Willie71

Interesting comments. Looking at the basic definition I posted, the USA is not a third world country. However, there are many people living in conditions that one would expect to find in a third world country. Homelessness is tough to measure, with mumbers varying between 500,000 on any given night, to 3.5milkion over the course of the year. The numbers are decreasing in the past few years, which is good. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-in-america-2015 The poverty rate is about 15%. http://www.povertyusa.org/the-state-of-poverty/poverty-facts/ The clean water issue is huge. No one knows how far spread it is. This is really alarming. The government corruption is much worse than anyone imagined. Watching this election cycle and the blatant rigging going on by the media and the Clinton campaign makes other dictatorships look not so bad. There are elements, but the USA is too rich to really be considered third world. Maybe a new classification is needed to address countries in this situation. Canada was starting to head that way, as was Britain and a few other countries. We started turning it around.

^^^^^^. I just saw this a few minutes ago. Not nearly as moderate as he claims to be. Well, at least he's not a dominionist. On the other hand, Trump isn't either.

With the declining middle class, increasing corruption in politics, and a militarized police state, the USA isn't the nation of freedom it claims to be. Over the past couple years, access to clean water has become more of an issue. Poverty levels are high, and health care is not available to everyone. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm Water issues. Not Flynt this time.

Kasich's touted balanced budget and job growth was accomplished on the expansion of fracking. Decreased environmental regulations and pillaging the environment allowed his "success."

I un-nominate Kasich. He's now promoting Christianity as a way to fight Isis. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/kasich-proposes-new-government-agency-promote-judeo-christian-values-n465101

Yes, he would like to see the USA return to the Wild West, but in that bizarre world, he got a few things right. I see the libertarians mostly being libertarians to get rid of regulations and taxes. Rand Paul seemed more authentic though, but I might have just been fooled.

There is a group of conservative Christians who believe that wealth is a symbol of righteousness. The poor are poor because they never overcame original sin, http://www.theocracywatch.org/rr_economics.htm They also see welfare as a responsibility of the church, not the government. People can be saved into Christianity when they get poor or desperate enough. From the same link:

Capayan, there are a few like Rand Paul who are not the establishment. He was a moderate libertarian (what a strange label) and did work to protect freedom. He was also against military intervention, but flip flopped at the beginning of his presidential run. I strongly disagree with his ideology, but he mostly earned my respect. There are moderate republicans, but they are being purged by the extremists. The Republican Party thought boehner was too moderate. The people need to be more aware, and speak with their votes. If extremists were no longer elected, or if racist, xenophobic crap didn't poll well, the party would have to change.

I've been sending this video to people who claim it's just economic migrants, that there is no refugee crisis. If you can watch this, and the video I'm posting right after this and say there's no reason to help these people, you would have to be a psychopath. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AaN-kUucF4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTpcK80irdQirLg6szYbMjNsiHywSu8vG&v=soxm2De-fZc

I agree with you 100%, and accept that I have contributed to the confusion. I should have explained it in more detail, rather than using common understanding of the word. Fascism is extremely misused, just as common understanding of left/right is utter nonsense. It's tough to communicate these ideas when the common use of the words are so far from their actual meanings.

I think this started before Reaga, with Nixon appointing Powell to the Supreme Court. Powell was corporatist, and started the trend of increased money in politics. http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ The memo is too long to post in its entirety, so click the link, and you will see the start of the decline in the words. They might as well be describing the current state of affairs, so the strategy us working beautifully.

Robert Reich is quite brilliant. His economic ideas are evidence based, not ideologically or faith based. He has a lot of short clips on that website that anyone interested in fact checking economic policy proposals for any of the candidates could benefit from.

Kasich isn't crazy. His economic policies are absurd, but he isn't a dominionist. He is pro corporate through and through, but he's socially a moderate. If I was American, and had to vote republican, he's the only one I could stomach.

We think of the spectrum as left/right, but there is authoritarian/libertarian as well. http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/redefining_the_political_spectru.htm The USSR wasn't just communism, but fascist communism. Real communism would be the idea of utopia, or like the Jesus story.

The dominionism/reconstructionist ideology is a lot to take in. I didn't believe it when I first looked at it about a decade ago. It's really frightening to see where this could go. The kids on college campuses are not representative of progressive ideals. The independent media outlets call them out for being regressive all the time. None of them have the power to control the media or curriculum. The media is much more establishment than the republicans admit. Divide and conquer is one way of avoiding looking up at the oligarchy, by forcing us to look at our neighbours and be suspicious. Clinton is expstablishment as well. She is not as extreme in the tendency to fascism, but she is pro corporate and strongly influences the media. She is not a progressive except in social domains. In contrast, Texas has been whitewashing history, rewriting major swaths of the slave trade/civil war, and secular origins of the constitution. Carson wanted to police "liberal indoctrination" on university campuses. Six companies control the mainstream media, and push pro corporate messages, as well as pro war and islamophobic messages. Trump regularity makes disparaging comments about the media (grooming his audience.) the only non corporate candidate only received 10min of coverage over all of 2015, the lowest of any candidate by far. I can cite sources for all of this is you need them. Fascism is about authoritarian power, not youthful rebellion.

