Ron Paul...

muir said:
If i hold a gun to someones head and say 'you will take this loan from me or i'll blow your brains out', they will likely take out the loan and then they are stuck forever more paying interest payments on that loan to me so they become my economic slave.

The interest payments cripple their economy so that they cannot exploit their own resources and labour and are instead forever bleeding themselves dry to pay interest on a loan they can never hope to pay off.

When they can't tax themsleves anymore i say to them ok then pay me in things. Give me your car and then your house (or in the caase of third world countries it would be logging, oil, various crops or whatever their natural resources are) etc.

That's pretty much what the west is doing in the third world
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That's horrible!

We have used force and intimidation for hundreds of years, its called 'gunboat diplomacy' (see also the book or the documentary called 'confessions of an economic hitmat')

I think this is morally reprehensible and i don't think capitalism is working. By not working i mean it is not providing well for everyone around the world because it is allocating resources in a totally uneven way which is why there is conflict, protests, economic hardship etc

There are other ways to do things

Some individuals don't care if capitalism is not working for most of humanity as long as they are ok and some of them will even deny this fact to themselves to make themselves feel better.

Arguments have been made to justify the behaviour of the corporations and these delusional or dishonest individuals will cling to these arguments because it is the screen they hide their moral cowardice behind
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So true, so true. Thank you for helping me understand.
 
muir said:
Just more waffle from you there Jim

But now i know why you are so reluctant to admit the negative influence of the west on the third world.....you are an active player in it

Your conscience is your business but don't try and convince me that we are not exploiting the third world it won't wash

I've already said you should watch the Pilger films but in reality i think you are too scared because it would rock your world

You need to believe that you're not supporting slavery because your perception of reality depends on that, but some of us are able to be more honest with ourselves
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How ironic.

We should call this the muir show, where muir waffles and accuses others of waffle and bamf show where we demand others dare not call our spade a spade.

When I sit down with the VPs from the national oil companies of Malaysia, Indonesia or Romania and they tell me first hand that they do not have the capability to develop their resources due to technical and manpower restraints and then I sit for a week training say 10-20 of their operators to understand what we know, believe me, I know what I am talking about and you sir are full of shit derived from youtube videos rather than real experience.

As ever an idealist interested only in ideals with absolutely no idea of what is required to make things happen.

In comparison to you I'm a bloody humanitarian because I stop the international oil companies charging millions more for an equivalent service whereas all you do is pay lip service to principles!
 
I have a premonition. In short order, a moderator will :m141::focus:

But until then...:pop2::popcorn:This is fun.
 
InvisibleJim said:
How ironic.

We should call this the muir show, where muir waffles and accuses others of waffle and bamf show where we demand others dare not call our spade a spade.

When I sit down with the VPs from the national oil companies of Malaysia, Indonesia or Romania and they tell me first hand that they do not have the capability to develop their resources due to technical and manpower restraints and then I sit for a week training say 10-20 of their operators to understand what we know, believe me, I know what I am talking about and you sir are full of shit derived from youtube videos rather than real experience.

As ever an idealist interested only in ideals with absolutely no idea of what is required to make things happen.

In comparison to you I'm a bloody humanitarian because I stop the international oil companies charging millions more for an equivalent service whereas all you do is pay lip service to principles!
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No i don't pay lip service I live by my principles

Those VIP's from the countries you are talking about have been doing under table deals which are not in the interests of their people. They could get help elsewhere as i have already said. There are countries who are not part of the neoliberal club who would provide support to them but the officials you deal with or their superiors are bribed or intimidated into doing business within the neoliberal club

Why don't you watch the Pilger video he even places a focus on Indonesia

These are not 'youtube' videos these are the work of one of the worlds most respected investigative journalists

I have also been to many third world countries, seen the conditions and spoken to people there so i know what is happening on the ground

You're not a humanitarian Jim you are a cog in the neoliberal machine
 
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Getting back on topic.... personally the more I learn, I am not a fan of Ron Paul. He basically says "let the states do what they want". As flawed as it is, we need the federal government in the U.S. To let states do what they want, would be the Dark Ages of America. Think of the progress we've made in equal rights for minorities, separation of church and state, legalizing abortion, legalizing marriage equality, ending DADT, and even climate change..... yes, we have a long way to go still; but just imagine how much we would regress in these areas if extremely conservative states were allowed to do what they want. It would be chaos. He even wants to do away with the Dept. of Education - as it is, there are news articles in my home here in SC lamenting that there are high schoolers graduating, yet still having a reading level equivalent to a 7th or 8th grader. If we do away with the federal government, the whole country would look like South Carolina. And, tourism and small pockets of progressivism aside, I don't consider that to be a good thing.
 
