From a Jill 2016 email blast:
You may hear a lot today about the back and forth of last night’s Democratic Party debate, but let’s talk about what you didn’t hear – and won’t hear – from the Democratic candidates.
Guaranteed jobs for all who need work. 100% clean renewable energy by 2030. Abolishing student debt. Implementing a racial justice action plan to end police brutality, mass incarceration, and institutional racism in education, housing, health and employment.
On issue after issue, we’re calling for the solutions we really need – while the establishment parties are offering either band-aids, or nothing.
Can you contribute today to help me lift up the call for real solutions that Washington politicians won’t touch?
I’ll be on Democracy Now! today to talk about how we are challenging the establishment parties’ silence on crucial life-or-death issues.
Only our campaign is calling for an immediate halt in all new fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration, and an emergency transition to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030.
Only our campaign is calling for an end to high stakes testing and school privatization.
In foreign policy, only our campaign is calling for an immediate weapons embargo to the to Middle East and an end to drone warfare.
Only our campaign calls for ending financial support for governments violating human rights and committing war crimes, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
We are the only campaign to call for cutting U.S. military spending at least 50%. And leading on global nuclear disarmament.
On the corporate parties’ debate stages, they may disagree within the narrow boundaries allowed in Washington.
But only our campaign is willing to challenge the deadly bipartisan consensus and put forward an agenda of justice, peace and sustainability that tens of millions of Americans are clamoring for.
Thank you for moving this world-saving, life-changing movement forward.
It’s in our hands!
Jill Stein
Don’t be naive. That money doesn’t flow with no quid pro quo. I barely touched on some of the many quid pro quo examples above.
Avoiding liability, getting an undeserved leg up on potential competitors, getting massive government spending to shore up and expand their markets…it’s not just avoiding taxes by any stretch.
Nope. I’ve made my arguments and don’t need you to speculate incorrectly about what I “may” argue and then argue against arguments I have not and would not make.
Dave Terry: Easy solution. Don’t tax corporations AT ALL. Tax the dividends at the one who receives them. This fixes the “double-taxation’ problem. (Which many liberals either don’t think is a “problem”, or aren’t aware of at all!)
” But I’m a libertarian, and I think taxation is theft. I think it ISN’T a ‘subsidy’ to fuel companies or users to simply NOT tax them!!!”
NONSENSE! To tax SOME producers or users and NOT Tax others is simply another
form of theft and socialist redistribution.
Paulie: You still don’t seem to realize that what you have just described isn’t a “subsidy” to fossil fuels. The net value actually flows from those fuels and the companies which handle them (really, ultimately from the fuel consumer!), to politicians, NOT in the opposite direction! That’s not a “subsidy”! In fact, fuel companies are effectively ‘subsidizing’ politicians. They are doing so, presumably, because they want to control government, perhaps avoiding or reducing tax rates.
Now, you may try to argue that a foregone tax (a tax which ISN’T applied) amounts to a ‘subsidy’. That’s an old leftist trick! But I’m a libertarian, and I think taxation is theft. I think it ISN’T a ‘subsidy’ to fuel companies or users to simply NOT tax them!!!
We disagree. I think my case is more than abundantly clear, and we barely scraped the surface here. There’s massive government intervention on behalf of the established power players in the market to keep them on top, in return for front and back door campaign contributions, payoffs, bribes, revolving doors, etc. That’s no less true in the market for energy than in many others.
Paulie, you have totally failed to established that today’s transportation system is appreciably manipulated, or somehow forced onto the public without its will. The exception might be the way people are forced to have part of their gasoline taxes, which are supposed to be used for ROADS, used for “public transportation”.
It has nothing to do with the majority of the area. Cars existed well before the interstate system. The vast majority of the population lives in urban areas, and before the interstate system that mostly meant within the actual cities. The suburban sprawl is what changed, as well as land use, living, working and shopping patterns within cities. As for what transportation system will exist in the future, I think your imagination is far too limited, but that is neither here nor there.
