[MD] The American Ruling Class

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Khaled]
Thanks for posting the link to the Cap and Trade Video.

[Arlo]
Always a pleasure to hear from you, Khaled.

[Khaled]
I am all for free market with no government intervention, but every 
time the big guys are left on their own, they screw the little guy...

[Arlo]
Yeah, I think one of the biggest fallacies is that "intervention" 
(ALL of it) is foisted upon a unwilling population by an evil 
conspiratorial Guvmint, whose only goal appears to be enslaving the 
Noble Conservative citizenry. Its one thing to get orgasmic shivers 
when the Great Capitalists of the late 19th century, but its another 
to forget the conditions that the great majority suffered under, 
conditions that brought about the grass-roots demand for 
"intervention". My grandfather, born to a mining family, used to tell 
me how the "bosses" would bring the dead bodies of miners to the 
doors of the shanties in which the families lived, complete with an 
eviction notice pinned to the shirt. Miners were sent into unstable 
mines, worked grueling hours, suffered black lung and for this 
received barely enough pay to cover rent and the days "food". The 
demand for safe working conditions, for compensation, for minimum 
wages, all came as a result of workers (in many industries) 
responding to the "unregulated market". A point I made a few posts 
back was that it was the "unregulated market" that turned the Chicago 
River into a flammable stew of garbage and decaying carcasses. And if 
we needed "coercive intervention" to protect us against that, than 
that is what we should have.

This video makes the case that "cap and trade" is just another is 
long list of schemes to screw the little guy and line the pockets of 
the capistocracy. I buy it. Whatever the outcome here, it's pretty 
clear to me that "cap and trade" is not the best solution; not for 
decreasing pollution and not for making life better.

[Khaled]
Someone must have fallen asleep during the French Revolution class.

[Arlo]
Class? You are talking about people who LOATHE the academy, who take 
every opportunity to demonize and villify "perferssers" and their 
"brainwashing propaganda". Don't you be talking all intellectually 
here, people have better things to do than "learn" or go to one of 
your east-coast, elitist "classes". :-)