posted May 02, 2012 03:30 PM            

I know there is another kind of "TANF" (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)that may not be as monitored. BUT, (I work in the legal profession with many disabled people, so I know just what I have learned in my field) from what I know, the way the "welfare" works now, it's almost like a debit card, so perhaps some people DO abuse the system and make insanely unnecessary purchases, but this is the minority. 85% of people who need public assistance only use it for a temporary situation.

posted May 02, 2012 04:28 PM            

quote:

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You're right, Spool. The average American home is 500 square feet larger than ours. They drive gas guzzlers. They need 36% more money to "feel rich" than us, self-reported. They're just greedier. I have to be mindful of the cultural differences.

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posted May 02, 2012 04:31 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Aquacheeka:
If only more Americans would travel. They would see that there's a better way (sigh). But the bulk of Yankees don't even own a passport.

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posted May 02, 2012 09:44 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by juniperb:
data, facts, graphs, links please

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Self-reported income to feel rich: http://www.cos-mag.com/Human-Resources/HR-Stories/Canadi ans-need-33-per-cent-less-pay-than-Americans-to-feel-rich.html

Average house size Canada: http://theeconomicanalyst.com/content/housin g-envy-and-joneseshow-realignment-consumer-expectations-will-pull-aggregate-house-pric

Average house size United States: http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-18/business/24963342_1_first-time-b uyers-house-size-size-of-new-homes

Americans love driving gas-guzzling big cars (maybe because gas is cheaper for them?): http://money.msn.com/market-news/post.aspx?post=81485486-6879-49a7-8b5a-451c87bc9d68

posted May 03, 2012 01:19 PM            

that said, there is nothing quite so guaranteed to make a person feel rich than to know that whatever their health, and whatever their income, they will get decent healthcare without cost (or with very low cost)....something the conservatives among us just don't seem to understand.

the 33% less needed to feel rich would include medical care americans need to spend, in GENERAL, over a lifetime if not per year.

and then FREE education of a high standard (such as JEFFERSON attempted to provide by establishing the FREE university of virginia - for instance - and the formerly FREE to residents california university system too)...makes one feel pretty rich too.

however i would agree that MANY americans would prefer to have the cash and the choice to spend it where they like, and do not notice directly the consequences of the many who cannot afford those "luxuries" like medical and education expenses.

personally i think there are a LOT of americans who have learned in the past few years what is NOT so important as they once thought it was. and PERSONALLY, i find it ludicrous to insist on being able to buy everything in sight whether it will hurt others down the road or not.

posted May 03, 2012 01:59 PM            

and having lived in england and seen rich and poor benefitting from the NHS and the education grant system, people who started hugely successful businesses both by borrowing from parents and by collecting "unemployment" while building, i have no problem with paying more taxes so these things can be available to all.

but the addiction to money is the issue. once people get that carrot in front of their noses they don't ever want to stop accumulating. and telling them there is a "ceiling" will never work. so i say, let them earn as much as they like, but insist that a certain amount go into the pot. for their own protection as well as others' - huge disparities in class and income such as we have right now breed crime and mayhem (such as we have right now!).

unfortunately it is very hard for a trust fund baby to see that THEY too are living off other people's earnings. or even the child of fairly well-to-do people who are able to support them through college, lend them the downpayment on a house, or whatever leg-up comes from home. the fact that some people will NEVER get that help is beyond some people's comprehension.

should we relegate all our children to "grin and bear it" that who bred them determines their future? should we insist that "college isn't for everyone" therefore some of us don't deserve it?

posted May 04, 2012 09:04 AM            

The Occupiers, authorities tell us, thought they had rigged the span with plastic explosives that would detonate when they punched a code into a cellphone.

The only thing that went up in smoke, though, was their plot. They were working with dummy devices -- fitting -- sold to them by an FBI informant whom they failed to recognize as the Man.

I'm sorry. Your call to anarchist glory cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again. And again. And again.

General Electric was lucky, too. Its lighting plant was to have been the site of an Occupy Cleveland protest about tax breaks, singlepayer, Afghanistan, environmental destruction, corporate greed, Citizens United, job training, student loan debt, gay rights, defense spending, teacher pay, immigration policy, Chinese currency shenanigans, Iraq, Glass Steagall, foreclosures.

And, of course, the Occupiers' No. 1 concern: people who live more responsibly and thus have more money than they do.

Once the alleged bomb plotters' arrest became public, the unions and leftist organizations that were going to bring the party favors to the GE May Day demo backed out. In Cleveland, rigging public bridges for destruction is still considered bad form.

So it seems that the "mainstream" Occupy movement -- here, at least -- still sees some value in the good opinion of the 99 percent, which is to say the percentage of Americans who are in no way associated with the Occupy movement.

Hence, the desperate attempt of Occupy Cleveland and its enablers to distance themselves from bomb planters with whom the record shows that they are all too well acquainted.

The would-be bridge busters are getting emphatic down-twinkles from the "real" Occupiers.

(If you don't know what twinkles are, you owe it to yourself to have a look. The 90 seconds you'll spend learning this valuable skill will provide a blazing insight into why the movement's more "energetic" elements are frustrated at the pace of the revolution.)

The arrestees are being dismissed as "fringey," which is downright hilarious, considering who is offering the description. Their self-description as anarchists is being presented as an indication that they're outside of the Occupy "mainstream."

Yeah, right.

Take the anarchists out of an Occupy protest and you're down to half a protest.

More likely, the bomb plotters are just a little ahead of the curve.

The people who proclaim the nonviolence of the Occupy movement are, for the most part, sincere. But they're riding the tiger.

