SoTier

It's more a testament to how pervasive racism has been in our society and how our views on what's appropriate have changed over the last half century. Why would you care since you're bragging on using one in two decades?

I think that your incorrect historical analysis of the last century, ie, the 20th century, has led you to giving a simplistic answer to a very complex problem. For most of the first half of the 20th century, the US faced limited competition from manufacturing in other countries. Prior to WW II, most Asia and Africa were were divided into colonies controlled by European colonies that exploited their colonies for their natural resources like minerals, forest products or agricultural production. Much of the manufacturing in countries like Argentina, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico and the USSR were for internal development. Central American and the Caribbean were essentially economic colonies of the US or the European powers. That meant that US manufacturers faced limited competition, primarily from Western Europe and the British Isles. Eighty years ago, most of the world's population lived and worked in economies that exported agricultural products and/or raw materials for manufacturing. World War II changed everything. Industry in almost all of Europe, from France to the USSR , as well as in Japan, was devastated, requiring that factories be rebuilt from scratch. That would take decades to do. WW II also killed colonialism, freeing much of the world to follow their own economic self-interest rather than the economic interests of their mother countries. Industrial development in Africa and Asia would also take decades. Some of the wars of liberation and civil wars that were part of the Cold War also held up industrialization in those countries. So, for about two decades after the end of WW II, the US had little competition in manufacturing, which made American manufacturers complacent. The 1950s and early/mid 1960s were the high points of American industrial power. By the late 1960s, the situation began changing. In the 1950s, Japan rebuilt its economy by exporting cheap consumer goods to the US. "Made in Japan" was synonymous with poor quality. In the 1950s, imported European cars tended be expensive luxury or sports cars beyond the budgets of all but wealthy Americans. It was American manufacturers' reluctance to invest in remodeling existing factories or building new ones to take advantage of better efficiency and quality which resulted in American goods becoming uncompetitive with imported goods. While the Japanese and Germans were using computers to make steel as good as any produced in the US, American steel companies were still using inefficient labor intensive Bessemer and open-hearth steel making processes from the 1800s until the 1960s (Bessemer) and through 1980s (open hearth). It took a while for the US manufacturers to regain their competitiveness, but they did. The problem was -- and remains -- that modern manufacturing procedures make extensive use of significantly less manpower than previously to produce the same amount or more product. The modern processes not require fewer workers but those workers need to be much more technically adept in order to run modern factories and produce high quality product. Throughout the last third of the 20th century, innovation was largely synonymous with automation which always cost workers their jobs. For labor intensive manufacturing processes that aren't easily automated -- clothing manufacturing is a good example -- manufacturers were always looking for cheaper labor. American clothing manufacturing was largely dependent upon sweatshops throughout the 20th century. When American wages, even in sweatshops, became too costly, American manufacturers built factories in Mexico under the maquiladora programs that started in the 1960s. When Mexican wages became too expensive, clothing manufacturing moved to cheaper places like Sri Lanka and Indonesia. I haven't even touched on the fundamental change in the US economy to a consumer economy that began after WW I and exploded after WW II. It has changed the very nature how the US economy works. I also haven't talked about the information revolution -- most commonly thought of as computerization -- that has changed not only blue collar manufacturing jobs but also white collar and pink collar ones as well since the 1980s. A three or four sentence solution that claims, essentially, that "we need to get back to basic good business practices of the past" isn't a serious solution at all.

Yawn. Like a typical rightie, you use irrelevant whataboutism to deflect and/or justify whatever indefensible argument you try to make. As only you can do, you use 50 words to say what you could in 5 and often wander into sidebars that have nothing to do with your argument or anything much at all -- such as bringing @oldmanfan into your response -- which frequently further obscures what you're attempting to say. Whatever.

You are hiding behind semantics over what constitutes a coup just like Republican Congressmen hid behind procedural issues on the second Trump impeachment. A coup is defined as a sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power from government. That's exactly what Trump wanted to happen on January 6 when he sent that mob to attack the Capitol -- a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power. It's no different than some two-bit strongman in some banana republic forcing the national legislature to vote him "president for life" with his personal guards holding guns to their heads except that Trump couldn't find enough sycophants within his administration to pull it off. The GOP has had the welcome mat out for white supremacists since the 1960s when they welcomed arch-segregationists who had defected from the Democrats over civil rights. Trump openly courted the support of white supremacists in both his presidential campaigns. Feel free to lie to yourself about this if it makes you feel better.

