Is the country of the USA a social and historical experiment?

[2tallbill]

But his point is valid.  The "good old days" were never really that good, if you were a poor white, or native American, or black, or a woman, or . . .

Yeah, the 1850's probably sucked @ss. If you got an infection you could die.

[Gator]

“The United States were founded on the idea of finding freedom”

Luda,  At the end of the Revolutionary War there were about 3 million slaves in the United States... blah....blah


What is this freedom you speak of?

Krimster,  you sound just like a miserable party communist from the Cold War era.  It seems Luda is impressed by America's accomplishments,  yet you ignore the glory of the whole only to point to pimples and scars.   

Why not start by explaining to Luda the start of America, the challenges by our forefathers who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to win our freedom.  They could have created a kleptocracy,  yet they wrote the Constitution to frame our government, assuring liberty and justice.   

This is lost on ungrateful people who have probably spent much of their life sucking on the government teat and not pursuing the opportunities that define America.  Krimster, are you really one of those ungrateful citizens?

BTW, if you insist on discussing the dark chapters of our history,  please get you facts straight:

At the end of the Revolutionary War there were about 3 million slaves in the United States.

There were 700,000 slaves, not 3 million.  Would I be wasting my breath to discuss this further?

[Gator]

No, that's not what happened.  The pie was stolen by the few, with crumbs distributed to most.

Why do you say I am wrong?  I said the Soviets did not make the pie bigger.   Show me please a bigger pie.

If you are saying the Soviet revolution was a mistake, I agree with you. 

If you have not guessed, my core values include working to make the pie bigger for everyone.

Again, I disagree.  Every single oligarch was part of the nomenklatura at some level, whether large or small.  That is pretty much the case in every former republic of the USSR.

Great statement.  But this has nothing to do with what I said.  When you post emotionally, your veracity suffers.  I wrote "... a select few oligarchs grabbed most of the pie and the masses became poorer."  How does this relate  to your comment,  "I disagree.  Every single oligarch was part of the nomenklatura..."  I don't see a connection. 

 

I disagree with your assertion free enterprise did not exist. 

Never said that.  You are talking about pre-Revolution.  I agree; my wife's ancestors were Cossacks, and they had successful free enterprises (and continued to do so after Stalin scattered them).     I was talking about a free enterprise economy in the Soviet era as an explanation of why Russia never reached its full potential. 

I know you will ignore my corrections to your statements.  That is the way you are.  Yet you will continue to distort my future posts.

[krimster2]

“There were 700,000 slaves, not 3 million."

Gator you’re right, I mis-read the chart, I apologize for the error, yet it changes absolutely nothing, as Bo said (somewhat) America has bestowed its blessings upon humanity rather unevenly.  I strongly suspect you would not have liked to pick cotton for no wages, or worked in a dark satanic mill for a dollar a day, while others collected the fruit of your labors, but this to is the “American way”

“Krimster,  you sound just like a miserable party communist from the Cold War era.”

Far from it actually, after high-school I enlisted in the Army, and saw first hand the enormous wastage of human and material capital for a purpose that was not what it was advertised for, i.e., for defending “freedom and liberty”.  I joined up at the transition from the draft to the all volunteer force.  The vast majority of the military enlistees I encountered were people from the bottom of society, poor, of color, uneducated, and like myself at the ripe old age of 17 didn’t have many other options to pursue...
It was while I serving overseas, that I saw that it was all an illusion to keep all of us playing in the game, and the real benefactors of war all had addresses in a much more up-scale neighborhood then mine.  I just hope you don’t really believe that the trillion dollar F-35, is there to protect us one and all from the “evil-doers”, however if ya wanta believe in the “freedom and liberty fable” you are free to do so, in fact our society pretty much insists that you do! 

I accept your criticism, you should read about the poet Siegfried Sassoon, a decorated WWI war hero, who came to the same conclusion I did, and came out in opposition to the war and as a result was sent to an insane asylum...