Paulie: You are CLEARLY ignoring the fact that the large majority of the area of the US isn’t urban. All alternatives to the car fail for the largest number of journeys. Someday, things will be even better: They will install magnesium-ion batteries instead of today’s lithium ion. But it will still be a CAR.
All of those things and others at times. Again, look at the history of urban development before the federal interstate program, in other countries, etc. Best all around? Depends on what you think of the trade-offs. Energy usage being one. There are others.
“”No, Paulie, the world CHOSE the automobile, over horses and oxen pulling carts.””
“LOL.”
That was a rather embarrassed, self-conscious “LOL”, I think.
“You may be unfamiliar with the history of trains, buses, and urban living including subways, buses, bicycles, walking etc? ”
Tell me what actually substitutes for the automobile. Walking? Very limited range, depends on youth and health. Little ability to carry things. (shopping). Walking in rain? Forget it. Risky in urban neighborhoods.
Bicycle? Still limited range. Depends on youth and health. Little ability to carry things.
Subway? Very expensive capital investment. Route cannot be readily changed. Additions are slow and expensive. Generally doesn’t go where you want to go. Generally doesn’t come close to most people who might otherwise want to use it.
Bus? Limited routes, schedules often limited to every 15 or 30 minutes. Stops at night.
Automobile? Easy, rather safe, reasonably economical, can carry many people, can carry merchandise and luggage, Weatherproof. Only a few feet from your doorstep; can go virtually anywhere you want to go and park within a couple hundred feet in many cases. Can go hundreds of miles if necessary.
“Somehow I think you know more about it than you are letting on. No one was talking about going back to the horse and buggy era here, that’s a strawman of your invention.”
Somehow I think you’re pretending you don’t realize how much better automobiles are than the alternatives. And you forget, it’s not what YOU want, it’s what EVERYBODY ELSE wants. You are irrelevant.
But you are criticizing what is, BY FAR, the best all-around method that currently exists.
LOL. You may be unfamiliar with the history of trains, buses, and urban living including subways, buses, bicycles, walking etc? Somehow I think you know more about it than you are letting on. No one was talking about going back to the horse and buggy era here, that’s a strawman of your invention. There are many energy and transportation paradigms. Government and big corporations combined together in the post WWII era to make one dominant. There was massive government spending involved with making this choice. It was not a pure free market decision by any means. That created huge amounts of sprawl and greatly expanded relying on driving – and driving further distances – as opposed to other choices people made when there was less sprawl. Let’s stop pretending that this occurred in a free market. And it was a huge subsidy to the automobile, construction and petroleum industries among others.
If they stood for two terms of Obama they will fall for anything.
Paulie:
“In the mid-1950’s, we chose to build a massive set of roads, paid for by gasoline taxes. I see no “subsidy” there: The users paid for the roads. Why do YOU think there was a “subsidy”?”
“It locks the population into an automobile driving based infrastructure and way of life.
No, Paulie, the world CHOSE the automobile, over horses and oxen pulling carts. You aren’t aware of that? And the quite literal horse-shit that contained tuberculosis bacteria, that 30-40 years later caused millions of people to DIE of being essentially eaten alive? We weren’t “locked in”, we were FREED of not being able to move faster than 5 mph except (rarely) in trains.
“With everything being so heavily dependent on basing life around automobiles with internal combustion engines and the fossil fuels they use, it creates a massive cost to replace all that with anything different, and a hugely expanded market for petroleum all at the same time. ”
That’s called REALITY paulie.
And you seem to have ‘forgotten’ my point about a subsidy.
“And with the attending dispersement of housing, jobs, and shopping and recreational venues into sprawled out areas requiring a lot of driving, that also created the need for a great deal of construction that also used tremendous amounts of fossil fuels. So it’s not nearly as simple as you may think or want people to believe you think.”
