What Color Is Your Chain?

Another great column.

Maybe it's just me, but anyone else notice how politician's no longer say "we" or "our"?

Now it's "you all will be in chains", "your" jobs will be lost, 'their' policies will hurt "you".

Seems politicians from all sides are making it very clear nothing they or the other side does will affect their security or comfort, it will only bring about bad results for "us".

I gotta admit, that rattle my chains a whole lot more than some nonsensical remark about shackles and chains.

"My ol' massah promise me
When she die she set me free
Live so long her haid got bald
Gave up thoughts o' dyin' at all"
Apparently progress is being allowed to vote for your master. Funny how all the inner cities disappeared once Obama became President, and no black child has murdered another black child since Biden took his oath of office. Who is playing upon fears today? Who has chained themselves to old ideas that do not work? Who will not look at reality?

So Dion prescribes a government leash purchased by the ephemeral "rich folks". Well, there's a new argument.

Unchain your brain. Live independently, think freedom. Government is never your friend, and only a fool thinks otherwise. The proof lives in all of our major cities, where those nurtured upon government largesse reside in ghettos devoid of hope. That's not the fault of rich folks, and Dion knows it. Slavery disguises itself, it appears in new forms, but it is always stamped with a government approval. So in the 1840's and so with 2010's version of "soft tyranny". It is still stinking tyranny, whether it takes from those who have earned it or gives to those who have not earned it. The net effect is to weaken citizens and render them helpless. Is that what you want? Hear the rattling of those chains. Therein lies self imposed slavery.

Do you ever get tired of carrying the O teams water?

You have always seemed like an astute, intelligent writer. Somewhere deep down you must tire of defending dunderhead Joe.

I understand your point, but perhaps a treadmill is a better metaphor. That treadmill much as you may dislike it, pays for all the government you seem to love.

Re: Tom.

Dion isn't 'prescribing' a government leash purchased by ephemeral rich folks and no one on any of the columns or comments is saying Government is our friend except maybe in a sarcastic way.

"Give the rich folks a little more money, and they'll buy you out of your chains. They will, really. They'll create for you a steady job with good pay and benefits and a retirement that lets you finally do all the crossword puzzles you want.

Unchain the rich folks! We've held them down too long. Give 'em one more chance with the dice. They'll win this time."

Obama is all about expanding federal powers, and you know it. Romney is painted as friend to the rich by the msm.

Yeah, Morgan, those paragraphs and this whole column is not a pro-Obama and anti-Romney pitch.

You must not be listening for the chains. Catholics already have chains wrapped around their right to religious freedom. Don Cathy had those chains smacked in his face for utilizing his right to free speech; "Don't expect Chicago to issue permits for Chick Fil A!"

No political endorsement here. Yeah, sure.

And no chains proffered by government.

To you.

Yet.

Re: Tom

We do have differing opinions, and I am in agreement with Marc, but that doesn't mean I can't relate to your concerns. I have no doubt they are as important to you as mine are to me.

According to the IRS, the 1.4 million households that comprise the 1 percent (that is taking in about $350,000 a year) pay 37 percent of the nation's income tax.

Further, 47% of citizens pay no income tax at all. They get a free pass from the government. That's fair?

Dion can spin it, but the fact is we have a SPENDING problem. We also have a huge ACCOUNTABILITY problem. Obama ads claim Romney responsible for a cancer victim's death, a stretching of facts to unbelievable proportion, but we have a border patrol agent dead as a result of Fast & Furious, a scam run under the Obama administration's DOJ Eric Holder. You don't get chains if you are DEAD at the hands of of a government program. Gitmo torture has been replaced by "Bang, your dead!" drone killings. Harry Reid's Senate has not passed a budget in over one thousand days. Who looks at their finances every one thousand days? By law the Senate is REQUIRED to pass a budget annually. Accountability? Forget about it, instead we are fed this stream of heart rending "What Color is Your Chain" garbage that raises all the way up to standards required of a Junior High speech contest.

