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Title: The Jobs Problem is Worse Than the War Problem
Source:
Counterpunch
URL Source: http://www.counterpunch.com/
Published: Jul 13, 2005
Author: Paul Craig Roberts
Post Date: 2005-07-13 08:58:30 by Zoroaster
Keywords: Problem, Problem, Worse
Views: 200
Comments: 43
July 12, 2005 The Jobs Problem is Worse Than the War Problem The No-Think Nation By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Thought is not an American forte. Consider the speed with which our government got us trapped in two quagmires, Iraq and Afghanistan. The CIA says that Bush's invasion of Iraq has created ideal conditions for training insurgents and terrorists. The longer we are there, the worse it gets. Our military is being worn down by a gratuitous war of no benefit to anyone except Osama bin Laden. Bush's war has provided substance for bin Laden's propaganda and radicalized the Middle East. Bush's war is being financed by debt, and the result is to give our foreign bankers more control over our interest rates and our currency's value, should they choose to use the power we have placed in their hands. Not only has our government demonstrated an inability to think before rushing to war, it cannot think about the economy either. Each month in the 21st century the government's own statistics tell the tale of the US winding down as a superpower and devolving into a third world country. Not a single net new high tech or manufacturing job has been created for native-born Americans in the 21st century. Month after month this devastating information is released and ignored. Now comes a report from Richard Freeman, professor of economics at Harvard University and associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Freeman's conclusions suggest that the US is not only losing its lead in science and engineering but also might be losing the professions themselves. A country that outsources its manufacturing and its R&D abroad doesn't have jobs for its own engineers and scientists. Corporations have moved many information technology, high-tech manufacturing, engineering, and research and development jobs away from America to lower cost countries principally in Asia. The result is declining opportunities and salaries for American graduates in science and engineering, which discourages students from these curriculums. As my free market friends are found of saying, "the market works." It certainly does. The market is working to close down the great American middle class and to dismantle the ladders of upward mobility. The US economy in the 21st century has been able to create new jobs only in nontradable domestic services. A labor market orientated toward domestic services is the hallmark of a third world economy. The jobs problem is more serious than the war problem and receives even less attention. Economists misperceive the offshore outsourcing of jobs as the beneficial workings of free trade, a subject they have given scant thought for 200 years, being, as they are, content with Ricardo's demonstration that comparative advantage ensures mutual gains from trade. America's no-think economists have yet to fathom that the offshore outsourcing of jobs reflects the workings of absolute advantage, not comparative advantage. When American capital, technology and business know-how employ foreigners in place of Americans, foreigners benefit and Americans lose. In the short-run the corporations benefit. The lower labor costs raise profits and executive bonuses. But the long-run effect is to destroy the US consumer market for the goods and services that the corporations supply from abroad. American profits and American employment no longer move in tandem. A recent report in the New York Times by John Markoff and Matt Richtel says profits have rebounded in Silicon Valley but not employment. They use the example of Wyse Technology, a maker of computer terminals. At the beginning of this year, 90 percent of Wyse's work force was in Silicon Valley. At the present time the figure is 48 percent, with only 15 percent of its engineers remaining in Silicon Valley. The reason? Wyse has created technology development teams in India and China, adding 100 employees in India and 35 in China so far this year. America has a new development model, one unprecedented in history. The growth and prosperity of American corporations is now keyed directly to the employment of foreign workers in place of Americans. It is impossible for a country to prosper when its capital, technology, and business knowledge are used to enhance the productivity of foreign workers in place of its own. American incomes are stagnating and falling. By abandoning American employees, corporations are eroding the great American consumer market and America's position in the first world. Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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#1. To: Zoroaster (#0)
When NAFTA was being debated and King George I was on the throne he made constant remarks that the U.S. was moving towards a 'service economy' and we should not fear losing manufacturing jobs because we don't need them or want them. It was like Carla Hills said one night on Money Line on CNN (when Dobbs was on their side)..."We don't want those jobs." She was referring to a factory in Texas which made brooms. The average worker at the plant made $12.00 an hour in '92. The owner of the factory was concerned about cheap labor competition from Mexico. That was her answer to him.
In reality America is a plutocracy. The rich and powerful run Washington and could care less about what's good for America. These creeps want bigger profits, more money to line their bank accounts, and American workers, as far as they're concerned, can piss up a rope.
Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.
It shows the elitist contempt that the ruling class has for average American workers. There will come a day when people will be begging for jobs - any job - and there won't be any. Then the elitists will tell us how fat and lazy we were and that we don't deserve to have a job. Richard W.
what's the difference between a plutocracy and an oligarchy?
It doesn't get any clearer than that. Our government corporate "leaders" are in denial or, worse, know and don't care. It ain't gonna be pretty ...
And the "elitists" are going to be dealing with a very, very, very angry former middle class, which I suggest the housing bubble burst may trigger. So many fissures have been allowed to accumulate in the social edifice that society itself ... you get the drift, I'm sure.
and those of us who complain about [our] treasonous, traitorous "leaders" are labeled anti-american? my god, everything has been turned upside down. "That Which is Good Shall Be Called Evil."
IMO it's "worse". To what other conclusion can one come?
"...when a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda..."
you don't even have to be an economist to get the drift.
interesting comments Grumble. And let me add that the 'average' job in America does pay about $12/hour. But the 'average' manufacturing job in America pays $18/hour. They've given us so much propaganda to consume. Amazing how Americans don't know these things. I keep saying over & over. The reason we're losing our manufacturing is because of the strong-dollar policy. this is a system for propping up the value of the dollar and avoiding market discipline. When the dollar is over- priced we cannot sell anything. That is why the only jobs we can create are domestic service jobs. This is by design, this is by plan. The plan was hatched decades ago. They prepared us with propaganda to think the 'service' economy was somehow a good thing.
Jobs in the military are going begging. That's a category they should have outsourced already, but it is one of the few areas in which nationalism trumps globalism. It is a testament to the low IQ of many Americans that they have been made to wave the flag and buy magnetic ribbons for nearly four years in pursuit of what is an 'in your face' globalists' grab-for-natural-resources war. It has not benefited them at all and yet many continue to wave and stick. Even the name is a dead giveaway—the GLOBAL War on Terror. Another year of lackluster recruiting, though, and the Pentagon will have to admit that none of this is really about America and open the doors to recruiting a multinational strike force of mercenaries for their global corporate paymasters. This guy's writings reveal for whom the Pentagon works. Most people just don't know it yet. Or don't want to know. The founders of this nation are weeping in their graves. Most are on record as having counseled against the very foreign policy that now cannot be questioned without one's "patriotism" being assailed.
The short-sightedness is amazing. At some point the ruling class are going to figure out that there is no point in having mass production without accompanying mass consumption, and it's not going to be an easy lesson. Perhaps they really are stupid enough to believe that someone making 80 cents an hour is going to buy a $60,000 Lexus and a house full of appliances and electronics.
Truth is like sunshine, people use to think it was good for them - Nancy Gribble
You're exactly right and it distresses me to think of all the morons who fall for that propaganda. Wealth is not created by washing each others underwear. The value added to manufactured products is what creates wealth. The service economy was explained to me many years ago with a simple explaination. All it does is shift money around. If 5 people show up at a poker table with the same amount of money,some will lose and some will win. Nixon's trip to China really started the ball rolling. With all the international agents in his cabinet such as Kissinger it was easy for them to dupe the public and start the process in earnest.
I think oligarchy means that it takes a lot of investment to get into the field and compete. Something akin to railroads or automobile manufacturing. The theory is that this wasn't really a free market as few entities really have the money to enter the market. It's a very limited free market and the few existing participants have a lot of power to collude and keep others out. I think a plutocracy is something similar to 18th Century france. Here an aristocracy controls both the national wealth and the government. The aristocracy uses this power to perpetuate itself at the expense of everyone else. The people on the outside become peasants and stay peasants - and are doled out crumbs by the aristocracy. Instead of Marquis and Barons we have the Wriggleys, the DuPonts, the Bushs, the Chews etc.
so very well said, as always, Mr. Precisionist. ;)
Much of the work in Iraq has already been outsourced to private army contractors. I expect this trend to grow especially here at home as "independents" will be used to help control the serfs. Ironically, we could even end up with Iraqis over here locking Americans up in empty shipping containers. Richard W.