That’s called REALITY, paulie. Our civilization has developed in great degree along a path defined by fossil fuels, true. But you haven’t shown that there was a readily-chooseable second or third alternative to that. Until you can show civilization COULD have chosen a different, your comment is useless.
There was actually an alternative, doing nothing. To see a bunch of people who chose that, they are called “Amish” and they live in concentration in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and perhaps other areas. They don’t use electricity, they ride in horse-carts.
Jim,
OK, then we agree that the quest to acquire petroleum resources has something to do with US involvement in the middle east, and that it thus is a form of subsidy for that type of energy over others. Glad we cleared that up.
“has created a void in the left, to which Ms. Stein is clearly appealing!”
Ben Manski said on Facebook last night that Sanders is really not interested in being President or really competing against Clinton other than to promote a few topics. So Stein has a lot of time between now and Nov. 2016 to really become the Left’s candidate of choice and have it reflect in the polls, especially when Clinton dispatches with her primary opponents.
I’ll say this, the antiwar constituency on the Left has to move to the Greens, because there’s no place else for it to go.
Paulie: You said, “We disagree. There were multiple reasons for war, but if you think that the repeated invasions, occupations and bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, the foreign aid to various nations in the mideast, North Africa and Central Asia, the projections of force and military preparations for wars in those parts of the world has nothing to do with oil, we have a difference of opinion.”
Did I say that it had NOTHING to do with oil? Nothing?!?
Simple answer: I didn’t. So if all you can do is set up the usual straw-man with your “nothing”, we can stop right there.
Primarily, our involvement can be at least traced back to when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and less directly when Saddam had a war with Iran over (idiotic) religious reasons. Sunni/Shiite. That’s the general rule for Muslim countries for the last 1300 years or so.
It locks the population into an automobile driving based infrastructure and way of life. With everything being so heavily dependent on basing life around automobiles with internal combustion engines and the fossil fuels they use, it creates a massive cost to replace all that with anything different, and a hugely expanded market for petroleum all at the same time. And with the attending dispersement of housing, jobs, and shopping and recreational venues into sprawled out areas requiring a lot of driving, that also created the need for a great deal of construction that also used tremendous amounts of fossil fuels. So it’s not nearly as simple as you may think or want people to believe you think.
We disagree. There were multiple reasons for war, but if you think that the repeated invasions, occupations and bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, the foreign aid to various nations in the mideast, North Africa and Central Asia, the projections of force and military preparations for wars in those parts of the world has nothing to do with oil, we have a difference of opinion.
The liability is in the cost of insuring the risk, not just in actual meltdowns. Get rid of the Price-Anderson act and let’s see exactly how much the liability cap is worth on a more free market and whether nuclear power can get along without it or not.
From the 55 failings of the federal government:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/07/augustus-invictus-a-declaration-of-the-failings-of-the-federal-government/
9. It has allowed the face of the earth to be desecrated with pollutants & artificialities, with plastics & asphalt, with strip malls & parking lots. No Government in history has profited so greatly from such reckless irresponsibility.
16. It has plundered our seas by handing them to corporations; ravaged our Coasts with pollution; plagued our towns with regulations paid for by special interests; and destroyed the lives of our people.
22. It has allowed so-called development upon the earth such that the Wilderness hardly exists any longer. Where National Parks have been created, there have roads been paved for the admission of thousands of tourists. Where no law preserves the land, the forests merely await the coming urban sprawl.
26. It has allowed & encouraged the destruction of wildlife habitats in favor of this ever-teeming, ever-expanding population of Untouchable Americans, providing federal funding for the ?development? of the land and the raising of apartment complexes, shopping malls, and fast food restaurants.
42. It has allowed the destruction of communities by encouraging urban sprawl and a culture of technological obsession.
43. It has allowed catastrophic deforestation, water & air pollution, and natural resource wastage in the Holy Names of Progress, Industry, & Profit.
50. It has allowed corporations to poison the food & water.
JW: “Augustus Sol Invictus is a “hard core environmentalist”
Dave Terry replies: “You mean, like in SEEDLESS watermelon?”