Your concern for people of color is touching.

Why would a "political outsider with a sense of decency and a little moral high ground" be attracted to the current GOP? Some 70% of Republicans still support Trump who is the epitome of a leader lacking all sense of decency without any kind of moral compass, but Trump isn't an anomaly among Republican politicians; various forms of bigotry seems to be a common denominator among many officials on all levels. I think that any political outsider would be more likely try to start a right of center third party without the tolerance for bigotry and nastiness that have become the hallmark of the current GOP and a large proportion of its base. It's appeal would be to the traditional Republicans and anti-Trumpists. FTR, I don't think that "political outsiders" of any stripe are going to be particularly popular in national politics for the foreseeable future because of Trump.

Especially Trumpists.

Why would anyone want another billionaire in the WH?

"It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." -- Rev Charles F. Akred, 1916 That pretty much describes the GOP. Trump attempted a coup d'etat and yet the vast majority of Republicans, both officials and rank-and-file still support him. They obviously put their political futures or their loyalty to Donald Trump ahead of their country.

Ever hear of a snowblower? If you're disabled or lazy, you can always hired somebody to clean your driveway and sidewalk. This isn't really anything new. People working in the NYC area have been doing this for decades. When I lived in Albany back in the late 1980s through most of the 1990s, people were commuting to the city from as far north as Hudson which is about 30 miles south of Albany and has an AMTRAK station.

Thank you for proving that my statement was absolutely correct. Oh, but there are lots of people who smuggle illegal Chinese immigrants across the Canadian border, especially across the Niagara and Detroit Rivers. I guess those arrests don't make the news in So Cal so they don't count, right? More importantly, spotting illegal Canadians isn't the problem. Assuming that Canadians who are here are either tourists or here legally while assuming that Latinos are here illegally is the problem.

The Traitor in Chief must feel so betrayed that "his" justices and judges keep refusing to do his bidding.

So, the US should keep the minimum wage at its current level or get rid of it entirely in order to subsidize (by providing income supports like food stamps and Medicaid) businesses too small or too poorly performing to afford to pay its workers more than $7.30 an hour (about $15k annually for full time work)? That's not "1930s political playbook" but classic 1890s populism framing the issue as them (big corporations) against us (small businesses) and supposedly offering a simplistic solution (get rid of minimum wage) to solve the problem intended to screw over the real "little guys" in this scenario, minimum wage workers. FYI - an algorithm is simply a computer program which is a precise set of instructions to be carried out by a computer. The way you lumped "robots, AI, and algorithms" all together clearly demonstrates that you are totally clueless about the meaning of the word. Maybe you should get your head out of the QAnon and other Wacko Trumpist stupidity. The increase in unemployment resulted from the recession of 1949, which was triggered by a tightening of monetary policy in response to increased inflation. The recession started in late 1948 before the minimum wage was increased. Exactly. We face tremendous challenges in adapting our workforce to the new economic paradigms we face. Technology may eliminate many jobs but it will also create many more new jobs. The reality is that most students who graduate from HS in 2020 and 2021 will likely be working in jobs and/or industries that don't exist today or, if they exist, are virtually unknown. Meanwhile, we have millions of adult workers who are stuck in dead-end minimum wage jobs because of lack of skills. Many have psychological, economic, logistical and/or geographic impediments that prevent them changing their situations by applying for better jobs, taking advantage of job training or apprenticeship or moving to areas with more opportunities. There's no "simple" solution to this. Raising the minimum wage is really a temporary fix because it doesn't solve the fundamental problems unskilled workers will continue to face in the future. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't raise the minimum wage but it's not any more of a "solution" than pretending that subsidizing mom-and-pop businesses through social programs by keeping the status quo is a "solution". I don't pretend to have a solution. I have some ideas, mainly that we need to re-think education for students who are not academically inclined. We also need to convince this group that once they're "done" with high school, they aren't really done with education or training. I think that going forward, successful people, whether they're MBAs or HS grads, are going to be continually learning new skills throughout their working lives as the rapid pace of technological change continues to accelerate.