Movements that are destructive in their ends, as Occupy is, have two choices: die when the public is not persuaded or turn to violence to justify continued existence. Our luck in Cleveland, thanks to the FBI, is holding. Other places -- most notably Oakland, where a more militant strain of Occupier has held sway -- haven't been as fortunate.

As the local Occupiers try to regain their stride, we'll hear comparisons to the violence and division supposedly preached by the Tea Party, the movement Occupy was ginned up to counter. We'll hear how Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was really the leading edge of the Tea Party.

Most people, though, will have the sense to recognize the difference.

The Occupy people say the existing social, political and economic order is unjust. They want to blow it up, if you will, and to replace it with . . . well, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it, assuming they haven't blown it up.

The Tea Party people know exactly what they want: a country that operates according to its Constitution. We haven't been there in a long time, but going back will be worth the trip.

Whose approach is more constructive?

posted May 04, 2012 11:47 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
I'm disinterested in playing verbal volleyball. So, this line of discussion ends here.

http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-wall-streets-anarchist-roots/

"I should be clear here what I mean by "anarchist principles". The easiest way to explain anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring about a genuinely free society - that is, one where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence. History has shown that vast inequalities of wealth, institutions like slavery, debt peonage or wage labour, can only exist if backed up by armies, prisons, and police. Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants."

[b]"How, then, did OWS embody anarchist principles? It might be helpful to go over this point by point:

1.The refusal to recognise the legitimacy of existing political institutions.

One reason for the much-discussed refusal to issue demands is because issuing demands means recognising the legitimacy - or at least, the power - of those of whom the demands are made. Anarchists often note that this is the difference between protest and direct action: Protest, however militant, is an appeal to the authorities to behave differently; direct action, whether it's a matter of a community building a well or making salt in defiance of the law (Gandhi's example again), trying to shut down a meeting or occupy a factory, is a matter of acting as if the existing structure of power does not even exist. Direct action is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free.

2.The refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existing legal order.

The second principle, obviously, follows from the first. From the very beginning, when we first started holding planning meetings in Tompkins Square Park in New York, organisers knowingly ignored local ordinances that insisted that any gathering of more than 12 people in a public park is illegal without police permission - simply on the grounds that such laws should not exist. On the same grounds, of course, we chose to occupy a park, inspired by examples from the Middle East and southern Europe, on the grounds that, as the public, we should not need permission to occupy public space. This might have been a very minor form of civil disobedience but it was crucial that we began with a commitment to answer only to a moral order, not a legal one.

3.The refusal to create an internal hierarchy, but instead to create a form of consensus-based direct democracy.

From the very beginning, too, organisers made the audacious decision to operate not only by direct democracy, without leaders, but by consensus. The first decision ensured that there would be no formal leadership structure that could be co-opted or coerced; the second, that no majority could bend a minority to its will, but that all crucial decisions had to be made by general consent. American anarchists have long considered consensus process (a tradition that has emerged from a confluence of feminism, anarchism and spiritual traditions like the Quakers) crucial for the reason that it is the only form of decision-making that could operate without coercive enforcement - since if a majority does not have the means to compel a minority to obey its dictates, all decisions will, of necessity, have to be made by general consent.

4.The embrace of prefigurative politics.

As a result, Zuccotti Park, and all subsequent encampments, became spaces of experiment with creating the institutions of a new society - not only democratic General Assemblies but kitchens, libraries, clinics, media centres and a host of other institutions, all operating on anarchist principles of mutual aid and self-organisation - a genuine attempt to create the institutions of a new society in the shell of the old.

I absolutely detest your insinuations that I make this stuff up.

We have something called honour, you know?

I am not Jwhop, however honourable he is. I am uninterested in living to his standards or that of yours.

It's blatantly and thoroughly insulting that you claim I'm expressing a personal viewpoint.

I don't owe you an explanation on anything.

[/B]

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posted May 06, 2012 06:17 PM            

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL READING.....VERY IMPORTANT
Thankyou for the share Christina Hofma and Andrina a very interesting read. much aroha to you and all those who made the changes happen in a peaceful and effective way.
Something I fou...nd interesting:

No news from Iceland… why?
How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland:
…
In Iceland, the people has made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public assembly has been created to rewrite the constitution.
And all of this in a peaceful way.
A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years: What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example.
This is a summary of the facts:
2008. The main bank of the country is nationalized.
The Krona, the currency of Iceland devaluates and the stock market stops.
The country is in bankruptcy
2008. The citizens protest in front of parliament and manage to get new elections that make the resignation of the prime minister and his whole government.
The country is in bad economic situation.
A law proposes paying back the debt to Great Britain and Holland through the payment of 3,500 million euros, which will be paid by the people of Iceland monthly during the next 15 years, with a 5.5% interest.
2010. The people go out in the streets and demand a referendum. In January 2010 the president denies the approval and announces a popular meeting.
In March the referendum and the denial of payment is voted in by 93%. Meanwhile the government has initiated an investigation to bring to justice those responsible for the crisis, and many high level executives and bankers are arrested. The Interpol dictates an order that make all the implicated parties leave the country.
In this crisis an assembly is elected to rewrite a new Constitution which can include the lessons learned from this, and which will substitute the current one (a copy of the Danish Constitution).
25 citizens are chosen, with no political affiliation, out of the 522 candidates. For candidacy all that was needed was to be an adult and have the support of 30 people. The constitutional assembly starts in February of 2011 to present the ‘carta magna’ from the recommendations given by the different assemblies happening throughout the country. It must be approved by the current Parliament and by the one constituted through the next legislative elections.
So in summary of the Icelandic revolution:
-resignation of the whole government
-nationalization of the bank.
-referendum so that the people can decide over the economic decisions.
-incarcerating the responsible parties
-rewriting of the constitution by its people