If you goto the five minute mark at this speech you will hear Augustus Invictus talk a bit about pollution of common lands and waters. To me is sounds like my position but don’t go by my assertion. Listen and decide for yourself it is sounds like a modern day hard core environmentalist or someone like myself that does not cotton to pollution of the waters held in common.
“Augustus Invictus on the Difference between Freedom & Slavery”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn6cx42dZXM
Dave Terry:
I view the “depletion allowance” as a fraud, but maybe not in the direction most others might. I think that (for example) if I buy a section of land for $1 million, and I remove and sell $900,000 of oil, I shouldn’t have to pay ANY taxes on the oil, because it cost me more to buy the land than I received for the oil. The overall cost for the land is $1 million minus $900K, or $100,000.
Somebody might say that the “depletion allowance” is “less generous”. I call it a ripoff. But then again, I’m a libertarian and I think taxation is theft.
The buy up patent claim is a crock, requiring that you not know how patents work. First, the aptent must actually disclose how the gadget works at the engineering level, in such a way that someone skilled in the art can duplicate the device. If your patent does not disclose how your antigravity machine works (not the theory but where to put the needed gears) it does not protect those gears as intellectual property. Second, almost all patents are publicly available from the patent office (exceptions: for example the atomic bomb patents). Third once you patent something, there are vast hordes of corporate folks whose task it is to download the interesting patents, duplicate them in the lab (legal, no loss to owner), and then make slight variations, that still work but are far enough away to be patentable. Oh yes, there is a purpose issue. If you patent “a new treatment for heart pain” I may find “a new high explosive”
jim Oct. 14
:Paulie:
“”So I suspect there really are no such “huge subsidies” for fossil fuels. There may be some subsidies, but they are not “huge”.””
“They are incredibly massive, although mostly indirect.”
Name a few. I have seen lists, but many seem to be subsidies for fuel — USERS, not fuel PRODUCERS. Also, gasoline taxes have turned into the cash-cows for public transportation, which is certainly the opposite of a subsidy.
Depletion is the using up of a natural resource by mining, quarrying, drilling, or felling. Depletion allowance, then, is the allowance available through the IRS code allowing an owner to account for the reduction (production) of reserves as a product is produced and sold. For purposes of this article, the depletion allowance we are concerned with is the depletion allowance associated with the production of oil and/or gas. The depletion allowance, like depreciation, is a form of cost recovery for capital investments. There are two ways of calculating depletion allowance: cost depletion and percentage depletion. Oil and gas royalty owners have the availability of using either, yet for mineral properties you must generally use the method that gives you the larger deduction.
Who Can Claim a Depletion Allowance?
If you have an economic interest in mineral property (which includes royalty income), you can take a deduction for depletion. You have an economic interest if both of the following apply:
You have acquired by investment any interest in mineral deposits
You have a legal right to income from the extraction of the minerals to which you look for a return of your capital investment
Cost Depletion
With cost depletion, a taxpayer recovers the actual capital investment throughout the period of income production. Each year, the taxpayer deducts a portion of the original capital investment, less previous deductions, that is equal to the fraction of the estimated remaining recoverable reserves that have been produced and sold that year. The cumulative amount recovered under this method can never exceed the taxpayer’s original capital investment.
Percentage Depletion Allowance
Under percentage depletion, the deduction for the recovery of one’s capital investment is a fixed percentage of the gross income (sales revenue) from the sale of the oil or gas. For oil and gas royalty owners, percentage depletion is calculated using a rate of 15% of the gross income based on your average daily production of crude oil or natural gas, up to your depletable oil or natural gas quantity. An attractive element of percentage depletion is that the cumulative depletion deductions may be greater than the capital amount spent by the taxpayer to acquire the property.
Taxable Income Limit
There is a taxable income limit for oil and gas royalty owners. Your annual deduction for percentage depletion is limited to the smaller of the following:
100% of your taxable income from the property figured without the deduction for depletion
65% of your taxable income from all sources, figured without the depletion allowance.