When we adopted "the invisible hand" as our highest economic truth, we allowed individual, personal greed to reign supreme and supplant other moral inclinations. It's been coming for a while. In past decades the greed was tempered by Christianity but the trashing of that ethos by the "elites" has been effective. We've got some rethinking to do but it will come only after we have reaped the whirlwind IMHO.
This is a very nice way to put it. I wonder if the simple explanation for all our economic problems is that we are simply no longer creating wealth in the US. We are in the process of trading our remaining wealth for cheap consumber goods manufactured in the far east.
Being an economist, unless your last name is Roberts or Roach, is a disadvantage.
it is really bizarre how the people who rule us have favored China so strongly. I remember how Nixon fawned over the Chinese. I remember him gushing to the Americans about China. I remember him actually saying that if he hadn't gone to China and made strong ties with them, then the US would have been defeated at war and destroyed by 1980. He was so strong on this thinking that we had to do so much for China that it was as if he was brain-washed on this point. Because it was completely irrational for him to say that the US would have been defeated and destroyed militarilly if he hadn't done it, and I did see him on tv say that very clearly in an interview. China had actual starvation in 1980. They were extremely poor. Their people were literally working like mules in the fields. They were using agriculture procedures that Americans stopped using in 1700 because it was better to use farm animals instead of human labor. During the 1980's trade policy favored China strongly in that their infant industries were able to develop in a complete protectionist environment. The same was true with Japan after WW2 and stretching all the way to 1970. Then in the early 1990's we started the currency fix thing with China. And that absolutely insures that their manufacturing industry will be mighty.
ah, ok, i think i get the distinction. by these definitions, it seems that plutocracy is a more accurate description. ol•i•gar•chy 1 : government by the few 2 : a government in which a small group exercises control esp. for corrupt and selfish purposes; also : a group exercising such control plu•toc•ra•cy 1 : government by the wealthy 2 : a controlling class of the wealthy
The value of the Dollar is secondary, Red, and it is not nearly so controlable as the "elites" would have us think.
the federal reserve?
Keynes saying that everyone acting in his own interest results in market efficiency and a higher, more productive standard of living for all. About right, Richard?
Corporations have moved many information technology, high-tech manufacturing, engineering, and research and development jobs away from America to lower cost countries principally in Asia. The result is declining opportunities and salaries for American graduates in science and engineering, which discourages students from these curriculums. A labor market orientated toward domestic services is the hallmark of a third world economy And what does King George say about our high-tech intellectual property? I do not know how these morons came to power, but only a traitor to America could want them to stay in power.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison
Even the name is a dead giveaway—the GLOBAL War on Terror. Don't forget the propaganda and how distracted most of the sheeple are. IMO, if Americans really knew who has been doing what to our nation, the neo-crazies and half of Congress would all be on the next plane headed for the nation they love best.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison
Institute for Historical Review
So many with our general point of view have become extremely discouraged. I am among them. Many who did participate in the discussion forums no longer do, because they're so discouraged. It is a horrible delusion for us to think that we rule our country. Christian preachers who believe in democracy make me sick. The voting system is a fraud. The people are propagandized so effectively as well. The people of America do not rule America, plain & simple. The founding fathers' efforts to make the Americans sovereign in their country have failed miserably. If you read the bible it tells you that nothing truly good ever comes from the people. And it tells us that god selects the leaders of nations. God empowers them. God makes the nations great and makes the nations small. And it says that in the end times angels working for god will empower the evil ones to rule over us. We must place our faith in god and not in man. Man will fail, but god will not and he will be true to his word. When things are at their very worst, that is when god will return and build his kingdom here on earth. It says so. We will go along as we are now with wars and rumours of wars. But we are not to be concerned about this. Then in the minds of the elite there will be a crisis and the great men who rule the earth will meet together to discuss. And this great meeting will be at a place that is called in hebrew language armageddon. armageddon in hebrew means 'red mountain'. Colorado in english means 'red mountain'. The meeting will be in colorado. and right after that meeting is when the abomination will occur. Because the 10 lieutenant nations of babylon will rebel and secretly implement a plan for the destruction of babylon. Babylon is the US. the abomination is the complete destruction of the american nation and over 95% of its people. and then serious military conflict will occur, where the remnants of our nation will fight back amazingly. and then the systems that allow the people to live will break down. and people all over the world will look and see that they cannot live. and at that time god will intervene. and build his kingdom on earth. and we should not fear the destruction. We are going to die anyway. but despite this death it is god who will judge us and give us everlasting life in his kingdom if he chooses.
