What Do You Think of When You Hear about Occupy Wall Street?

Matt — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:33:34 +0000

The Occupy movement has been in motion for quite some time now and the authors here at www.grablog.co have all been very quiet. No one from either side have even gone near it, like a frozen lake when the sun is out but I think it is time to start a discussion on this topic.

How do you see the movement?

Do you see it as a grassroots movement the likes of which has not been witnessed since the Vietnam war? I am not old enough to have experienced this and want to hear your impression of then vs now.

Do you see it as a bunch of lazy assholes who should get a job? I hear this quite often and while I don’t agree the best thing about a blog is the opportunity to hear an opinion that is not the same as your own so please let me know what you think.

Initially I saw this as people who are unemployed taking action into their own hands and trying to force the situation and that is something I can completely relate to have been unemployed more than once over the last couple of years but then I saw it grow and I started to understand it with the help of Keith Olbermann…http://youtu.be/N8o3peQq79Q

The more I hear about what is being requested I can’t think of an argument against what is being said. Corporations have been running wild at our expense from Enron falsifying books to not only avoid paying taxes but to get people to invest in a company that looked like it was doing well when actually it was failing to people blaming unions for the the problems created by these corporations because they help employees get better wages and benefits. They have used the conservatively owned media to demonize teachers as if they are the people getting exorbitant bonus checks. Why is it that we always hear Glenn Beck bashing teachers but never hear him bash a corporation for corporate welfare or not paying taxes? http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201002190050

We were sold on the idea that the rich create jobs so we should protect them but this movement has helped me realize that the rich in the USA are not job creators unless you live in China or India who by the way are getting too expensive by wanting cars and material goods so like the USA their jobs are about to go to Vietnam and Brazil. If not the rich what is our true job creator then you might be asking, I’ll tell you…DEMAND. How can we create demand? How can we strike back? Buy as many American made items as you can, shop at the locally owned store and not the national chain support the mom and pop restaurant and save your city’s local culture.

Use common sense, has Reaganomics really brought anything positive to the USA? I’d say it has killed our education system and started the decay of our infrastructure. If we raise taxes and start repairing our roads, sewers and bridges won’t those construction workers go to restaurants and buy clothing and cars and then doesn’t it seem logical that the demand for goods and services by those construction workers will cause restaurants and clothing stores to hire more people who also need to buy goods and services and thus will create more jobs or do you believe that if we cut taxes and resources that money will magically appear and all of these issues will fix themselves? Yes I am open with the fact that I am more liberal but I would like to hear the arguments proposed by conservatives. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Generation X And Consumerism

Jon — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:21:34 +0000

Being a member of Generation X and growing up in the 1980′s, of course Republicans were appealing to us. They went after our immature sense of selfishness. We were taught in our high school history books, that trickle down economics was the only successful system. When we turned on the TV, Michael J. Fox, aka Michael P. Keaton, made it look cool to be a self-centered heartless conservative. We were bombarded with the idea that greed is good.
Reagan campaigned on limitless growth and get what you can while you can. I remember the old, “He who dies with the most toys, wins!”, slogan. We were being indoctrinated with; spend without regret, consume without a care and dispose with no concern for others or the environment.
They taught us that constant growth was the only path to success. But, just like driving a car; if you continue to only go faster, you eventually either blow the motor or crash. Now, we represent 5% of the Earth’s population, yet we create 25% of the total waste.
Just like Gilgamesh, we are consuming more of the resources of the known world, than anyone else. And, just like Gilgamesh, it will lead to our demise. It forces us to be involved in continuous wars for resources, unless of course, you buy the idea that Iraq and Libya are about freedom and Afghanistan is about terrorism. All three are about oil, gas and rare Earth minerals. All these things are neccessary, in order to keep our way of life going.
What this way of life is creating is; more war, more terrorism, more drug and alcohol abuse, more greed, more poverty and more crime. We have become so consumed with selfishness, thats its all about “me”. There is no sense of community. There is no sense of we, only us and them. It has led to this country being completely divided with haterd and envy. We are no longer compassionate, nor do we look out for our fellow man. We are only concerned about short term gain with no concern for the long term damage it might cause.
Our generation has gotten too old, to still be acting like self-centered little children. We are at the age, that its time to grow up, because its our turn at the helm. Are we going to re-evaluate our goals and values? Or, are we simply going to throw our parents on the streets and send our kids out as cannon fodder? Time is short, big decisions have to be made. Our very survival depends on it!