Well, I still appreciate that there is one politician out there on the national stage that goes against the status quo.
In the very least it gets people thinking and talking.
 
muir said:
No i don't pay lip service I live by my principles
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Sure!!
 
InvisibleJim said:
226146_2330282582162_1402671586_32745196_1414531_n.jpg


Sure!!
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What? I didn't riot

But poverty can take many forms and it can be relative

Many people perceive their level of success from how they shape up to the people around them. Britain has a psychological phenomena called 'keeping up with the Jones's' where neighbours in streets are trying to keep up with each other in terms of material possessions; for example trying to match the price bracket of each others cars or if one house gets a porch built then they all do etc

This is because in a capitalist society people are conditioned to see the world in a materialistic way and when people perceive others doing better then themselves they develop 'status anxiety'

The truely liberated person is the person who sees that all this is a waste of time and just gets on with doing what they want to do, enjoying life and the world around them etc

So poverty can have a mental element but it is also a physical element

The people who rioted in the UK have genuine greivances such as watching their public services being cut and job opportunities dwindle, whilst politicians are involved in expense scandals and bankers who have crashed the economy get rewarded with massive bonuses from taxpayers money. The rioters also came from areas that suffer a lot of police oppression as the police largely exist to protect the interests of the rich (eg pepper spraying peaceful unarmed protestors including women who are protesting the corruption of the bankers and politicians who support them)

But poverty is much more than just money. Poverty can be about lack of opportunities, lack of hope, lack of health or not being brought up with an enquiring mind. People can have a poverty of freedom if they have been conditioned to never question what they are told.

There are some people who are rich in money but poor in time

There are people who have plenty of money and material things but are completely poor when it comes to love. They are suffering from a poverty of love. They want to be loved but they don't realise that to be loved you first need to have love in your heart.

They develop a hard shell and a 'fuck you' attitude because they have been battling their way through a tough, competitive, materialistic, dog eat dog capitalist world. They develop a hard shell with each round they fight and in the end almost everything becomes a battle.

Carl Jung spoke about the persona or mask that people develop as a front to present to the world; he said its 'a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual'.

Developing a flexible persona is an important part of a persons development but sometimes the person can mirror another persona and this can effect development, so poor role models can be a real problem (plenty of those in the capitalist media!). The most danger comes when people identify too much with their persona.

Modern living constantly requires people to present a front to the world, which can be a problem for people especially those in environments where they have to be on their guard a lot (see for example the number of celebs or business people including the head exec of Llyods recently who have breakdowns or stints in rehab)

I think that's what the novel 'American Psycho' was about.

When people identify too much with their persona through excessive concern for what other people think then they develop ''an unreflecting state of mind 'in which people are utterly unconscious of any distinction between themselves and the world in which they live. They have little or no concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them''' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(psychology)

A real problem lies in the fact that capitalism holds up certain types of people as role models for example TV shows like 'the apprentice' so that young people latch onto the persona types on show and learn from them. Films also often provide bad role models and economic textbooks created by the real life Gordon Ghekos provide a philosophical justification for the mind wanting to arm itself in the gladiatorial arena of life (unwilling as they are to consider whether the tournament should be fought or not in the first place)

Its important therefore that we don't allow ourselves to become our personas. We are not our personas. We are much more than that if we allow ourselves to be.

