Tasteless, classless Ted Kennedy video at DNC

[BrainGlutton]

@moonshot925

They want higher taxes on the rich, which is redistribution of wealth and class warfare.

:rolleyes: Errmm . . . no.

From Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by Al Franken (2003):

Anytime a liberal points out that the wealthy are disproportionately benefiting from Bush’s tax policies, Republicans shout, “class warfare!”

In her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, Barbara Tuchman writes about a peasant revolt in 1358 that began in the village of St. Leu and spread throughout the Oise Valley. At one estate, the serfs sacked the manor house, killed the knight, and roasted him on a spit in front of his wife and kids. Then, after ten or twelve peasants violated the lady, with the children still watching, they forced her to eat the roasted flesh of her husband and then killed her.

That is class warfare.

Arguing over the optimal marginal tax rate for the top one percent is not.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@ElvisL1ves

I think a lot of us would like to see you expound on that “treason” charge re American demographics, Polecat.

I concur.

[BobLibDem]

@Ibn_Warraq

I concur.

Me too. The implication that increased diversity somehow damages the nation is quite vile.

[BrainGlutton]

@BobLibDem

Me too. The implication that increased diversity somehow damages the nation is quite vile.

But, to be fair, would not have appeared quite so much so to most white Americans in 1965. (Remember why the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed in the first place.) Hence Ted’s and others’ possibly-dishonest prediction, at the time, that we could pass this bill and America would remain white, or words to that effect.

[Truman_Burbank]

Well, we’re still white-ish. Maybe we’re more of a taupe, or tan. Moving towards milk chocolate.
Mmmm, chocolate…

[ElvisL1ves]

@BrainGlutton

Ted’s and others’ possibly-dishonest prediction, at the time, that we could pass this bill and America would remain white, or words to that effect.

Got a link to *any *such words? Thanks.

[BigAppleBucky]

@scabpicker

I love that Reince is giving this a moment more attention than it already got. I saw it while I was getting ready for work, and I thought it was a pretty damn smart way of getting TK’s ghost to campaign for Obama, and Kennedy would have probably loved it. It made Kennedy look great, and Romney look terrible. Why would he want to draw more attention to it?

Seems from his Tweets that Reince stubbed his vagina.

• Stephanie Miller

[moonshot925]

@Truman_Burbank

“Beware the Military-Industrial Complex” - parting words from Dwight D. Eisenhower, leaving the presidency, retired General, and all-around Communista…:rolleyes:

President Eisenhower supported the military-industrial complex.

[BrainGlutton]

@moonshot925

President Eisenhower supported the military-industrial complex.

He named it. He supported it only with certain reservations:

Origin of the term

President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower used the term in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[BrainGlutton]

@ElvisL1ves

Got a link to *any *such words? Thanks.

Kindasorta.

Background

The 1965 act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system “nearly intolerable”. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture.

In order to convince the American populace - the majority of whom were opposed to the act - of the legislation’s merits, its liberal proponents assured that passage would not influence America’s culture significantly. President Johnson called the bill “not revolutionary”, Secretary of State Dean Rusk estimated only a few thousand Indian immigrants over the next five years, and other politicians, including Edward Kennedy, hastened to reassure the populace that the demographic mix would not be affected; these assertions would later prove wildly inaccurate.[2]

Given the historical and political context, for “the demographic mix would not be affected,” one may fairly read “America would remain mostly-white.”

In the event, however:

Long-term results

Immigration did change America’s demographics, opening the doors to immigrants from Mediterranean Europe, Latin America and Asia. By the 1990s, America’s population growth was more than one-third driven by legal immigration, as opposed to one-tenth before the act. Ethnic and racial minorities, as defined by the Census bureau, rose from 25 percent in 1990 to 30% in 2000. Per the 2000 census, roughly 11.1% of Americans were foreign-born, a major increase from the low of 4.7 percent in 1970. A third of the foreign-born were from Latin America and a fourth from Asia. The act increased illegal immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, since the unlimited legal ‘bracero’ system previously in-place was cut.

The waves of immigration has raised both possibilities and problems. Many immigrants have taken advantage of the abundance of opportunities in the US. The Vietnamese refugees from 1975 have an average income above the national average. Asians and Pacific Islanders constituted one-fifth of the students in California’s public universities by 2000. Immigration helped stimulate the sunbelt boom. The problems have centered on questions of multicultural identity as opposed to the melting-pot idea, debates on the economic impact of immigration, impact of illegal immigration, and fears of becoming a polyglot nation with English not the primary language.[5]

As a result of these changes in legal immigration among other factors, America is expected to have less than 50 percent non-Hispanic whites in the total population by the year 2042.[6]

But, like I said, no harm, no foul.

[Gyrate]

@moonshot925

President Eisenhower supported the military-industrial complex.

He recognised the need for one but mistrusted it enough to make it the focus of his final speech in office. I wouldn’t call that “support” by any definition.

ETA: Bah. Ninja’d.

[lance_strongarm]

@moonshot925

President Eisenhower supported the military-industrial complex.

:rolleyes:

[BrainGlutton]

However, “inaccurate” does not necessarily mean “dishonest.” See also:

“This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions,” Johnson said at the signing ceremony. “It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power.”

Looking back, Johnson’s statement is remarkable because it proved so wrong. Why? Sociologist Klineberg says the government’s newfound sense of egalitarianism only went so far. The central purpose of the new immigration law was to reunite families.

Klineberg notes that in debating an overhaul of immigration policy in the 1960s, many in Congress had argued that little would change because the measure gave preference to relatives of immigrants already in America. Another provision gave preference to professionals with skills in short supply in the United States.