The Conservative Media and The Things They Say

Matt — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 07:39:50 +0000

I was recently given an article to read about how “liberals” always call conservatives racists. My opinion about it is very basic, if you’re not a truly a racist, you won’t assume people are talking about you when they term is used. That same friend gave me this article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002679.html?hpid=opinionsbox1. The title of the article is Conservatism does not equal racism. So why do many liberals assume it does? I started reading the article and I read this part and wondered if anyone who read and agrees with this article actually questions anything for themselves.

What I am referring to is this part of the article says: “There is power in the accusation of racism against conservatives, one that liberals understand well. In an April 2008 post on Journolist, a private online community for liberal journalists, academics and activists, one writer proposed a way to distract conservatives from the campaign controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor. “If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us,” Spencer Ackerman wrote. “Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Here is where those critical thinking skills come into play. Lets break this down, the article says “In an April 2008 post on Journolist, a private online community for liberal journalists, academics and activists” so this guy, who is clearly a “conservative” managed to get onto this “liberals only” website but didn’t take any screen shots, didn’t print anything out to a PDF and has no other proof, just an allegation with nothing to back it up. Well I was on a secret neocon website the other day and I saw pictures of Ted Haggard, Glenn Beck and a male hooker doing drugs and unspeakable acts. I don’t have any proof, you just have to believe me. Why do you find that allegation so easy to believe? It is usually the republicans screaming the loudest from the tree tops about something like gays that usually end up in a gay scandle, http://www.badmouth.net/top-five-republican-gay-sex-scandals/ -I have not read the link that I just posted, what is accused is pretty throughly documented so I’m not too worried about citing it without reading it. It is the established in recent republican history, at least about homosexuality, that leads me to be so critical of this article. Why are you screaming from the tree tops that you are not a racist…no one accused you but now I’m thinking about it. Remember to always read between the lines and follow the logic as simply as you can and if it does not make sense…question it.

Natural Disasters…An Excuse to Raise Gas Prices, Hooray for Big Oil!

Matt — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:51:51 +0000

When our Presidential hopefuls aren’t giving us a Pat Robertson style tongue lashing that bad things are happening because our government spending is out of control or because gays are getting married in the military and getting abortions the oil companies are planning excuses about how they can’t refine the oil they are gouging us for and now feel like they should gouge us more. Now if you believe the candidate, she was kidding..but you should not believe the oil companies at all. These companies are experiencing record profits and getting your tax dollars via subsidies and the republicans are more than happy to kiss the hand that feeds them when they blocked legislation to end subsidies http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-17/politics/senate.oil.subsidies_1_oil-companies-gas-prices-maine-s-olympia-snowe?_s=PM:POLITICS. After Katrina “Gas prices in cities across the United States soared by as much as 40 cents a gallon from Tuesday to Wednesday, a surge blamed on disruptions by Hurricane Katrina in Gulf of Mexico oil production.” Taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9146363/ns/business-local_business/t/pump-prices-jump-across-us-after-katrina/

The excuse at the time was that all oil refining happened on the gulf and was not operational. What do you think their excuse will be this time? When is enough, enough?

How should we retaliate? I suggest boycotting 1 peticular gas entity, such as BP or Exxon/Mobile because lets face it, don’t buy gas days don’t work but I think targeting one of the largest companies out there for a boycott should send a loud message and that message is I’M TIRED OF THIS and I’m taking the matter into my own hands. Have a better idea? Please share it below….

Please complete our survey on the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/GreeksRomansAmericanscom/150718731679946 and let us know what you thing in a comment below.