Paulie:
“”I am not aware of “huge subsidies” for fossil fuels. Maybe you are alluding to the idea that allowing a coal or oil company to deduct their business expenses amounts to a “huge subsidy”.
Nope. I am referring to things like exemptions from liability, wars for oil, military spending and projections of force in preparation for such wars, the federal interstate system, and on on and on.””
“Nope. I am referring to things like exemptions from liability,
You’re stretching things mightily. In the last 45 years, I recall only a single major nuclear power disaster in America, that of Three Mile Island (1979). And there was virtually no external damage: The loss was in the plant, not a liability to others.
The question must be, HOW MUCH is the “exemption from liability” actually WORTH? Even if we include the damage to the Three Mile Island Plant, Wikipedia says:
” Benjamin K. Sovacool, in his 2007 preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, estimated that the TMI accident caused a total of $2.4 billion in property damages.[74″
Okay, $2.4 billion averaged over 45 years isn’t very much.
” wars for oil,”
Which ones? Hint: Iraq 2 (2003) wasn’t a “war for oil”. Indeed, that IDIOT George W Bush, early on, in response to criticism, said ‘we won’t take any oil’. What he SHOULD have said (assuming we should have invaded, which of course was wrong) was something like, “We will pay for a maximum of 1 year of operations. If Iraq continues to fight us, we will pay for all costs by taking Iraq’s oil, every barrel we need to take to pay.”
Iraq2 was one idiot (Bush 43) avenging the stupidities of another idiot, (Bush 41) who screwed up the FIRST Iraq invasion by NOT taking out Saddam.
” military spending and projections of force in preparation for such wars”
I have a solution to this problem. (AP). But some people simply dont’ want to listen.
” the federal interstate system, and on on and on.”
In the mid-1950’s, we chose to build a massive set of roads, paid for by gasoline taxes. I see no “subsidy” there: The users paid for the roads. Why do YOU think there was a “subsidy”?
:Paulie:
“”So I suspect there really are no such “huge subsidies” for fossil fuels. There may be some subsidies, but they are not “huge”.””
“They are incredibly massive, although mostly indirect.”
Name a few. I have seen lists, but many seem to be subsidies for fuel — USERS, not fuel PRODUCERS. Also, gasoline taxes have turned into the cash-cows for public transportation, which is certainly the opposite of a subsidy.
“The patent system may be another one, ”
Full disclosure: I have a US patent, issued this year. But many decades before I had it, I believed that the patent system is necessary and important. First, it is defined in the US Constitution. That, of course, isn’t a LIBERTARIAN argument. However, it is worth noting that Ayn Rand, in her book Atlas Shrugged, strongly defended the patent system: A major plot point involved the (evil) government blackmailing the business owner Henry Reardon to get the rights to his “Rearden Metal”.
Those of you who say you don’t like “big business” need to think about this. Suppose the patent system didn’t exist: Any individual who had a good idea would have absolutely no way to actually implement, and make money on his idea, unless he could “own” the invention, and sell it to someone else to manufacture. (or raise money to make it himself). The alternative, keeping the details of an invention secret, is simply not practical in today’s high-tech world.
“…but I have yet to find actual evidence for the often repeated claim that corporations buy up rights to new technologies that could put them out of business and sit on them.”
Nor do I believe that. If those new technologies were so good, it would almost always make more sense using them in business, rather than sitting on them.
The rest of the article was good too.