We don't need to throw the persona sheild up everytime in life. Sometimes if we want love in we have to let it in but we have to love enough first to let the shield down in the first place

And that means loving rioters left out of the consumerist 'keeping up with the Jones's' game by the austerity measures created by the upwards movement of wealth of neoliberalism or sweatshop workers enslaved by the corrupt dealings of their national leaders

It means having a bit of humanity. And once the flood gates are open it does have a transformative effect on someones life

Some people think they can go through life without doing this. They attempt to buy a poor imitation of love. They have a trophy wife on their arm but the women never loves them she loves their money and her life will be as empty and meaningless as his, unable as they both are to get past the purely material to the real riches beyond

That's why despite the fact he says some good things like wanting to bring the troops home Ron Paul is ulitmately a bad bet because he is still arguing for a competitive system that will only see millions more people churned out who feel they have to spend large parts of their lives wearing masks and being inauthentic and never fully able to let a little love into their hearts.

Emotionally stunted people, embittered by their lack of love and consoling themselves in the misery of less fortunates such as sweatshop workers or rioters, much like a baying mob distracted from their own difficult lives by watching gladiators battling it out in an arena.

Loveless and without purpose; but hey, who needs those things when you've got a porsche....right?
 
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Haven't read all of the above but I'd like to make a few comments (oh and I'm not American, just an observer):

1. I'd pick him out of all of the other GOP "hopefuls".

2. I think his existence in the 2012 US presidential election is a good thing rather than a bad thing. I like what he says on Foreign Policy but to be honest that's about it.

3. I do not believe he is a racist despite the allegations.

4. What do you expect about some of his policies? He's a Christian like most Republicans.
 
I still support him 100%.

I like that he wants the federal government to stay out of certain areas (gay marriage legalization, abortion, etc), b/c he WANTS to give the power back to the people. The pitiful part is the disinterest people have in politics. They have more power than they know, too few act for the majority. I believe he wants to stay out of these issues b/c he is actually "for" them however he cannot claim to have liberal affiliation while running Republican. At the same time, I believe he wants to focus on more important issues for society as a whole ... not just to subgroups.

I like that he wants to get rid of the federal reserve. It's such a retarded concept to keep pulling more money out of an invisible bank ... considering all it does is make the dollar less valuable.

I like that he wants to butt-out of other countries and focus on our own. I would love to see us cut back foreign aid, and also cut back imported goods .. basically stimulating more business within our own country and employing those unemployed. Of course in saying so, it doesn't make me look much like a worldly humanitarian ... but I'm absolutely and totally not sorry for stating that we need to take care of our own before we care for everyone else. We have enough problems as it is.

Ron Paul is truthful. Has he wavered? Not that I'm aware of and certainly not like Gingrich or Romney. If anything, I believe he is the LEAST of all the evils. I am mainly republican b/c how republicans treat finance serves myself and my family. So even though this (mainly democratic) forum will want to whip me for being "selfish", let me remind you that when you point one finger there are 3 pointing back at you. ;)
 
Sriracha said:
I still support him 100%.

I like that he wants the federal government to stay out of certain areas (gay marriage legalization, abortion, etc), b/c he WANTS to give the power back to the people. The pitiful part is the disinterest people have in politics. They have more power than they know, too few act for the majority. I believe he wants to stay out of these issues b/c he is actually "for" them however he cannot claim to have liberal affiliation while running Republican. At the same time, I believe he wants to focus on more important issues for society as a whole ... not just to subgroups.

I like that he wants to get rid of the federal reserve. It's such a retarded concept to keep pulling more money out of an invisible bank ... considering all it does is make the dollar less valuable.

I like that he wants to butt-out of other countries and focus on our own. I would love to see us cut back foreign aid, and also cut back imported goods .. basically stimulating more business within our own country and employing those unemployed. Of course in saying so, it doesn't make me look much like a worldly humanitarian ... but I'm absolutely and totally not sorry for stating that we need to take care of our own before we care for everyone else. We have enough problems as it is.