Look they have already started raising the price, time to strike back! http://www.shorelinetimes.com/articles/2011/08/31/news/doc4e5e9df996f06963928823.txt

Trickle Down Economics Hoax

Jon — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 19:59:17 +0000

I grew up under the presidencies of Reagan and the first President Bush. I was sold the same lies as my entire generation and the following generations. It was the idea that; by giving all the tax breaks and subsidies, aka welfare checks, to the top, it would trickle back down to us through investments. This has never paid out as promised.
People will argue that the economy was great under Reagan, therefore a success for the policy. The truth is, Reagan began spending like a drunken sailor. One thing he borrowed against was the Social Security trust fund. This made it look like things were working and the economy was good. Actually, it was kicking massive debts and problems for Social Security down the road, for future generations. This explains the current crisis for Social Security.
All the policy did was shift more wealth to the top and the debt to the middle and working class. The rich did not invest in the economy. They invested in stocks, lowering their tax rates even further, having to only pay the captal gains tax, which is currently at 15%. By shifting more money out of the economy and into dividend checks, wages became stagnant as inflation rose. This gave us the recession that hit under Bush.
When taxes were high on the rich, they were forced to reinvest into their companies, which gave us higher wages and less unemployment. When the taxes dropped, they could pull that money out and play with it as they pleased. In 1948, Reagan actually campaigned against these policies of welfare for the rich. Its amazing how money can change a person’s principals, which shows what kind of person Reagan truly was.
In the last 30+ years, we have seen a massive shift of the wealth to the top 2% of Americans. In fact, the top 1% have more accumulated wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. This is great, if an oligarchy is what you want. But, this goes against everything the “founding fathers” were trying to establish. It is entirely unAmerican.
Taxes are patriotic. They pay for our roads, schools, police, fire, mail and many other great institutions. They keep our air clean, our water pure and our food safe. They keep people from starving in the streets or dying from preventable diseases. Yet, the media, which is owned by the rich, and revisionist historians claim its unAmerican to tax the wealthy. This is based on greed and a hatred for American values.
Try to wrap your mind around the idea of supply-side economics, an evil spawn of trickle down policies. Having a large supply, doesn’t create wealth. Having customers who can afford your products is what creates wealth, aka demand-side economics.
The wealthy are not going to create jobs, because they have more money. They hire more people, when they have more demand. Thats economics 101! Also, they don’t “create” jobs. There are no “job creators”. This is semantics. You hire an employee, because you believe you can make more money off their labor. You don’t hire simply because you have more money and are just a gracious person.
In conclusion, lets just compare economic policies. FDR raised taxes on the wealthy and created the greatest economic long term boom in American history. It pulled us out of the Republican Great Depression and we had massive economic prosperity. This was crushed by Reagan’s policies, and we were sent in a downward spiral. We were given a short recovery under Clinton, when he started raising the taxes again. And again, this was crushed by the second President Bush, and we haven’t recovered, yet. Simply, do your homework. Compare “real” economic prosperity, in actual dollars, with tax rates on the rich. They did not earn the wealth they have. They stole it from us through conservative economics. And last but not least, $10 trillion of the $14trillion current deficit, was ran up by three republican presidents – Reagan and both Bush Presidents(numbers available at the Congressional Budget Office).
So quit telling the lie, quit believing the lie and for G-D’s sake, quit supporting the lie!

Michele Bachman was joking?

Matt — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:47:37 +0000

Michele Bachman says her comments about the hurricane were a joke? If you are unsure of what she said here is a recap:

The Tea Party favourite raised eyebrows with a weekend remark to supporters in Florida that Hurricane Irene, which killed at least 24 people and left millions without power, and an east coast earthquake were God’s way of telling US politicians to cut spending and fix the budget deficit.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ “Bachmann said at a campaign event in Sarasota on Sunday.

“Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

Taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/30/michelle-bachmann-hurricane-warning-joke

I am amazed that someone who is running for president would take the Pat Robertson approach in her campaign because he was super successful right? Here are some Pat Robertson quotes if you don’t know who he is http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/patrobertson.htm

This is Christian fanaticism at its best and I hope that if she should make the cut that the Tea Party or the Republicans make an attempt to fix her openness with her religion. I don’t appreciate it as citizen and having the American equivalent of Al Qaeda as president almost makes David Duke look more appealing (I said ALMOST).