Adam Smith and the invisible hand Richard W.
Thanks. The bit about Colorado I had not heard before. Of course, NORAD has big installation inside the Rocky Mountains there. Nevertheless, I'm not goin' down quietly.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison
I stopped attending one of the local churches that, right after we invaded Iraq, put up a flag pole with a big American flag right in front and sang "God Bless America" as the end of each service . . . without ever a single mention of praying for peace from the pulpit. My spirituality has nothing to do with invading, bombing and killing others. Richard W.
I agree with you Arete. Just in last 2 weeks I decided not to attend the little house church I've attended for 8 years. Because last year before election the pastor stood at pulpit and told us to vote republican. That was the very last sermon he ever gave from that pulpit. Because 6 days after he said that he had a stroke and has been in wheelchair ever since. They had a substitute preacher the day after his stroke, and that guy said the same thing, that republicans were blessed by god, etc., and that fellow fell down some stairs 6 days after he said that and required a hip replacement as a result. But it finally got to me and I finally decided not to attend that church after that experience. If this is the quality of leadership, I don't think it is worthwhile.
The Invisible Hand ... thanks, Richard ... close enough for layman's work.
Problem is Kerry would have been worse ... one party with two faces. I voted for Pogo. Really.
Yep. And the scary part is... only a tiny percentage of the population even notices. What do you think the % is? 1%? Most of those on the left that oppose Bush don't count because they are playing the D's vs R's game, just like the BOTS. How many really understand that conditions in the US are truly Orwellian, right down to the beginnings of a police state and the end of privacy rights? How many realize that the drive to Marxism is a drive toward totalitarianism? In BOTworld, the perception is even worse. They will make claims such as the economy is better than ever. So many things are downright Orwellian, and their reaction is 'things are better than ever.' *** Collectivism The problem of so many Americans losing manufacturing jobs is bad enough. And then we have economists and politicians taking the public stance that somehow it is a good thing. Maybe most politicians won't go on the record and say it, but their actions make it obvious. I think part of the problem regarding so many American workers losing jobs and the process being praised is an example of the evils of collectivism. The individual in the US is no longer valued. Groups are valued, and that applies now to economics. I don't know much about economics, so someone please correct me if I am in error. From a few things I have read, there was an important shift years ago to the Keynesian school of economics. This involved ignoring individuals and their role in the economy and going to a completely aggregate, or group view. When you watch people arguing for free trade, the fate of individuals is never even a concern to them. They simply do not care. The 'system' and aggregate numbers are all that matter. This also leads to an ends justifies the means approach to economics. Adherence to ideology no matter what the consequences is one of the results of this. A good example of consequences this can lead to can be found in the history of the Ukraine, when in the 30's, collectivism was so important to the rulers, economists, academics, etc... that millions of Ukrainians died in a famine that was a result of the imposition of the ideology. The attitude in the US is not much different, philosophically. Anyway, this move to Keynesianism placed importance on aggregates and groups instead of individuals. This is always dangerous. So now we see econs, academics, and pols that only care about a collectivist view of the US. We see this in all aspects of American politics on the federal level. The individual is simply not a concern to them. The typical debate involves someone like Lou Dobbs expressing concern for individual Americans against a collectivist 'free trader' that totally ignores the plight of individuals and quotes aggregate statistics that are of greater value to him. Again, this is collectivist. They will devise some aggregate statistics to make the case that a larger group which the worker is categorized as belonging to is actually BENEFITTING from the process of American individuals- and that is all that matters! Note also the coldness these Keynesians have for the individual- while I place the individual in a position of highest value, they do not value the individual at all. The only value they place on the individual is his role and contribution to the collective statistics. Thus the individual is dehumanized and just a 'part of the system.' Another example of how these people think is the way they praise deficit spending as an integral part of the economy. They see deficit spending as advantageous, as 'good', because they claim it improves the aggregate numbers. The fact that trillions of debt is a future liabilty for individual American taxpayers is of NO concern to them. They see not burdening individuals with debt they will be paying off their whole lives as not advantageous, as 'bad'. The aggregate is the highest good. The end of improving their arbitrary aggregates they deem as the greatest good justifies the means of American individual workers being