Religious theocracy and corporate control of government are major problems. Neither of the two democratic candidates are proposing restrictions on free speech. All of the progressives I know do not support rules to restrict free speech. Free speech is about the freedom of the press or people to criticize the government without repercussions. It's not about an individual's right to be an ass, but I don't think being an ass should be restricted. To make sure we are talking about the same thing, fascism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism Then there is the fact that Cruz is a dominionist: (reconstructionist) This is the foundation of the religious right that us marries to the Republican Party, starting with Reagan. Rushdooney was a central figure in this movement, and Huckabee, Cruz, and Carson are all dominionists. Not sure about Rubio. Forgot the link: http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr2.htm Rubio is endorsed by dominionists. I need to look into this a bit more as its a serious charge, equal to being a Christian version of Isis. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/marco-rubio-david-barton_b_7070914.html

I have heard commentary from relatives of people from Germany in the 30's, who when asked how Hitler got in, said "We didn't think he's really do what he said he would." It's frightening to me that people can explain away candidates flirting with, or outright advocating for fascism.

I agree with you completely. Trump isn't for the working class, unless wages are reduced. http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/?_r=0 He flip flopped on this, but to compete with offshore labour, wages and regulations have to go down. Trump is appealing to people who are the byproduct of decades of cuts to education, lack of opportunity, and need someone to blame. The scapegoating is meeting that need. There are a lot of people living in poverty, in conservative states that keep cutting the benefits. Instead of blaming the people who create unworkable economies, they blame the Mexicans, liberals, and Muslims in a great fir of "personal responsibility!" ..... wait..... Hmmmmmm....... I think trump is appealing to the "white trash conservative" who doesn't have the critical thinking skills to look beyond the message on the hat.

Sure sounds like big government to me.

I find the competency argument interesting. Republicans seem to have taken on a corporate mindset, focusing on the here and now, or current quarter, rather than looking at sustainability and future growth. With wages at a very low rate compared to GDP, or corporate profits, and the extremely low interest rates, investing in infrastructure is a no brainer. People could double their standard of living, be able to afford to buy houses, cars, and have some disposable income. All benefits to the economy. It's the evidence based economic model that works, rather than the failed trickle down ideology. We actually can take an evidence based pathway for different economic climates, and give up the faith based ideologies that don't work. In the closest city to me, the mayor set out on an infrastructure spending spree. Local conservatives were outraged. He explained that the interest rate was lower than the rate of economic growth. We were making money on borrowing money. We got a new arena, new office buildings, a transportation network from downtown to the international airport, and a failed upgrade to the rapid transit system. All of these created jobs, built the economy, and will continue to do so for decades. With our recession, our diversified economy has been the most resilient.

The inability to run a deficit when appropriate is just stupid. Any smart money manager will take advantages of cheaper labour and low interest rates for major projects such as infrastructure. Austerity measures tank economies very quickly.

This meme that sanders is unelectable is propaganda. If it's repeated enough, it will be believed. Sanders polls better than Clinton against all of the republican candidates. Clinton's only effective strategy has been to prevent people from hearing about sanders. The cat's out of the bag now. Good luck getting it back in. Every time Clinton attacks Bernie, his donations go up by millions. Clinton can only get more money from super-pacs, an issue at the dead center of this election. I've been watching Sanders since he was in low single digits, as I heard him speak way before he announced. I thought, "man, this guy could actually turn things around." He's been underestimated many times and has come out on top. He has more experience with populist campaigns than anyone else in modern politics. He's handing Clinton her ass every debate, on a couple of key issues that resonate. She is modifying her positions, not him. This is fascinating.

A good list of the major grievances against Canada by Harper: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/08/10/Harper-Abuses-of-Power-Final/ It seems corporatist conservatism was our biggest problem. Thankfully we booted them out both in Alberta and federally, and didn't glorify him. I can't imagine what process would happen to get us to glorify Harper like Reagan was glorified. I hope I don't ever find out.

The health care issue is a real one. We claim to be an egalitarian system (we aren't) and we know the majority of an individual's lifetime health spending is in the last year of life, often in the last few months. There is an argument that this isn't wise or equitable. (Rule based utilitarianism) We also know that 5% of people use 60% of the health care budget iirc. Don't quote me on that. What gets ignored is that much of our health budget is spent on management and administration, a highly disproportionate amount. I would have to research the numbers. They were part of my ethics course, and it was an online text, which I can't access now. We could provide an egalitarian system in Alberta if we restructured the system. We spend more than enough, but the front line is understaffed and underfunded, and decisions on delivery of services are inefficient, reactive, and result in revolving door services. Very inefficient. Very little prevention. I second splitting the health care topic from this thread.

Our liberal party was pretty corrupt in the 90's. Many of us felt like we didn't have an option at all. I boycotted voting in the 90's because there wasn't a viable option, or if I did vote, I went Green Party, or other nonconformist vote. In Alberta it was always a landslide for the conservatives who came into power about the same time I was born. I didn't even understand there could be a different type of government in my teen years, and the federal government largely ignored the west. Fort McMurray was almost a ghost town when I was a kid (where the tar sands are.) it was too expensive to produce that oil. We became important on the national stage when oil went above $60.00/barrel. Populism has been surging in Canada over the past few years, and in Alberta over the past 5 or so years. For the Americans who say it can't be done, they are wrong. Calgary has been hit much harder by the recession than Edmonton (I live 1/2h outside of Edmonton) as we have a much more diversified economy. Edmonton used to be the oil capital, but we were banished from Alberta by Klein when we voted liberal in the early 90's. Conditions were made very favourable for the oil companies in Calgary at that time. We will eventually hit recession in Edmonton too, as all of the surrounding communities are in recession, but we are a bit protected for now.