Did anyone care to tell her that maybe that mythical global warming is responsible for these weather changes and not “God” oh yeah you don’t believe in that. Lets recap, you can believe in a white guy born in the middle east (go to any church in the USA, Jesus is depicted as a white guy) in a time where your best transportation option was a donkey but you can’t believe in global warming. She might be the one person on the planet where, let me quote Jim Rome here, smoking hippie lettuce, aka the chron or burning tree, would make her smarter. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=105579326140016

I have been very open with my stance about her but how do you feel, did you support her and this has changed your mind? Please explain

Do you still continue to support her? Please explain

Do you agree with me? Please explain

The goal of this post is to try to understand all sides of the argument….not just my own, although I’ve been very open with mine, I encourage you to do the same.

Thank you for your participation.

Would Loosening Environmental Regulation Really Help Anyone but Big Business?

Matt — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:13:50 +0000

I had a discussion on facebook with some people who believe the biggest hurdle to getting the economy back on track is environmental regulation. Can someone tell me how a good set of tariffs can’t level the playing ground that polluting countries try to skip? The only thing I see happening is our environment would be raped the same way our society was when Reagan convinced us to lower taxes on the rich only to see unemployment jump to 11% so he could raise taxes in 1983 to bring unemployment back down so he could save his 2^nd term. I researched the net and found an article that says, “A majority of Montanans say they support restricting Montana’s environmental laws and regulations to encourage more oil, gas, coal and mineral development, according to a statewide poll by Lee Newspapers.” Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_b85033e8-537d-11e0-b029-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1WSxClhTf

I am asking you, how do you see this issue? Is this a short-term fix with long-term consequences or is this truly the long-term fix to our employment and other problems? If you think this is the answer, why is it better than raising taxes on the rich and killing free trade?

I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Matt

The Real Ronald Reagan?

Matt — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:31:25 +0000

The is Ronald Reagan before Nancy’s money father and his money changed him. If you view Ronnie’s presidency as one of the greatest in American History, how do you view these comments he made in this ad?

Matt, thank you

Austin — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:58:16 +0000

When Matt, the owner and administrator of this great new site asked me to be a contributor I did not hesitate. My name is Austin and although as readers you will find that Matt and I could not be more far apart on the political spectrum, you will notice a common denominator. Our goal IS to be in fact fair and balanced. Matt and I have noticed a severe and extremely dangerous trend of both misinformation in the public square, and a disturbing lack of civility in our national discourse. I personally hold the belief that this country is one of the most successful and important experiments of all time. It is because of this opinion that I feel compelled to help Matt not only inform people but do so by demonstrating that as Americans we can still agree to disagree and simultaneously improve our country. As a contributor my goal will not be to change minds but to instead simply foster more thought. We do not have to have agreement here but we MUST have clarity. It is expected and “ok” as Americans if we fundamentally disagree on a principal or idea. We should not however, question each other’s loyalty and dedication to improving our country. With that I want to formally thank Matt for kick starting www.greeksromansamericans.com.

In Matt’s welcoming message he made it clear where he stands. I’ll be a little more discreet at times about my convictions and positions but here is your first clue and you can expect it after everything I write.

God Bless America

CA Dream Act…is it good or bad?

Matt — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:15:13 +0000

If you don’t know what CA AB131 aka the CA Dream Act is, read here http://www.cadreamnetwork.org/AB131-facts for more info read here http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/08/ab_131_second_half_of_californ_1.php

I’ve read a lot of people talking about doing all they can to get this repealed, mostly people associated with the tea party, http://www.topix.com/forum/city/downey-ca/TD3DLCI6DDSK88EDI but I have one question I’d like to ask these people. Why? Illegal aliens are here and they are not going to stop being here anytime soon, unless we want to go into Mexico Iraq style, clean it up and start all over. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, although Mexico does have oil, I still don’t see that happening. With such a staggering disproportionate distribution of wealth in Mexico and no safety net http://geo-mexico.com/?p=3624 the people of Mexico not born into wealth have nowhere to go but to look but to come here illegally just to survive. If they are here, what is the harm in charging them in state tuition to go to college here? What is the alternative, they end up becoming temporary citizens, regardless of how long, in the prison system? That is the most likely ending place for a non educated citizen in a society and if you click on this link http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3a you will see that the cost to house a someone in prison for 1 year is significantly more than the in state tuition discount of college. So I challenge anyone out there who is against this bill, show me why you want it to be rejected because I’ve shown you a benefit.