Bull crap. Lie to yourself if you want but how come there's never been talk about building a wall to protect the US from the "menace" of "illegals" from Canada? Until Covid-19 closed US-Canadian border, a Canadian citizen who wanted to come live in the US drove to the Peace Bridge or the Queenston Lewiston Bridge, showed ID, told the Border Patrol he/she/they were going on vacation in NYC or North Carolina or whatever, and went on his/her/their merry way. The only way these "illegals" get caught is if/when they run afoul of the law. No raids by la migra in Buffalo or NYC or Boston to scoop up Canadian "illegals", only raids to nab Mexicans and Chinese who don't have green cards.

Actually, the Civil War wasn't fought to "end slavery forever". The reality is that it was fought to perpetuate slavery forever. Lincoln and the Republicans did not run on the idea of ending slavery. They did not oppose slavery in the states where it already existed but wanted to stop slavery from spreading into the western territories. The people of the north and the west fought the Civil War to preserve the Union, not end slavery. The southern states that seceded sought to protect and expand slavery by leaving the Union and establishing a country where slavery would not only be the law of the land, it couldn't ever be abolished. The Confederate Constitution is almost a carbon copy of the US Constitution except in 2 main instances: states rights and slavery ... except that when it came to slavery, states had no rights to regulate or eliminate it. Slavery was the cause of the Civil War, but ending slavery was a consequence of the southern rebellion. It never was a Union war aim. In fact, early in the war, it was common practice for the Union Army to return slaves who had escaped to their lines to their masters, but Union General Benjamin Butler famously declared 3 escaped slaves "contraband of war", ie, war materiel. This was controversial at first, but as politicians and military men realized that the Confederates were using slaves in the war effort, slaves who escaped to the Union lines were employed in the Union war effort as manual laborers, teamsters, etc and even as spies. The longer the war continued, the more accepting of the idea of freeing the slaves northerners became. By 1863, the Union was recruiting ex-slaves as soldiers. By the end of the war, more than 185,000 Black men, mostly ex-slaves, had fought for the Union cause. The Union's strategy was to strangle the South and force a rebel surrender. The first step was to blockade southern ports to prevent the export of cotton and the importation of military goods. The second part was to deprive the Confederacy of access to trade through Texas (from ships that came into Mexican ports) by establishing control of the Mississippi River. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was another part of that effort; depriving the Confederacy of a reliable labor supply to produce foodstuffs and military supplies as well as support for the southern armies. The Proclamation only freed slaves in areas not under Union control, ie, the Confederate states. It did not free slaves in the slave states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri which hadn't joined the Confederacy. The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery for all time in the US.

Ain't unregulated public utilities great?

Agreed. People don't pack up their lives to move to a new country unless they are very determined to change their lives. That was as true in the 1840s and 1890s and 1920s as it is today. I think that it's the ambition and success of immigrants that has fired up anti-immigration feeling among native born Americans (nativism) throughout US history, especially among those who are struggling economically for whatever reason. Immigrants are easy targets, especially when they come in large numbers and seem "alien" like Irish Catholics, Chinese, Catholics and Jews from Southern and Eastern Europe, Mexicans and other Hispanics, etc.

You are correct. Fairness Doctrine The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC eliminated the policy in 1987 and removed the rule that implemented the policy from the Federal Register in August 2011.[1] The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. The demise of this FCC rule has been considered by some to be a contributing factor for the rising level of party polarization in the United States.[2][3] The main agenda for the doctrine was to ensure that viewers were exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. In 1969 the United States Supreme Court, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, upheld the FCC's general right to enforce the fairness doctrine where channels were limited. However, the Court did not rule that the FCC was obliged to do so.[4] The courts reasoned that the scarcity of the broadcast spectrum, which limited the opportunity for access to the airwaves, created a need for the doctrine. The fairness doctrine is not the same as the equal-time rule. The fairness doctrine deals with discussion of controversial issues, while the equal-time rule deals only with political candidates. Equal Time Rule The equal-time rule specifies that U.S. radio and television broadcast stations must provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing political candidates who request it. This means, for example, that if a station gives a given amount of time to a candidate in prime time, it must do the same for another candidate who requests it, at the same price if applicable. This rule originated in §18 of the Radio Act of 1927; it was later superseded by the Communications Act of 1934. A related provision, in §315(b), requires that broadcasters offer time to candidates at the same rate as their "most favored advertiser". The equal-time rule was created because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was concerned that broadcast stations could easily manipulate the outcome of elections by presenting just one point of view and excluding other candidates. There are four exceptions to the equal-time rule. If the airing was within a documentary, bona fide news interview, scheduled newscast, or an on-the-spot news event, the equal-time rule does not apply. Since 1983, political debates not hosted by the media station are considered "news events," and as a result, they are not subject to the rule. Consequently, these debates may include only major-party candidates without having to offer air time to minor-party or independent candidates. Talk shows and other regular news programming from syndicators, such as Entertainment Tonight, are also declared exempt from the rule by the FCC on a case-by-case basis. The equal-time rule was temporarily suspended by Congress in 1960 to permit the Kennedy-Nixon debates to take place.