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

So are you saying I’m crazy to?  Then better to be mad then a fool, I say...

I am grateful to this nation, my great grand-father in Odessa with the smell of ashes from the pogrom still clinging to his memory, came here, tired and poor, and yearning to breathe free, but now we have elected to build a wall instead of a lamp beside a golden door, so who are we really, if this lamp is extinguished, what poems shall we write now?

[krimster2]

“Yeah, the 1850's probably sucked @ss. If you got an infection you could die. “

2TallBill,
How empathetic of you!  lots of Americans still die because they have improper access to health care, remember the first Ebola case in the US, no health insurance, so the hospital ER gave the guy a Tylenol and booted him out the door so he could die at home!

[Gator]

“Krimster,  you sound just like a miserable party communist from the Cold War era.”

Far from it actually, after high-school I enlisted in the Army, and saw first hand the enormous wastage of human and material capital for a purpose that was not what it was advertised for, i.e., for defending “freedom and liberty”. 

I prefer deterrence vs. having to fight a real war because we were perceived as weak.  Where to draw the line to deter enemies is another question.   

I am grateful to this nation, my great grand-father in Odessa with the smell of ashes from the pogrom still clinging to his memory, came here, tired and poor, and yearning to breathe free, but now we have elected to build a wall instead of a lamp beside a golden door, so who are we really, if this lamp is extinguished, what poems shall we write now?

Relax.  Let's see how Trump governs.  We can not afford a golden door for the world's hungry and needy if our own middle class is feeling pain. 

What should Trump do about a two-state solution?   

[Gator]

"The days you describe are long, long gone. None of us here were alive to see it. "
Really? Ever read "Grapes of Wrath" or see the movie with Henry Fonda?
Ever recently seen a migrant worker's camp in California?  Nothing's changed there at all, I'm afraid...

Yes, change has occurred.  The Okies in Grapes of Wrath were migrating from the Dust Bowl in search of better opportunities in California.  Over time their lives probably improved dramatically.

Back in Oklahoma, the Dustbowl prompted the government to create the SCS, which led to improved agricultural practices. 

Krimster, you are disingenuous to say the life of the average American has not improved.
My family were dirt farmers from the hollows of Tennessee.  I am old enough to have witnessed a huge improvement in the standard of living of my relatives.  I recall some not having electricity, piped water.   One of my business partners (now worth many millions)from Oklahoma did not have an indoor toilet until his high school days.   

"The days you describe are long, long gone. None of us here were alive to see it. "
Really? Ever read "Grapes of Wrath" or see the movie with Henry Fonda?
Ever recently seen a migrant worker's camp in California?  Nothing's changed there at all, I'm afraid...

Yes, change has occurred.  The Okies in Grapes of Wrath were migrating from the Dust Bowl in search of better opportunities in California.  Over time their lives probably improved dramatically.

Back in Oklahoma, the Dustbowl prompted the government to create the SCS, which led to improved agricultural practices. 

Krimster, you are disingenuous to say the life of the average American has not improved.
My family were dirt farmers from the hollows of Tennessee.  I am old enough to have witnessed a huge improvement in the standard of living of my relatives.  I recall some not having electricity, piped water.   One of my business partners (now worth many millions)from Oklahoma did not have an indoor toilet until his high school days.   

I was wondering why are you pursuing this line, yet it is now clear with your recent posts.  So why not let Luda rejoice in loving America? 

[ML]

I do not know how those of mixed heritage would ID themselves.  It may come down to how they were raised and who had the strongest influence in their lives.

A little strange, so it seems, why Obama identified as black.

[fathertime]

Go and Google ‘Brazilian Basketball Player’ and gaze at the line-up of players it produces. Somewhere, sometime in the USA, now or in the not-so-distant future, all these stupid racial distinction will be obsolete, and all we’d really have will all be just distinction in shades of brown.

Sounds good to me, although others will groan secretly or publicly about 'genocide' of the 'white race'.


Fathertime!