Noble words mean nothing if not acted upon fairly and with restraint. Anybody can talk pretty about "love and tolerance", makes one feel real satisfied with THEMSELVES. I will not join the cabal screaming for the heads of the "rich". I won't blame the "rich" because someone stuck a needle in their arm today. Because someone shot a rival gang member to death last night. Because Lady Madonna has too many children at her feet. That is the government's fault, because when the means to life are cheap life becomes cheap. The welfare system has produced murder rates astronomical, crime rates to match, blight, and a constant demand for more. Well intentioned maybe, but devastating in results. These poor people are the victims of our government. Rich people did not herd them into bad schools, the government did. They are called "Public Schools", no?

"Rich" people avail us of Symphonies. Art Museums. Fine architecture. They support Hospitals. They donate a larger share to charities than any other demographic. You say "They should", and I say "They do". You say "They won't let me in", I say "You squandered your freedom elsewhere." Middle class stature is still fairly easy to attain as long as you don't shoot chemicals in your arm, reproduce willy-nilly, and are willing to work.

Go pick on someone smaller than you. You can moan, complain, steal their money and call it "taxation", force them to wear a yellow star, but I will not join a hate campaign against anybody, the dreaded "rich" included. Directing hate towards ANY group will never lead to good. History makes that astonishingly clear.

It is sad to live in another era with barbarians at the gate. Chaos often ensues. But I know a Post Modern barbarian when I read one.

Thanks, it's long but at least it ain't Sweeney.

Biden said to a large assembly of Southern black people, that [Republicans} are "gonna put ya'll BACK in chains". Marc has a twisted mind that rarely, if ever, recognizes the truth.

Re: Tom... Sir, 1% owning 90%, enjoying vastly superior income to the rest should be paying far more that 35% of the taxes... Close to 50% having nothing but poverty, and in many cases paying excise tax -is a crime; but what can they pay taxes with when they have nothing??? How many people work long hours and two jobs to have nothing to show for it??? That is a prime example of willful ignorance and stupidity on the right to abuse a person for asking for fair wages, even a higher minimum wage, and then castigating them as a class for not paying income tax... Do you want blood??? Do you want their brains??? Because you would not live 5 minutes with the pain of poverty, but you know how to escape it, and so did they once, when it was still possible to work themselves out of poverty.. ...
Mr. Dion... We have chains that many will never escape...In general these are the very same connections we have to society... If we begin to feel our chains, then that too has a purpose and is good... I think it was Sinclair Lewis who said: Marriage is the curse of the working class.. Why would he say such a thing??? No wonder Nietzsche railed at the sort of morality that keeps people human, and it is often the very sort of humanity that results in their enlavement... Yet; in many senses the people are right, and all the super men of the right, heartless and uncaring, willfully blind to the suffering they create, demanding poverty pay taxes for God's sake, and for their own sake too, are not right at all... They have broken the bonds of society, and are free mentally and physically from their human obligations...
They have created our world, and are smart to stay free of it... They know that when a man commits to marriage, just as when he commits to credit, as when he commits to service to his country that his honor can be used at times to draw the very life out of him...And in the example of society, credit can be used to suck the whole life out of society...When one man can manipulate the situation so the worker has not enough wages, and so the person must rely upon credit, the worker is chained coming and going...
Why don't people demand a living wage??? They are in no position to, and if they did, they would have to be an impediment to all who would work for nothing, and so break the peace... Honor, morality by another name- holds them still when they should act for justice... But the demand for justice that one makes not alone for self, but for ones whole society often demands the threat and prosecution of violence...