crushed. As with those Ukrainian farmers, this group largely couldn't care less about individuals. Think of how bad things will get as the US becomes more of an integral part of the globalist system it is setting up now. Aggregate numbers in the US will be less important than the 'larger' aggregate numbers in the North American region, say the US, Can, and Mexico. At this point, the good of the group known as the region will be of greater importance than the good of the US alone. I believe our pols are thinking like this already. The Am worker then, will be even less valued. The individual will be of lesser value than the US in aggregate terms and the region in aggregate terms. Again, I am no expert in economics, but that is how I see it. I am very concerned with collectivism, Marxism taking root in the US. Americans are totally blind to it because they have been indoctrinated into it. Since I have studied it, I see it all around. I think that free trade is international communism in some ways. As far as the system, the ideology, groups being of primary importance, and the individual being of no importance except as part of a collective group needed to drive the aggregate. The plutocrats determine what aggregate statistics are of utmost importance, thus choosing those that benefit themselves to improve. The shift of employment opportunities to the service sector and the reaction of the free traders shows how they think. They praise it, couldn't care less about individuals getting hurt, and condition the population thru the media that aggregate statistics they deem as most important are, in fact, important to Americans as individuals. This is part of the reason Americans are not going nuts about outsourcing, hiring of illegals, shift to service sector (how ironic- as Ams serve the Plutocrats, their actual jobs will be service jobs), H1B Visa, etc. They have been conditioned that the individual is less important than the group/aggregate touted as the highest good in the media by the plutocrats. Bush said that Americans' losing manufacturing was no big deal because there were govt programs that would train them for menial jobs- and noone went nuts. Bush fully suuports outsourcing including rewarding corps which do it with big tax cuts. And he gets away with it. It is outrageous how American workers are being treated. As objects. As slaves who serve the plutocrats. As if workers in a communist system- where the system is all that matters. How corps are given carte blanch to harm individuals, and are even rewarded for it with tax cuts- that the corp lawyers wrote themselves and Congress added them to the legislation. And this move to larger aggregates called globalism will further harm the Am individual- our leaders know this and they overwhelmingly support it. Bush is a traitor. He is sacrificing Americans for the plutocrats, corps, and the 'global economy', all under the lie of free trade. Absorbing tens of millions of illegals is called social and economic integration. The effect on individuals is not important. Building the region is important. That aggregate is the greatest good. The ends justify the means. Our pols in DC are all traitors. Even those that oppose CAFTA, say, still function as a controlled opposition, not revealing what globalism really is and how it affects Americans as individuals. The US system is becoming a form of Democratic Socialism to easily integrate with Can and Mex in the region. Had to get that off my chest! When you say that everything has been turned upside down, I think of all the Orwellian stuff going down, but my primary concern is how the American system does not value the individual any more. Aren't all our pols in DC and the govt beaurocracy functioning as though they are not bound by the Constitution? Don't they all empower groups while weakening individuals? Collectivism. Groups have rights. Highest good is the group, not the individual. The ends (benefitting the group) justifies the means (harming individuals). We are at the point at which groups have so much power that their interests are of more importance than the interests of the vast majority of Ams, when taken as individuals. As in a Marxist system, Groups gain power and are given rights, and individuals lose power and lose rights. There is constant aggression against the middle class majority by groups and govt. Govt actually colludes with groups against individuals. This is another factor working against the typical middle class American worker.
That's it in a nutshell and it's totally anti-constitutional. The only thing I'll add to your screed is that it's done. We're not on the way. We are there. The recent USSC ruling on eminent domain sealed the deal which effects every American's private property and it seemingly was a minor blip on the radar screen for most. There's not even a pretense by our "leaders" of constitutionality anymore.
Plutocracy's first love is money, and individual freedom seems more of a shackle to them than an inspiration. Plutocrats got a big boost when the Republicans won the House in the '94 elections. Remember Nerd Getrich and the Contract on America? There were rumors that corporate lobbyists were writing the legislation when Nerd was Speaker of the House. Well, as we all know, Nerd was run out of the House. Now you can catch new, improved version of Nerd on Fox News. There's talk Nerd may throw his hat in the ring for the GOP presidential nomination in '08.
Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.
no worry, we'll just vote 'im out!