[fathertime]

Krimster,  you sound just like a miserable party communist from the Cold War era. 

...and you sound like a whitewashing apologist.


Fathertime! 

[fathertime]

Pick a time reference and I bet the poor in the USA lived just as well or better than the same class in any other nation.  Geeze, our poor today are so fat they waddle.  Many on welfare have cars, homes, cell phones, money for booze and drugs and more.

What about all the corporate welfare that rich directly/indirectly benefit from...and then bang prostitutes, while using booze/drugs?  That sort of hypocrisy is all just fine with you of course.


Fathertime! 

[Larry1]

A little strange, so it seems, why Obama identified as black.

That seems to be the common preference. A few years ago the actress Halle Berry was pregnant. She has one black parent and one white parent. The father of the baby was not black. She said the baby should be considered black, even though it was only 25% black.

It's almost as if the one drop rule of the 19th and early 20th centuries was revived but reversed.

A hundred years ago some light-skinned black people pretended they were white because being white afforded them certain advantages. Now it seems the opposite is true.

When the golfer Tiger Woods became famous a number of black celebrities were incensed that he would not identify as black but identified as multiracial (he was slightly less than 50% black and more Asian than any other race).

[fathertime]

"

Gator you’re right, I mis-read the chart, I apologize for the error, yet it changes absolutely nothing, as Bo said (somewhat) America has bestowed its blessings upon humanity rather unevenly.  I strongly suspect you would not have liked to pick cotton for no wages, or worked in a dark satanic mill for a dollar a day, while others collected the fruit of your labors, but this to is the “American way”

“

The american way of late is to replace our long deceased slave force with the modern day slaves of illegal aliens...most work their asses off for the privileged, yet the 'privileged' look down their noses at them and complain they should be ejected, all the while treating them like servants..... housekeeping, landscaping, car washing, fruit picking, food preparation, taking orders at restaurants  loading and unloading...etc etc.


Fathertime!   

[krimster2]

Gator,
“Krimster, you are disingenuous to say the life of the average American has not improved.”

Gator, I never said that, it’s your interpretation, it has improved, but we’re not totally free of what led to these poor conditions in the first place, that’s my claim, and from I can tell, we are beginning to reverse some of those gains in the living conditions of the average American

“I was wondering why are you pursuing this line,  yet it is now clear with your recent posts”

good for you, perhaps you can enlighten me?

[BillyB]

If you want a prosperous and reproducing nation, you have to make having and raising children an affordable priority.

Don't think that is possible. Hard to go backwards. As a nation marches on to prosperity, the people are making good income and cost of living goes up for each person. Having children becomes a financial burden but children are important to keep an economic machine running smooth. Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and one of the best economies. The birth rate in America and in Europe is declining. The path we've taken to keep the economic machine running smooth is increasing immigration instead of having more children. Nations where people make little income are having the most children. I doubt Americans and Europeans will accept less income to lower cost of living. White people in America need to get used to immigration or pump out more kids which will lower their standard of living.

[Boethius]

A little strange, so it seems, why Obama identified as black.

When people look at him, do they see a white man?

[calmissile]

When people look at him, do they see a white man?

No, they see a leftist idiot!

[Boethius]

Why do you say I am wrong?  I said the Soviets did not make the pie bigger.   Show me please a bigger pie.

If you are saying the Soviet revolution was a mistake, I agree with you. 

If you have not guessed, my core values include working to make the pie bigger for everyone.


Great statement.  But this has nothing to do with what I said.  When you post emotionally, your veracity suffers.  I wrote "... a select few oligarchs grabbed most of the pie and the masses became poorer."  How does this relate  to your comment,  "I disagree.  Every single oligarch was part of the nomenklatura..."  I don't see a connection. 

 

Never said that.  You are talking about pre-Revolution.  I agree; my wife's ancestors were Cossacks, and they had successful free enterprises (and continued to do so after Stalin scattered them).     I was talking about a free enterprise economy in the Soviet era as an explanation of why Russia never reached its full potential. 