Ron Paul is truthful. Has he wavered? Not that I'm aware of and certainly not like Gingrich or Romney. If anything, I believe he is the LEAST of all the evils. I am mainly republican b/c how republicans treat finance serves myself and my family. So even though this (mainly democratic) forum will want to whip me for being "selfish", let me remind you that when you point one finger there are 3 pointing back at you. ;)
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I'm not really fussed who's pointing at who i'm just gonna tell it how i see it :P

I'm not bothered that you're a 'republican' as i think these things are just labels which are losing their significance as time goes on as behind both parties is a globalist agenda

I think the work that Ron Paul has done in putting the spotlight on the federal reserve is brilliant. The effect that a centralised banking system has had on our economies is absolutely THE crisis of our times.

However i don't think he can actually change things

The people behind the privately owned 'federal' reserve central bank have such pervasive power owning as they do the mainstream media companies, arms manufacturers, oil companies, pharmacuetical companies and food companies etc that it is going to take something incredibly drastic from the US population to bring any democratic say in matters back to the american people.

Because the power elite control the political system there is no way to effect change within that system.

The way to bring about change is to unite enough workers that a coordinated effort can be launched.

By this i mean a peaceful effort of non cooperation. If people take up arms and start an armed uprising then this will give the elite the perfect excuse to declare martial law, take total centralised control under FEMA and shoot and arrest their opponents under the NDAA.

Resistance must be peaceful, coordinated and large scale. The organisation required for this is already occuring between groups rallying around occupy wallstreet.

We are going to see increasing agitation amongst the US public and increased protest as they wake up to what is happening and resist it.

Republicans v's democrats is just soap opera
 
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[MENTION=1871]muir[/MENTION] While you are declaring protests are a must ... I still have to put food on the table for my children. People are inspired by politics for their own specific needs. This is seen within my husband's industry ... basically a caste system of the most uneducated workers to highly educated workers. There is no way I would be okay with removing a slight portion of my husband's income to pay the uneducated worker a better wage. Why? My husband has worked very hard to be in his position and not everyone has the brains/resources to be there. We have lived 13 years of blood, sweat and tears ... and are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

You forget that upper class is basically a household that makes more than $100k/yr. $100k/yr can be considered low wage depending on the geographical region where you live in the U.S. However, it is the government's idea to pull from this class group. I believe the upper class standard needs to be redefined to a much higher number, such as $300k.
 
Right now, I just can't see myself voting for either Romney or Santorum.
I absolutely will not be voting for Obama.
Do I stand by my convictions and vote for Ron Paul only to help Obama?
Or, prositute my ideals and vote for whoever is the Republican nominee? Then feel like shit about it?

In elections past I have voted based on principal. On a couple of occasions, I voted for someone who was not the official nominee of a party, only to be told by others I am throwing my vote away. Taking votes away from so and so.
I have always brushed this off and said if more people would not act like Lemmings at the polling place, maybe we would be better off.
But, this time around, I am really conflicted. I absolutley do not want to give Obama any chance at all!
Wish we could place a negative vote.

People bitch and moan about the way things are run, but when the time comes to put their vote where their mouth is, they vote back in more of the same that they complain about.

I will be upfront and admit, I did vote for Obama in '08. I fell for his slick talk. I really thought he would have done better than he has. But now I just want to throw a shoe at the TV when he speaks.
He clearly has no common sense in that Ivy league brain of his.
I find him to be an embarrassment to my generation.

What to do... what to do.....
 
Sriracha said:
@muir While you are declaring protests are a must ... I still have to put food on the table for my children. People are inspired by politics for their own specific needs. This is seen within my husband's industry ... basically a caste system of the most uneducated workers to highly educated workers. There is no way I would be okay with removing a slight portion of my husband's income to pay the uneducated worker a better wage. Why? My husband has worked very hard to be in his position and not everyone has the brains/resources to be there. We have lived 13 years of blood, sweat and tears ... and are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

You forget that upper class is basically a household that makes more than $100k/yr. $100k/yr can be considered low wage depending on the geographical region where you live in the U.S. However, it is the government's idea to pull from this class group. I believe the upper class standard needs to be redefined to a much higher number, such as $300k.
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Protest is a must but it can be done in many ways for example you can opt out of the services of various banks or from the products of various corporations. There are many lifestyle choices, some easy some more commiting which can be made as ways of disengaging from the current system.

