In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chris Ahlstrom
<linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:46:25 -0400
<sXRIk.41504$IB6.39041@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, bbgruff belched out
> this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>>> Pretoria ODF Users Workshop
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | What always strikes me at such gatherings is the passion of those who
>>> | have committed to adopting ODF. You get people who have decided for all
>>> | the usual reasons that ODF makes sense for their use, or that of their
>>> | department, or their agency, or their government. We?re seeing
>>> | interesting and varying bottom up, top down, and middle out patterns of
>>> | adoption in different parts of the world.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=2671
>>
>> Shouldn't there be a little blue dot in MA, where Peter Quinn did so much to
>> help publicise ODF - and thereby incurred Microsoft's ire?:-)
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Quinn
>
> The U.S. is looking like quite a backwater. It can't be due to the
> worst Administration since Reconstruction, can it?
>
Some are claiming that the seeds of this bitter fruit
were sown during the Reagan Administration. If one takes
the economy as a water metaphor, the government "pump"
was downgraded during same because he reduced the top tax
rate, chopping it from 70% to about 36% or thereabouts --
I'd have to look. [*]
(To be sure, the "pools" of deep pocket investors were
very glad to get more water into their "tanks".)
For its part Clinton did nothing to alleviate this issue,
mostly because he was hamstrung in 1994 by a Republican
Congress, lasting for the rest of his Presidency -- and,
for that matter, until 2006. Nor would I consider
Clinton a true leftist -- he was rather middle-of-the road,
if not skewed a little right, though he did have a leftist
opinion on certain social issues.
This pump continued to decline in power during the Bush II
era, until the back-pressure built up to a point where
the filter -- namely, us -- tore.
We now get to repair the filter. At this point the
analogy is suspect, mostly because it's far from clear
whether repairing the filter, priming the pump by adding
more water into an already broken system, improving the
pump (by raising taxes -- that'll go over about as well
as requiring everyone to run Microsoft Windows Vista!),
or completely replacing the structure containing the
filter by something along the lines of Venezuelan-style
or USSR-style socialism/communism.
Or maybe a combination of all of the above?
Of course the last is *very* fanciful, and probably the
worst solution anyway; the Eastern European economies just
after the USSR's collapse are well-documented examples
of the failure of the socialist-implemented communistic
economy. Even the farthest of the far left Democrats
aren't close to any sort of USSR-style communism.
But both major candidates do want to re-regulate the
banking industry. (Yes, there are other candidates --
one of them is from the Socialist Party USA, in fact,
namely the Brian Moore/Stewart Alexander ticket. There
is also a Socialist Worker's party, with Róger Calero
and Alyson Kennedy. Yes, Virginia, there *is* a Left,
and it's rather farther Left than the current crop of
Democrats. ;-) )
And then there's our trade policies, which do nothing
to protect local industry from the ravages of
global competition. They do, however, cheapen goods
for us consumers.
[*] it gets more complicated, actually; the actual
collected amount from corporate entities during Carter
was about 35% if I'm not totally mistaken, and dropped
considerably during the Reagan and Bush years, to
maybe 15%.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Linux. Because life's too short for a buggy OS.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
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