I know you will ignore my corrections to your statements.  That is the way you are.  Yet you will continue to distort my future posts.

Your post lacked clarity, at least to me, which is  why I responded.

Russia was not the USSR. Again, a lack of clarity.

[Ludmila]

“The United States were founded on the idea of finding freedom”

Luda,
At the end of the Revolutionary War there were about 3 million slaves in the United States.
They were at the beginning of the production line picking cotton, while at the other end were white children, some as young as 9 years old working in the cotton mills in New England making 10 cents an hour.  Need coal to power the machinery?  No problem we have lots of little boys who will work in the coal mines for the same wage to feed their family.  They go into the mine before sun-up and emerge after sun-down.  Sunday is the only day of the week they will see the sun. Many will die before they turn 30, and if they survive that long they will have the crippling “black-lung” disease.  This is the reality of the condition of most Americans in this time period.

What is this freedom you speak of?

I think Bo' was right after all...

I think Bo' was right after all...


The freedom from the oppression by the English Crown, as is known. I thought I stated it pretty clearly in my original post. I can copy-paste it again, especially for you :

The United States were founded on the idea of finding freedom,  pursuing happiness far away from the oppressor, building a new country  based on a whole list of values and RELIANCE ON YOURSELF. Not asking anything from anyone and not owing anything to anyone. Interfering with no one and not letting anyone destroy its basic, core values. This is the idea, as is known.

And yes, the history of American States is unparallelled.... until  "Roosevelt and the Democratic Party mobilized the expanded ranks of the poor as well as organized labor, ethnic minorities, urbanites, and Southern whites, crafting the New Deal coalition".

As to the Russian Revolution, it is a historically established fact that it was financed by American jewish capital.
From WIKI :
Historian George F. Kennan noted that Schiff helped finance revolutionary propaganda during the Russo-Japanese war and revolution of 1905.


Jacob Schiff was head of the New York
investment firm Kuhn, Loeb and Co. He
was one of the principal backers of the
Bolshevik revolution and personally
financed Trotsky's trip from New York
to Russia. He was a major contributor
to Woodrow Wilson's presidential
campaign and an advocate for passage
of the Federal Reserve Act.

Some more reading on Jacob Schiff's financing of the Russian Revolution :
http://www.wildboar.net/multilingual/easterneuropean/russian/literature/articles/whofinanced/whofinancedleninandtrotsky.html

[Ludmila]

“Again, I disagree.  Every single oligarch was part of the nomenklatura at some level, whether large or small.  That is pretty much the case in every former republic of the USSR.”

That’ pretty much how the whole oligarch thing worked!

Go to wikipedia and get the list of journalists killed in Russia, here ya’ go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

Now go to page 32, haha I’m kidding, but look at the name “Paul Klebnikov”, who was the chief editor of newly established Russian version of Forbes magazine.  Gunned down in front of his young daughter, Why? Wel-l-l-l-l, Paul just published the Russian Fortune 500, about the 500 richest people in Russia, something that had never been done before or since, and it showed that about 80% of Russia’s Fortune 500, were “the nomenklatura” who expropriated some national resource, i.e. nickel mine, oil field, etc. and took the title to the property and where it said owned by the people of Russia, crossed that out and put in their own name, wow 80%!!!

A high price to pay for such knowledge, but there it is, and no, no one was ever convicted for his murder, no one ever is...