I also have to feed my family so i understand how you are feeling.

I also understand that fear makes people vote according to what they perceive are their best interests as i've seen this process up close and personal.

But this approach is a false perception.

If you had never seen a wall before i could say to you that wall is made up of a thin layer of paint and i could show you some paint to demonstrate, but that would be a false perception as behind the paint is a whole load of masonry which is what actually provides the structural support.

Its the same with the US system. Politics as it is played out on the TV screen is just the surface gloss. it's not even that important. You could tak it away and the whole edifice would still stand because the real power structure lies behind it.

The paint is purely cosmetic and designed to draw your attention away from the wall behind it, just as politics and the media circus that surrounds it distracts us from the real power centres and dynamics behind it.

Politicians are at most middle managment and at their least they are puppets.

The real power lies with a small elite, bound together by marriage and interlocking business interests who gain cohesion through membership of various educational establishments (eg Yale and Harvard), various secret clubs (eg Bohemian Grove, Skull and bones, wolfs head, freemasons, roundtable & Bilderbergers) and through various think tanks (eg Council on foreign relations, Trlateral Commission, Club of Rome), through a central banking system (the 'Federal' reserve isn't federal at all but is privately owned with just two banks: Chase Manhatten and Citibank owning a majority share between them; behind these banks are intermarried banking dynasties such as the Morgans, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Warburgs and others)

These guys have consolidated the mainstream media outlets into a 10 giants which they control; they have also merged oil companies, pharmaceutical companies etc

This ediface of power made up of an elite with a shared love of power and wealth, working together in their mutual interests is growing all the time as they centralise their power and wealth even more.

It really doesn't matter whether you vote republican or democrat as both parties are fed, staffed, funded, moulded, and controlled by the power elite

Political parties only serve to entrench the prejudices that have been created and cultivated in the media to divide and distract the public.

people need to start thinking bigger than this. We can't afford to be divided because the people at the top sure as hell aren't divided and unlike us they also have a plan that they are aggressively carrying out.

This difference you are perceiveing betwen the so called 'middle class' and 'working class' is not important at all because neither of them has the wealth of the nation. It doesn;t matter who they pay handouts to here or tax there because its all small beer.

Here's the reality of the wealth in the US:

[video=youtube;8VHNXTBwj80]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VHNXTBwj80[/video]

And that video is over a decade old now so the wealth has become even more concentrated since then!
 
Sriracha said:
@muir While you are declaring protests are a must ... I still have to put food on the table for my children. People are inspired by politics for their own specific needs. This is seen within my husband's industry ... basically a caste system of the most uneducated workers to highly educated workers. There is no way I would be okay with removing a slight portion of my husband's income to pay the uneducated worker a better wage. Why? My husband has worked very hard to be in his position and not everyone has the brains/resources to be there. We have lived 13 years of blood, sweat and tears ... and are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

You forget that upper class is basically a household that makes more than $100k/yr. $100k/yr can be considered low wage depending on the geographical region where you live in the U.S. However, it is the government's idea to pull from this class group. I believe the upper class standard needs to be redefined to a much higher number, such as $300k.
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This film is definitely worth a look! The first line of this trailer sums up most of the Ron Paul politics in a nutshell.

[video=youtube_share;DZjsJdokC0s]http://youtu.be/DZjsJdokC0s[/video]
 
bickelz said:
What's the tsunami?
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The idea that global politics has no effect on your everyday life; everything from the trade agreements (like NAFTA), the development of mega-corporations and the bank scandals lately. The idea that these things are somehow detached from our own personal lives.

American politics is like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon - where he has one good idea that suffers a minor mistake that causes it to fail and he abandons it completely, but the one crack-pot idea he has he repeats over and over again a dozen times. We've had leaders who saw a global picture and abused it for their own gains and we have the Libertarians that want to start over again from square one, but won't change the things that caused us to stray this far in the first place (just loop the last hundred years over again). Then we have the people who occasionally speak out with a new idea that fails simply due to lack of funding or publicity but has a solid foundation... and no one ever looks twice at their ideas and revisits them.
 
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