Just wait until they start messing with the food supply. If interest rates ratchet up things will get nasty as people start losing their homes. The only thing keeping this house of cards economy going is the housing ATM. When that runs out of steam look out below. All the illegals who depend on construction and related jobs will suddenly be unemployed. Then things will get reall nasty as in some places there are enough of them to start rioting and win.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestA labor market orientated toward domestic services is the hallmark of a third world economy
#2. To: Grumble Jones (#1)
#3. To: Grumble Jones (#1)
.."We don't want those jobs."
#4. To: Zoroaster (#2)
#5. To: Zoroaster (#0)
It is impossible for a country to prosper when its capital, technology, and business knowledge are used to enhance the productivity of foreign workers in place of its own. American incomes are stagnating and falling. By abandoning American employees, corporations are eroding the great American consumer market and America's position in the first world.
#6. To: Arete (#3)
It shows the elitist contempt that the ruling class has for average American workers. There will come a day when people will be begging for jobs - any job - and there won't be any. Then the elitists will tell us how fat and lazy we were and that we don't deserve to have a job.
#7. To: Zoroaster, 1776, Jethro Tull, Neil McIver (#0)
America has a new development model, one unprecedented in history. The growth and prosperity of American corporations is now keyed directly to the employment of foreign workers in place of Americans.
#8. To: Phaedrus (#5)
It doesn't get any clearer than that. Our government corporate "leaders" are in denial or, worse, know and don't care. It ain't gonna be pretty ...
#9. To: Phaedrus (#6)
you get the drift, I'm sure.
#10. To: Grumble Jones (#1)
#11. To: Arete (#3)
#12. To: Zoroaster (#0)
#13. To: Red Jones (#10)
This is by design, this is by plan. The plan was hatched decades ago. They prepared us with propaganda to think the 'service' economy was somehow a good thing.
#14. To: christine (#4)
what's the difference between a plutocracy and an oligarchy?
#15. To: Sam Houston (#11)
#16. To: Sam Houston (#11)
recruiting a multinational strike force of mercenaries for their global corporate paymasters.
#17. To: christine (#7)
and those of us who complain about [our] treasonous, traitorous "leaders" are labeled anti-american? my god, everything has been turned upside down. "That Which is Good Shall Be Called Evil."
#18. To: Grumble Jones (#13)
Wealth is not created by washing each others underwear. The value added to manufactured products is what creates wealth.
#19. To: christine (#9)
you don't even have to be an economist to get the drift.
#20. To: Grumble Jones (#13)
Nixon's trip to China really started the ball rolling.
#21. To: crack monkey, Zoroaster (#14)
#22. To: Red Jones (#10)
#23. To: Phaedrus (#17)
"the invisible hand"
#24. To: christine, Arete (#23)
"the invisible hand"
#25. To: Grumble Jones, Red Jones (#1)
A country that outsources its manufacturing and its R&D abroad doesn't have jobs for its own engineers and scientists.
#26. To: Sam Houston (#11)
It is a testament to the low IQ of many Americans that they have been made to wave the flag and buy magnetic ribbons for nearly four years in pursuit of what is an 'in your face' globalists' grab-for-natural-resources war. It has not benefited them at all and yet many continue to wave and stick.
#27. To: christine (#7)
everything has been turned upside down. "That Which is Good Shall Be Called Evil."
#28. To: robin (#25)
I do not know how these morons came to power, but only a traitor to America could want them to stay in power.
#29. To: Phaedrus (#24)
#30. To: Red Jones (#28)
#31. To: Red Jones (#28)
Christian preachers who believe in democracy make me sick
#32. To: Arete (#31)
#33. To: all (#32)
#34. To: Arete, Christine (#29)
#35. To: robin (#25)
I do not know how these morons came to power, but only a traitor to America could want them to stay in power.
#36. To: christine (#7)
my god, everything has been turned upside down.
#37. To: Bayonne (#36)
I think of all the Orwellian stuff going down, but my primary concern is how the American system does not value the individual any more.
#38. To: christine (#37)
#39. To: Zoroaster (#38)
Well, as we all know, Nerd was run out of the House. Now you can catch new, improved version of Nerd on Fox News. There's talk Nerd may throw his hat in the ring for the GOP presidential nomination in '08.
#40. To: Zipporah (#8)
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