NationStates Jolt Archive

from a friends livejournal:


Robert Smith (no, not the lead singer for the Cure) is a Gulf War veteran who has been teaching English as a Second Language for the Department of Defense for the last ten years. He has taught in the US, Latvia, Taiwan, Japan, and is currently teaching in Iraq.

Mr. Smith had a little something to say to the readers of the Huffington Post. Please.. read along, and share in the outrage of people just like you and me who do all that we can with all that we are even if it takes more than we have.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-smith/tapped-out_b_6565.html
Tapped Out

OK, you billionaires who have taken advantage of the very unchristian greed fest that is the hallmark of the Bush administration, it's time to step up and give some of that money back. CEO's should pony up and pay for the recovery of New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and the rest of the hurricane-devastated Deep South.

After all, for all the wrong reasons, the residents there put the CEO president in the White House.

We know Bush is going to send massive amounts of money the government doesn't have. He's used to that. Deficit spending is his specialty. And, of course, he and Cheney will make sure a big chunk of that goes to Halliburton in no-bid contracts, since that's the only company that can handle this type of crisis (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). As usual, you billionaires will sit on your fat asses and laugh while people at the other end of the financial spectrum, including some of the new ranks of the impoverished, will send every dime they can afford and some they can't to help the hurricane victims. Billionaire insurance CEO's will beg for relief from the government and get it, because they shouldn't have to give up all that cash people have paid over the years that never was tapped into by a crisis like this. Bush will sympathize with them and those CEO's will get richer because of this mess. Well, I say it's time for you fucking billionaires to give it up. Give some of that money back. You're so obscenely wealthy, you could collectively cover the $20-billion recovery cost and never miss it.

See, I need you to do it because I'm tapped out. I'm tapped out after giving all I could afford for tsunami victims. I'm tapped out after giving all I could give for my political candidates. I'm tapped out after paying property and school taxes for schools I don't send my kids to. We home school our kids so they won't be subjected to the ignorance, apathy, and ineffectiveness of Texas public schools (you know, home of Bush's education miracle). I'm tapped out because my oldest son, the one we home schooled, is the only National Merit Scholar in our school district. We're sending him to Rice University and I had to come up with over $7000 for the first semester, so instead of having money in the bank, I'm now in the red. I'm tapped out because, even though I'm here in Iraq supporting the war for oil and Halliburton, my wife is home paying $2.50 a gallon for gas while the oil CEO's make record profits, get massive tax breaks, and get government subsidies just in case they want to explore for new oil.

Or instead you can wait for all of us to do it because you know we will. I just hope someone stands up and says "Shame!" Even if they don't, someday you'll have to stand in front of the Christ you invoked to get your CEO president and justify to Him how you sucked workers dry, how you sucked tax payers dry, how you got fat while more and more Americans slipped into poverty. Personally, I don't think you'd stand a chance in hell.

Is it a surprise that I agree? :p I too am tapped out and transferring some of my savings to my checking account just today so that I could buy groceries for next week, because I'm driving to Los angeles for the three-day weekend to see my family and friends.

Wow! Way to tell it, Robert Smith! Even if you're not the singer for The Cure, you are quite a cool cat!

Damn greedy sonofabitches!

Oh, and hi, Sumamba.

I think I have a case of the bumps! :eek:

I think I have a case of the bumps! :eek:
Not so fast, Chicken Marengo...

Wow! Way to tell it, Robert Smith! Even if you're not the singer for The Cure, you are quite a cool cat!

Damn greedy sonofabitches!

Oh, and hi, Sumamba.

hah! Good timing. Hiya Dobbsuniverse :)

Good to see you 'round. :fluffle:

Not so fast, Chicken Marengo...


Good work Cap'n PuffinFresh

Dang, I lost a long thing I wrote talking about stupidheaded misers accumulating and retaining moolah so their great-great-grandchildren will be able to safely enjoy their own personal heated in-ground swimming pools.

*edit: but this more or less covers the same ground.

I think that would be a good idea. But, it'll never happen, so strap on your boots and grab your poncho.

Poor baby.

I've only got one question, why the fuck didn't the residents of NO pull their heads out of their collective asses and realize this was inevitably going to happen? Obviously they've never heard of Finagle's Law or its more commonly known corollary, Murphy's Law. The first is the idea that the perversity of the universe tends toward the maximum, the simplified version of this is Murphy's law, or "If it can go wrong, it will". You would think somebody would have gotten the bright idea to do what Galveston did after its major hurricane experience 105 years ago. Buuut nooo, they liked living under sea level in hurricane territory, it added class. BAH.

