids who love being their and have made significant progress. They wouldn't have a chance if it wasn't for the school there.

Property taxes are the stupidest thing ever IMO.

I'm not in the bracket where I pay 50% and the 38% bracket isn't all that high. I'm lucky enough to have lots of deductible expenses.

As I said, I know that not all schools and school systems are as bad as it it in MKE. I have quite a few cousins who are teachers in various parts of the country and I know several, too but the ones in public schools are all frustrated by the limitations. Should a teacher have to buy supplies out of pocket with no reimbursement? No, they shouldn't. Should they have 45 kids in their classes? No, they shouldn't. Should they have students pull knives and guns on them? No, they shouldn't. (the 4th grade kid who pulled a knife on someone I know is the son of an inner city dirtball who stole my bike when he was 12. They apparently liked the area so much they moved here and completely trashed the house in this suburb).

 

[jeffsg4mac]

How about this idiot? Does this give you pause?

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