“Congress was saying in its debates, ‘We need to open the door for some more British doctors, some more German engineers,’” Klineberg says. “It never occurred to anyone, literally, that there were going to be African doctors, Indian engineers, Chinese computer programmers who’d be able, for the first time in the 20th century, to immigrate to America.”

Predictions Based on Ignorance?

In fact, expert after expert testified before Congress that little would change. Secretary of State Dean Rusk repeatedly stressed that the number of new immigrants coming to the United States was not expected to skyrocket. What was really at stake, Rusk argued, was the principle of a more open immigration policy.

When asked about the number of people from India who would want to immigrate to the United States, Rusk told the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization: “The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years. In other words, I don’t think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the Unites States.”

Historian Otis Graham, professor emeritus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, says that when he first started studying the 1965 immigration law, he assumed that politicians at the time had lied about the law’s potential consequences in order to get it passed. But he says he has since changed his mind.

“In the research of my students, and in the research I’ve been able to do,” Graham says, “so many lobbyists that followed this issue, so many labor-union executives that followed this issue, so many church people — so many of those involved said the same thing. So you find ignorance three-feet deep. Maybe ignorance is the answer.”

[moonshot925]

You are all forgetting that the US nuclear arsenal skyrocketed in size under President Eisenhower.

From FY 1954 to FY 1961 26,999 nuclear weapons were built.

That is an average of 9 weapons built everyday !!

http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/DOE_Fact_Stockpile.htm

[moonshot925]

Also, Eisenhower supported a policy of first strike.

The Real Eisenhower

Eisenhower never doubted that the next war would be a nuclear war. The U.S. must be “willing to ‘push its whole stack of chips into the pot’ when such becomes necessary,” he told Congressional leaders. The prospect of nuclear war “should not throw us off balance and render us hysterical,” he added. “We are going to live with this type of crisis for years.”

Early on, he noted in his diary what he later said in public: nuclear weapons would now be “treated just as another weapon in the arsenal.” “We have got to be in a position to use that weapon,” he insisted to Dulles. That became official policy in NSC 5810/1, which declared the U.S. intention to treat nuclear weapons “as conventional weapons; and to use them whenever required to achieve national objectives.” By early 1957, Eisenhower told the NSC that there could be no conventional battles any more: “The only sensible thing for us to do was to put all our resources into our SAC capability and into hydrogen bombs.” He found it “frustrating not to have plans to use nuclear weapons generally accepted.”

Even before he became president, he told an audience that there was no reason to “hide from the horror of the H-bomb. … Every invention of mankind has been capable of two uses, good and evil. It is up to the moral fiber of mankind to decide to which use an invention is put.” From the White House, he repeated the point: “The H-bomb—the H-bomb and the Atomic Age—they are not in themselves a great threat to us.” Privately, “the President said that people are wrong [to fear nuclear weapons], and that perhaps the opinion must be changed.” He and Dulles were “in complete agreement that somehow or other the taboos which surround the use of atomic weapons would have to be destroyed."

[ElvisL1ves]

Thanks, BrainGlutton, I had no idea that was even controversial at the time.

The only disagreement I have with you is that it’s “No harm, no harm.”

[gamerunknown]

@moonshot925

Ted Kennedy was no hero, no great man, he was a rich

Screw all the other charges, he was rich. That means he’s a job creator. Propound anything else and you’re guilty of wealth envy and class warfare.

@moonshot925

They want higher taxes on the rich, which is redistribution of wealth and class warfare.

Do you mean they want to increase taxes on the rich, or that they want a progressive taxation system?

Here’s a great comment in defence of progressive taxation (warning, from a foreigner and thus probably a Communist):

@vonMises

When they recommend a certain tax, or, to speak more correctly, call it less harmful than other taxes, they always have in mind the raising of only a relatively small sum. A low rate of taxation is an integral part of all liberal programmes of taxation. This alone explains their attitude towards the income tax, which they were the first to introduce into serious discussions on public finance, and their willingness to agree that a modest minimum of subsistence shall be free from taxation and the rate of taxation on small incomes lowered.

Capitalism is a method of wealth distribution by the way, increasingly towards those commanding the top 1% of wealth.

@Folacin

And how is that ‘treasonous’?

How, specifically, does it differ from Reagan’s position on immigration?

[BrainGlutton]

This just now occurred to me . . . Could Ted Kennedy’s support for the Irish Republican Army be considered “treasonous”? Since the UK has been a U.S. ally since WWII, and if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then the enemy of my friend is my enemy, therefore an American supporting the IRA is giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States . . . But, that would make “traitors” of half the Irish-Americans in Boston and New York . . .

[Truman_Burbank]

@moonshot925

You are all forgetting that the US nuclear arsenal skyrocketed in size under President Eisenhower.

From FY 1954 to FY 1961 26,999 nuclear weapons were built.

That is an average of 9 weapons built everyday !!

Welcome alternatewars.com - BlueHost.com

I make a claim, you rebut it. Citations provided by others that discredit your assertion.
You: But nuclear weapons!

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

Originally Posted by** Omg a Black Conservative **
What about calling the Republican party fascists?

@Battle_Pope

More of a “shoe fits” situation.

Confirmed Lefty here…

I think Omg a Black Conservative makes a fair point. What’s good for the goose, and all that.

Although I’d venture that there is some difference between calling Democrats “Communist” or Republicans “Fascist”, and calling the Democratic Party the “Communist Party” or the GOP the “Fascist Party” (The former is perhaps a smidgen more “fair” than the latter); but any of the above is not much more than childish ranting. And it works both ways.