Poor baby.

I've only got one question, why the fuck didn't the residents of NO pull their heads out of their collective asses and realize this was inevitably going to happen? Obviously they've never heard of Finagle's Law or its more commonly known corollary, Murphy's Law. The first is the idea that the perversity of the universe tends toward the maximum, the simplified version of this is Murphy's law, or "If it can go wrong, it will". You would think somebody would have gotten the bright idea to do what Galveston did after its major hurricane experience 105 years ago. Buuut nooo, they liked living under sea level in hurricane territory, it added class. BAH.
Except this is more about skinflint billionaires who'll get still more corporate welfare instead of doing what shouldn't matter to them one iota, i.e. fork over some of their amassed wealth - for a little thing I like to call the 'common good'.

Or do you just like moonlighting as Scrooge come Xmas, dude?

Dang, I lost a long thing I wrote talking about stupidheaded misers accumulating and retaining moolah so their great-great-grandchildren will be able to safely enjoy their own personal heated in-ground swimming pools.

*edit: but this more or less covers the same ground.

Awww I'd still have loved to read it.

Awww I'd still have loved to read it.
It rambled more than Gibby Haynes after a pot of coffee.

It rambled more than Gibby Haynes after a pot of coffee.


Well I'm sure it was good. How many billionaires does this world have anyway? Damn a billion dollars is a lot of money. I can't understand people who are so greedy as to want more after that and do so very little to help others. I know Bill Gates gives a good amount of money to charity and I appreciate that but he could do so much more.

I'm pretty sure that was the same guy I saw on 42nd Street today, preaching to no one "we need to get the lunatic out of the white house!"

Sorry, but that was a just poor...

>Robert Smith (no, not the lead singer for the Cure) is a Gulf War veteran who has been teaching English as a Second Language for the Department of Defense for the last ten years.

And that's a credential? *Anybody* can teach ESL. That he's a vet and is doing it for the DoD... hmm. He's a contractor in Iraq? They don't pay taxes, so he's trying to fill his own pocket, too. What a hypocrite!!

>>OK, you billionaires who have taken advantage of the very unchristian greed fest that is the hallmark of the Bush administration, it's time to step up and give some of that money back. CEO's should pony up and pay for the recovery of New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and the rest of the hurricane-devastated Deep South.

WTF? Ok! I declare that we need to reduce everyone to the poverty level, and KEEP you all there so that we can share it with everyone else. What's left over will go into trust for future generations to live at the poverty level.
This point, sir, is Communistic, pure and simple. That, and some sour grapes.

...I won't bother with the whole article, but it basically reads like a rant of someone that's pissed off because he wants or feels entitled to something.

In a word, it's sad.

...I won't bother with the whole article, but it basically reads like a rant of someone that's pissed off because he wants or feels entitled to something.

More like a guy who's pissed that we are spending billions upon billions of dollars and thousands of innocent people are dying in a war pushed on us using misleading (to be kind) statements, while Bush's business partners and their cohorts are all making tons of money from the who debaucle. Not to mention our national gaurd is deployed in iraq as well and not here to help those who really need it in a time of crisis.

Just read the article.

More like a guy who's pissed that we are spending billions upon billions of dollars and thousands of innocent people are dying in a war pushed on us using misleading (to be kind) statements, while Bush's business partners and their cohorts are all making tons of money from the who debaucle. Not to mention our national gaurd is deployed in iraq as well and not here to help those who really need it in a time of crisis.

Just read the article.

Read it the first time. Opinion still the same.

RE: National Guard: Next, you're going to complain about the US spending all that useless money on the new levies in New Orleans when Hurricane Frank destroys New Orleans again in 2007.
There is no way one knew that a Category 5 hurricane would strike New Orleans over two years ago. The arguement is the same smack as "Bush's father loaded the Supreme Court for him to win the 2000 election back when he was President". :headbang:

Folks, sometimes there is, but sometimes there is not a dotted line. Not everything that happens is planned.

As for making money, why on Earth didn't you buy energy stocks after the dot-com bust??? When Carter became President, peanut butter and products got expensive... it was the logical thing to do! :)