Paul Khlebnikov was an American journalist, a man of highest dignity. He was killed during the Yeltsin regime after he disclosed the dark side of the jewish oligarhs, particularly Berezovsky--the oligarh who was connected with Chechen islam radicals.
From WIKI :
 
Meanwhile, Klebnikov expanded the article into the 2000 book Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia.^[3][13] Believed to be based heavily on interviews with Alexander Korzhakov, the head of security for former president Boris Yeltsin, the book described the privatization process used by Yeltsin as "the robbery of the century" and detailed the alleged corruption of various Russian businesspeople, particularly focusing on Berezovsky.^[14] The book met with mixed reviews in journalistic circles.^[2] A New York Times reviewer praised it as "richly detailed" and "effectively angry".^[14]
Klebnikov released a second book, Conversation with a Barbarian: Interviews with a Chechen Field Commander on Banditry and Islam, in 2003. The book is a transcript of a lengthy interview with Chechen rebel leader Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, conducted in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the course of the interview, Nukhayev gives his views on Islam and Chechen society.^[15]

[Ludmila]

“The United States were founded on the idea of finding freedom”

Luda,
At the end of the Revolutionary War there were about 3 million slaves in the United States.

Krymster, just reminding you of the Jewish ( along side others) slave ownership and the participation of jews in the banquet.
From WIKI :
American mainland colonial Jews imported slaves from Africa at a rate proportionate to the general population. As slave sellers, their role was more marginal, although their involvement in the Brazilian and Caribbean trade is believed to be considerably more significant.

Care to expand on the above?

[Ludmila]

about the 500 richest people in Russia, something that had never been done before or since, and it showed that about 80% of Russia’s Fortune 500, were “the nomenklatura” who expropriated some national resource, i.e. nickel mine, oil field, etc. and took the title to the property and where it said owned by the people of Russia, crossed that out and put in their own name, wow 80%!!!

Krymster, here is what WIKI says on the period when the "main expropriation" occurred, by WHO, WHAT resources,   and WHERE the money ended up ( until it was relatively stopped after 2002-2003) :

The Russian mafia in Israel began with the mass immigration of Russian Jews to Israel in 1989.^[12] The Russian mafia saw Israel as an ideal place to launder money, as Israel's banking system was designed to encourage aliyah, the immigration of Jews, and the accompanying capital. Following the trend of global financial deregulation, Israel had also implemented legislation aimed at easing the movement of capital. Combined with the lack of anti-money laundering legislation, "Russian" organised crime found it an easy place to transfer ill-gotten gains. In 2005, police estimated that Russian organised crime had laundered between $5 and 10 billion in the fifteen years since the end of the Soviet Union. Non-Jewish criminals such as Sergei Mikhailov sought to get Israeli passports, using fake Jewish documentation.^[13]
Russian and Ukrainian Jewish criminals have also been able to set up networks in the United States, following the large migration of Russian Jews to New York City and Miami, but also in European cities such as Berlin and Antwerp. Many of these Russian gangsters have Israeli passports as well.^[14] Infamous Russian-Jewish mobsters include Marat Balagula, Evsei Agron and their respective criminal gangs in the United States. Soviet-Jewish criminal groups in the United States are involved in racketeering, prostitution, drug trafficking, extortion, and gasoline fraud as well as murder.^[15]

[Brasscasing]

The american way of late is to replace our long deceased slave force with the modern day slaves of illegal aliens...most work their asses off for the privileged, yet the 'privileged' look down their noses at them and complain they should be ejected, all the while treating them like servants..... housekeeping, landscaping, car washing, fruit picking, food preparation, taking orders at restaurants  loading and unloading...etc etc.

Especially true over the last eight years. The only difference being  these new 'slaves' can vote.

Brass

[Brasscasing]

What about all the corporate welfare that rich directly/indirectly benefit from...and then bang prostitutes, while using booze/drugs?  That sort of hypocrisy is all just fine with you of course.

Actually, if you were familiar with crime statistics you'd find it's the welfare class feeding off each other. They'll spend their social assistance/welfare check on booze and drugs/vice rather than better themselves or even fed/cloth their children.

Brass

[fathertime]

Especially true over the last eight years. The only difference being  these new 'slaves' can vote.

Brass

Ha!  It has been about 30 years actually.  The illegals generally don't want to vote.  Regardless of who has been president, a wink/nod has been policy.  Perhaps Trump will surprise his early supports/detractors and do something different in a good/fair way. 


Fathertime!