No one wants to make themselves the judge and jury over another, let alone a whole class; but just as we bear our burdens more and more as individuals we must learn to act as individuals... The mystic cords that bind us are not so bad... Do you pay to stay in touch???...Think about how distant to one another we have become, strangers in our own families, knawing on our own pain and privation when we think we are not witnessed...
You see; individualism that is used by the rich to justify their abnegation of obligation is a curse to the poor who can never get far enough away from those they care about to not witness their own pain mirrored in all about them.... If you care, you are always under a burden...If caring is pointless, and helpless, and hopeless then it is a curse...Then you can understand why it is that the rich wall themselves apart, and jet off to distant paradices where they can play again their part in human seduction...
I was born with chains on me... I have always been my brother's keeper... When I cast off the chains of human attachment I could almost fly... I did not realize how much moral connection grounded me, and fed the inner Phoenix...Now, I am bonded by choice... I realize and accept the promises I make, and I make them real...And a big part of that life is conscious acceptance, which most people never have a chance to grasp...
No one escapes human relationships without a sacrifice...To have a society and a government we must first be social and self controled, and the rich are neither... They are anti social and more free than free to the point of licentiousness... The do not freely accept their obligation, but make us all obligated for them...They are outlaws; criminals!!!
For this people, and for the people in every relationship with me I owe something... But I do not owe the rich scratch... They have put themselves outside of their relationship of nation and community... They are above our morality and outside of our law...They are ungoverned, and yet seek to rule us...
I would say: If you really want to help, then sell all you own and follow your God...Unless money and power is already your God, and then keep keeping on... Clean up the messes you have made, and make peace where you have made war...Give justice everywhere to the best of your ability...Money is simply a form of relationship, and like nation, and law, and morality- money can have the meaning sucked right out of it as it begins to suck the life out of people...Life is the source of meaning after all, and all else we find meaning in must fall before the needs of life...
Some one out there is putting a price on human life, on fresh air and water, on loneliness and pain, on health, on happiness... The price they make people pay for what has been deliberately denied to them so the rich can be rich is a judgment against the entire class... We will never be without chains and burden; but so long as we all pull together the plow will pull through...When many are harnassed so a few can ride with their brides and baggage, and they never know when to get the hell off and push; they trash every bond we ever had with them, and make themselves our enemies...And they are enemies, deadly enemies all about killing society, and making us brutes... To demand our lives at the price we pay for them, and to demand justice for ourselves and all is an act of war that invokes victory or destruction...
Thanks...Sweeney

Re: Tom... Sir, education is the property of society... Knowledge is culture... If people want to fear the barbarians at the gate, consider who built the wall for them, and that the barbarians are barbarians for lack of access to the very sort of education that would make them socially equal to all...We never divided the rich from the poor, or the government from the people... We did not make wealth necessary for access to government, and we did not make a government tilted in favor of the rich from day one... We did not throw the people the scrap of a house of representatives essentially powerless, and then make it ever less democratic and less responsive to the needs of the people...
You will always see among the rich and the powerful a desire to unload the blame for the failure of society on those who most suffer its failure; and it is those who have sacrificed all they have who are asked now to sacrifice more... Let me say this plainly, so it can be understood: God damned the rich to have every advantage but wisdom and love for the society they destroy to have wealth... Why should we trust any of them to fix the problems they have made for us from the beginning??? They are not the solution to our problems, but are literally The Problem...
Thanks...Sweeney

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into heaven"

Maybe it's because they've created so much hell here on earth; never having enough and so insecure they not only steal from the rich, but also from the poor.

Re: morgan

Outstanding observation Morgan.

I hadn't picked up on that. [Not sure how I could have missed it.] But it really drives home the fact that this "pivotal choice in our history” really amounts to no choice at all.

What wouldn't I give for a candidate who I could really believe gave a tinker's dam for “us”? Just once before I check out I would like to pull that lever without thumb and forefinger firmly pinching the nostrils!

Re: James A, Sweeney RE: ..."should be paying far more that 35% of the taxes..." Why? Because you say so? From each according to his ability to each according to his need is marxist/socialist/communist thinking. Also, it is wealth-envy. If you like socialist philosopy so much, go to another country. We don't need you here. I hope rich people get richer. It's the American way.