Paulie, you said:
“Back to the debate: https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/13/the-demdebate-clarified-that-many-libert”
I liked the following paragraph:
“Again and again, their answers seemed to be mostly wilted salads of buzzwords—BILLIONAIRES! GLASS-STEAGALL! FAMILY LEAVE!—that they emitted on a regular schedule, like air fresheners in public toilets. The economic plans of everyone up there tonight ranged from terrible to truly awful. Unsurprisingly, Sanders couldn’t go more than four or five words without denouncing the “handful of billionaires” he swears are running every aspect of the country. Clinton explicitly called for taxing the rich and completed her latter-day turn to progressive populist by pushing for free and reduced-price money for everything from college to daycare to maternity leave. When not sidestepping his own awful record as an over-policing mayor of Baltimore, O’Malley couldn’t stop talking about building an electric grid so clean you can eat off it.”
Nope. I am referring to things like exemptions from liability, wars for oil, military spending and projections of force in preparation for such wars, the federal interstate system, and on on and on.
They are incredibly massive, although mostly indirect. The patent system may be another one, but I have yet to find actual evidence for the often repeated claim that corporations buy up rights to new technologies that could put them out of business and sit on them.
Much in the same way as the term “niggers” has come to convey the idea of African-Americans. I don’t consider the regime edicts that say who may or not be in this part of the continent to be deserving of the term laws. And there are all kinds of laws that people break every day – in fact, it’s impossible to lead a normal human life without breaking several daily, including much more serious crimes than the civil infraction of existing within the vast territories claimed by the US regime gang without their permission. Thus each and every one of us is an “illegal,” and the term itself is dehumanizing and wrong on many levels.
Paulie:
“”She can state this as an idealistic goal. But not as a realistic prospect.””
“Opinions differ. For example, it’s entirely possible that huge subsidies (direct and indirect) for fossil fuels and nuclear (in the form of liability caps) have suppressed the natural development of clean energy alternatives that would otherwise have already long since displaced them in the energy markets.”
I am not aware of “huge subsidies” for fossil fuels. Maybe you are alluding to the idea that allowing a coal or oil company to deduct their business expenses amounts to a “huge subsidy”. Actually, in a wry way, it is: If the IRS were to take the position that these fossil fuel companies were prohibited from even so much as deducting their business expenses, they’d go out of business quite quickly.
However, if that happened those companies would have been treated quite differently than virtually every other industry.
So I suspect there really are no such “huge subsidies” for fossil fuels. There may be some subsidies, but they are not “huge”.
Related to points discussed earlier in the thread:
https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/14/clinton-and-sanders-pay-lip-service-to-c
http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/how-your-vote-matters-to-black-lives
Paulie:
“”It is obvious that actually accomplishing this would be greatly assisted by RESTRICTING, or even totally prohibiting, illegal immigration. (and by that, I mean also not increasing legal immigration, and indeed expelling the current crop of illegals.)””
“No human being is illegal,”
You are like one of Pavlov’s dogs, who salivated at the ringing of the bell. The purpose of language is to convey IDEAS, concepts, etc. The term “illegals” has come to readily convey the idea of a person who is illegally in America. (or any other country you want to refer to.) As long as they are ACTUALLY “illegally within” this country, there is nothing rhetorically wrong with calling them “illegals”.
YOUR argument should be, “They should not be considered to be illegally within America”. (If you doubt this, ask yourself: Given a choice, would you rather 1. Have people stop calling them illegals. or 2. Have them NO LONGER being illegally in America. (IOW, to legalize them immediately). The correct answer is obvious, at least for you: 2.
“and this is only “obvious” if you believe erroneously that there are a limited number of jobs to be doled out. In reality, the extra productivity added by additional workers and their needs as consumers creates more jobs than would otherwise exist.”
You have a valid argument, which is true OVER TIME. The market, including demand and production, WILL INCREASE OVER TIME. But at any given point in time, there is still a relatively limited number of jobs given then-current. Can you understand the distinction?
An economic recession can be analogized to the sudden clog and slowdown in traffic on a highway, when there is a wreck pulled off to the side, or something going on in the opposite direction. People slow down because people slow down because people slow down. In a recession, demand is low because demand is low because demand is low. This problem is gradually (not instantly) ameliorated, both in automobile traffic and in economics.
” Because immigrants are on average more productive than native born citizens they create more jobs for native born Americans than they “take.””