My personal opinion is that the time for reparations to slaves is about 150 years too late. Giving some kind of compensation to men and women who actually suffered from slavery would have been pretty straight forward and would have been akin to the Japanese Claims Act of 1948. There actually were proposals for reparations to ex-slaves during Reconstruction. The most well known -- and popular among ex-slaves themselves -- was the one that would break up plantations to give ex-slaves a farm plot and the supplies to become subsistence farmers. This plan was popularly described as "forty acres and a mule". It obviously never went very far. The problem with making reparations today is that they would be extraordinarily complicated and somewhat unfair to many Black Americans. Millions of Black Americans are not descendants of people who were enslaved in the US as there's been significant immigration of Blacks from the Caribbean islands like Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba as well as more recently from Africa itself. Millions more Black Americans would probably have difficulty proving that they descended from slaves. If reparations would be given en masse -- given to every Black American -- it would open the can of worms of "who's actually Black?". At present, the definition is fairly open -- if you identify as Black, then you're Black. With money involved, I don't think that would be good enough. Certainly, those that are left out of the reparations would feel cheated. It would divide Black communities just as the Native American gaming industry dividing many Native American communities over who was a tribal member and who wasn't.

Claiming to support "kindness" while thinking that Limbaugh was a "cool and a wonderful guy" suggests that hypocrisy is your stock in trade.

The little city I live in, Jamestown, has had "public power", ie government owned electric system, since the 1890s. It has provided cheap, reliable power to both the City of Jamestown and the Town of Ellicott for 130 years. There are a number of small scale publicly-owned electric utilities and co-operatives scattered throughout upstate NY.

It's a state version of the TVA, which isn't surprising since it was created in 1931 by then NY governor Franklin Roosevelt. It produces some of the lowest cost electricity in the nation, about 70% of it from renewable energy produced by its massive hydroelectric generating facilities at Niagara Falls and Massena. It sells power to consumers via private electric utility companies such as National Grid which are required to pass those savings on to their customers. I believe it also sells low cost power directly to large industrial facilities within the state.

Pot meet kettle. All levels of government -- federal, state, local -- have a responsibility to "provide for the general welfare" which includes protecting residents of their jurisdictions from natural or man-made dangers that can be anticipated. Which level of government has the most responsibility depends upon whether the problem affects people in numerous states or within one state or within a local area within a state. In the case of Texas, 150 power plants of nearly 700 in the state have failed -- apparently all within the Texas grid -- which puts the problem on the state level. The Texas electric grid has failed twice before under severe winter weather, in 1989 and again in 2011, so the state can't pretend this failure couldn't have been anticipated, and the solution would have been to require the power plants in Texas to be winterized as they obviously have been in neighboring states like Oklahoma. That's where the government of Texas failed its residents. It created its own in-state power grid to avoid federal regulation and then created a non-profit organization to manage the Texas grid to absolve the state from its responsibility.

Ultimate political correctness, Wacko Trumpist style.

As the song by country group Rascal Flatts says, "You're gonna leave a legacy, no matter what you do It ain't a question of if they will It's how they remember you ... Did you stand or did you fall? Build a bridge or build a wall? " There was nothing civil about the venom that Limbaugh spread for three decades. Death doesn't absolve people for the evil they do when they're alive.