Quotes from Dixie Dude:
"Amish and some Mendonites don't vote. Some Holiness church people in the south that I know of don't vote. They are all very conservative."
Not in some ways. As a group they are much more live and let live outside of their own world than most conservatives. They do not believe in capital punishment. They believe in forgiveness, remember how they embraced the family of the man that killed the Amish girls. I don't see many on this board willing to do that. More common Mennonites are quite liberal in many ways. I would guess that well over 50% of my Mennonite church supported Obama.
"No matter what, the welfare system has gotten way too big. Too many on the dole. Also too many people are being approved for disability. Why? Is it to bring down the unemployment numbers. A construction worker who falls and breaks his back and is paralized from the waist down should be require to learn a skill for a desk job, such as dispatch, drafting, data entry on a computer, electronics repair. Lots of skills they could do without using their legs. It would be cheaper to pay for two years education and them get a job vs lifetime benefits."
I very much agree with Dixie on the above. Lets also keep in mind that the investment in programs like Head Start and work skills training of special education students also pays off big in the long run but many politicians just do not get this.
GuzziJohn
*****************
Guzzi, you've got to know that the medical and pharmaceutical industry is huge, powerful , and deeply influential upon politics.
Just as many of "Pappa" Bush's buddies have under the table interests in weapons, logistics, and corporate security companies (in other words; war profiteering); so it is also with the Democrats in regards to the medical and pharmaceuticals.
It's called conflict of interest, I'm sure you know. But this has to be proven first. It takes much time and effort to trace a paper and money trail and that's not even mentioning the possibility of someone holding a political axe over your head if you get too "nosey".
One of the members here posted a video, awhile back of Russel Means. In this video, he voiced his opinion that the only significant difference between Democrats and the Republicans are their spending goals. In other words, where their corporate investments lay and how well they can keep them obscured from public scrutiny.
In order to remain on disability, many of these people have to go to various programs of therapy, drug regimens, and so forth. The money comes from the govt. through the tax payers, yes. But then, it filters back to the politicians (who back these programs) in the form of corporate dividends.
The medical industry is BIG BIG BIG!!! They are not in the business of "curing" anyone as there is no money in that. And why would they want to when they can just keep shoving drugs (from pharmaceutical companies in which the doctors have vested intersts) down the throats of all the sick people out there. And then when they start to have side effects from those drugs, the pharmaceutical companies can simply come up with another drug to "treat" (not cure) the side effect.
Quite often, they do it with tax payer/govt. funding under the guise of various research programs that are again voted in by politicians (with vested interests) who have their campaigns funded by the very same corporate entities. It's a very lucrative and evil circle and both sides have been playing it for decades.
One side does it in the form of "foreign policy" but in truth, in order to set up cheaper platforms for outsourced labor overseas while through the use of huge PR companies and the manipulation of media, disguising themselves as the bearers of "just cause" (Truly, there is much profit to be made from war).
And the other side profits on the carnage of social decline; sickness, ignorance, drugs, illegal immigrants etc. etc. while also doing a very good job of disguising themselves as the humanitarians of society.
I think that the only common investments they may have are in the law enforcement and corrections industries, what with the (un-winnable) "war on drugs", the privatization of federal prisons (supposedly unconstitutional). And why shouldn't they have at least one common investment. It's easy enough for both to ride the gravy train while looking as though they're hard on crime.
And all the while, they sit together in DC and put on this big "presentation" called a "Democratic Republic" and sell it to the people as two partisan sides thereby dividing the people down the middle with chicken sh** issues like homosexuality, racial differences, and religion and so forth, while both sides sitting in those chairs in DC are laughing their way to their foreign banks.
Similar to the political structure that Orwell described in the book "1984"; when it comes down to it, you either invest and "buy in", thereby making yourself a "Party Member" as Orwell described it; or you remain one of the "Proles" (a working man), never really knowing how it all works under the surface.
I don't remember who it was that said it, but
"the man who knows HOW to do things a certain way, will always work for the man who knows WHY we do things a certain way". In reference to the topic though; unfortunately, as I stated in a previous post, one will find the deck "stacked" in the form of similar structures in almost any industrialized nation to which they may relocate.
At least here, we still have our guns, yes. But they are useless against a power that wages such a highly efficient war upon peoples perceptions of who the real evil is.
That's why I'm always telling people to turn off that TV, try to travel more(beyond the tourist drags), read more of
EVERYTHING, and try and FREE YOUR MINDS! Because none of the members of the two sides that are sitting in political power have the best interests in mind of any one other than themselves.