It would depend a lot on what group of “native born citizens” you are referring to.
Speaking of conflicting progressive values:
https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/14/sanders-when-a-mother-has-a-baby-she-sho
https://reason.com/reasontv/2015/10/14/3-best-worst-moments-democratic-debate
Back to the debate: https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/13/the-demdebate-clarified-that-many-libert
That’s not hard evidence. See https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091114221119AACP2nQ
“paulie
October 14, 2015 at 2:12 pm
The IP address with the “Joe Wendt” comment is the anonymizer frequently used by the nazi troll, so I would not jump to the conclusion that it is actually Joe. Andy is asking whether Joe is actually the nazi troll. Dunno, but at this point there is no hard evidence to indicate that.”
A few days ago a troll comment popped up under the name Joe Wendt, and I asked in Joe Wendt had just accidentally given himself away as the troll, and then that comment quickly disappeared and was not even in the IPR trash folder. Then, a few minutes later the troll popped up again and posted a few comments under my name, and then one under Paul’s name, claiming that Paul and I were the trolls. That was very bizarre.
I don’t know if it is Joe Wendt or not, but he’s got to be considered a prime suspect now, especially when you factor in his bizarre pattern of behavior.
I’m leaving it up for now because it received replies.
The IP address with the “Joe Wendt” comment is the anonymizer frequently used by the nazi troll, so I would not jump to the conclusion that it is actually Joe. Andy is asking whether Joe is actually the nazi troll. Dunno, but at this point there is no hard evidence to indicate that.
How specific do you expect something of this length to be about every policy issue mentioned? And how do you know they can’t be readily implemented?
I do believe that Jill Stein agrees with us about this, if I am not mistaken.
Why would that be your response to the problem of police brutality? Does it somehow excuse it? I don’t think so.
And as for eliminating black on black crime, some good places to start would include ending government policies that trap people in substandard schools and housing, the drug war and other factors that destroy families and neighborhoods, and yes, the common mistreatment by police acting like an occupying army. Greens would not agree with me, but I would also include welfare dependency. As a libertarian, I believe the problems keeping people trapped in bad circumstances that often lead to crime include occupational licensing and red tape that prevents small businesses from being formed and surviving, especially among low income people, and often stands in the way of mutual aid and organic community responses to persistent social problems. Some Greens would agree with me and some would not that disarming law abiding citizens also contributes to the prevalence of crime.
I think that’s Bernie Sanders, and he wants to pay for it by taxing Wall Street transactions. I don’t believe Clinton has offered such a plan, as far as I know. Student debt is, however, a related but separate issue.
Opinions differ. For example, it’s entirely possible that huge subsidies (direct and indirect) for fossil fuels and nuclear (in the form of liability caps) have suppressed the natural development of clean energy alternatives that would otherwise have already long since displaced them in the energy markets.
No human being is illegal, and this is only “obvious” if you believe erroneously that there are a limited number of jobs to be doled out. In reality, the extra productivity added by additional workers and their needs as consumers creates more jobs than would otherwise exist. Because immigrants are on average more productive than native born citizens they create more jobs for native born Americans than they “take.”
From the article, my comments inline:
“Guaranteed jobs for all who need work.”
It is obvious that actually accomplishing this would be greatly assisted by RESTRICTING, or even totally prohibiting, illegal immigration. (and by that, I mean also not increasing legal immigration, and indeed expelling the current crop of illegals.) After all, when she says, “…for all who need work”, is she referring to America’s population of 310 million, or the entire world’s population of over 7 billion people?
The irony, however, is that I get the impression that there are two groups of clueless people, who don’t realize that their favorite solution is being attacked by someone else’s favorite solution. The number of illegals in this country is probably 20 million, and not the 11 million (maybe the story is now 12 million) usually stated. But is it a coincidence that 20 million is the deficit in “workforce participation”? (the ‘unemployment rate’ statistic is a fraud.)
