Monthly Archives: April 2010

Some Myths About American Taxes

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This is a slug for a new primer I've been meaning to write for months.  The first article is just a way to get me motivated.

5 Myths about your taxes (Washington Post)

2. Americans are overtaxed.

In 2007, federal, state and local taxes claimed about $3.8 trillion, or 27 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. That's nearly $13,000 for every American. Two-thirds of tax revenues went to the federal government.

It may sound like a lot, but other developed countries collect even more. In 2006, taxes in 30 of the world's richest countries averaged 36 percent of GDP; only Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and Japan had tax rates lower than ours. And taxes in many European countries exceeded 40 percent of GDP because these nations offer more extensive government services than the United States does.

Read it

I don't think this will change any minds on the right.  They have no interest in facts anymore. Reality is only what someone told them it was, and which felt good for them to hear—or repeat.

HELP! Call the Twitter Police!

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Typical of conservatives, the minute their values are impacted—the moment THEY are personally impacted—the first thing they do is dive for the cover of victim status, and DEMAND someone (government?) DO SOMETHING!

Pastebin Document by #Tcot Warrior @GregWHoward

Twitter bills itself as “without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is  happening right now.” However, it is rapidly becoming the best place to cyberbully,  post pornography, and engage in the nastiest and most vulgar speech possible, all  with impunity. Despite growing protests from long-established users, Twitter  continues to officially turn a deaf ear to the growing outrage.

Read every delicious drop of hysteria  from this "White" knight

It is not that there are not valid concerns some might have about content—particularly where children are present on the net. But it's the sheer cluelessness in his screed about an entire history of censorship, liberties, and the slippery slopes that are ensured the very moment we start talking about anyone deciding what is and isn't appropriate.  Such "TOS" rules were always ruinous on most services, and it's the very freedom of twitter—even it's anarchic freedoms—that we were just praising last year in Iran (and many are trying to crush in China).

What's he's asking for is the 2001 version of AOL:  An army of tweet nanny's in Mumbai, who will decide what little Muffy and Conner can hear today. And a few of them might even stop liberals from calling him a wussy.  

Most of the time, this guy is running around Twitter spewing arch conservative Beckisms that just make me cringe.  But he's really outdone himself here.  And it's so typical of what these modern angry conservative men are about. Control. Of everyone and every thing but their own wretched little lives.

We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity’s Most Dangerous Moments

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Chris Hedges is one of our most important writers because he's not afraid to see that bad people produce bad outcomes, and good people wanting good outcomes have virtually no guarantee of winning in the long run of history. They're just fond of thinking that they might.

There are about 100 excerpts I could post here to entice you to read on, but this one caught my eye:

We live in a culture characterized by what Benjamin DeMott called “junk politics.” Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. It always personalizes issues rather than clarifying them. It eschews real debate for manufactured scandals, celebrity gossip and spectacles. It trumpets eternal optimism, endlessly praises our moral strength and character, and communicates in a feel-your-pain language. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes, “meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage.”

Ok,here's one more..

The cultural belief that we can make things happen by thinking, by visualizing, by wanting them, by tapping into our inner strength or by understanding that we are truly exceptional is magical thinking. We can always make more money, meet new quotas, consume more products and advance our career if we have enough faith. This magical thinking, preached to us across the political spectrum by Oprah, sports celebrities, Hollywood, self-help gurus and Christian demagogues, is largely responsible for our economic and environmental collapse, since any Cassandra who saw it coming was dismissed as “negative.”

Read the Essay