“100% clean renewable energy by 2030.”
She can state this as an idealistic goal. But not as a realistic prospect. She can’t pass a law requiring this, at least not without huge side-effects.
“Abolishing student debt.”
Didn’t Hillary claim something about free college education? (if not on the debate, elsewhere.) Where will the money for this come from?
” Implementing a racial justice action plan to end police brutality,”
Maybe they need a “racial good-behavior plan” to eliminate black on black crime? But neither Jill Stein nor any of the Democrat candidates dare propose that seriously.
“mass incarceration,”
Why not just legalize (or even better, completely decriminalize) all currently-illegal drugs? It would solve the “mass incarceration” problem. Why not SAY this?
” and institutional racism in education, housing, health and employment.”
All vague, poorly-defined solutions that cannot be readily implemented.
Joe Wendt> “Greens need to get involved with the growing White Lives Matter movement’
Is this a branch of the Klu Klux Klan?
“Augustus Sol Invictus is a “hard core environmentalist”
You mean, like in SEEDLESS watermelon?
“Joe Wendt
October 14, 2015 at 11:16 am
Greens need to get involved with the growing White Lives Matter movement and learn about human biodiversity. They should also get behind the exciting new candidate in Florida, Augustus Sol Invictus, who is a hardcore environmentalist and a White Civil Rights advocate.”
This is an obvious troll post, but the question remains as to whether or not this is really Joe Wendt.
Environmentalism is one of the questions I asked Augustus re: the interview he agreed to do, but never did.
Greens need to get involved with the growing White Lives Matter movement and learn about human biodiversity. They should also get behind the exciting new candidate in Florida, Augustus Sol Invictus, who is a hardcore environmentalist and a White Civil Rights advocate.
You have it backwards, Dave. Countless self-declared Greens have said that Stein is their “also-ran.” What they really want is Sanders because “he can win.” [yawn] Then they claim they’ll return to the GP if HRC gets the crown. I highly doubt that, though. HRC will hand Sanders the Veep slot or some Cabinet promise, knowing his flock will feel compelled to stay with him next November.
In other words, Stein isn’t filling a void left by Dems. Sanders, a Dem in all but name, is there to draw Greens back into the Dem fold, away from Stein, then hand them over to HRC.
It’s really the Black Lives Matter folks who forced the Dems to address these issues. Now their self-proclaimed leadership is all about Sanders and/or HRC. I suppose it was silly to expect that they’d give any further attention to the GP, even though Stein talked and met with them months before either Dem. At the end of the day, it’s still all about hitching oneself to “the one who can win” in order to secure a political/business career. A few prominent members of BLM will be siphoned off to work for Dems directly, right after the movement en masse is bled for votes and cash. Then the Dems will, at best, pretend to push for some tiny cursory reforms, declare the work is done, and toss what remains of BLM on the scrap heap– same as what happened with the anti-war movement after the rise of Obama. Before 2008, you couldn’t turn around w/o seeing dozens of groups with names like “The World Can’t Wait” or “Not In My Name,” etc. Where are they now? 🙁
Ms. Stein has clearly noted the reasons why many of us Libertarians refer to her party as the ‘watermelon party’ – green on the outside & red on the inside. It appears as though Bernie, in his efforts to impress ‘moderate’ Democrats, has created a void in the left, to which Ms. Stein is clearly appealing!
Maybe she channel flipped past that segment. I tried to watch and missed parts of it myself. Still, there are a lot of big issues which neither the Democratic nor Republican debaters are addressing at all.
Most of the issues mentioned in Jill Stein’s 2nd paragraph did get discussed in last night’s Democratic primary. There was quite a lot said about the incarceration rate. Bernie Sanders returned to this over and over. Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton also talked about reforming the criminal justice system, repeatedly. These three candidates and Jim Webb also talked about race and affirmative action. Webb said affirmative action is proper for African-Americans but not other racial and ethnic minorities, because of U.S. history of slavery.