Lifter

I work in the manufacturing/construction industry

we laid off approximately 50% of the workers here and those remaining got a pay cut.

now how many feds got laid off? and how much of a paycut did you get?

you targeted an industry that you felt did not deserve the money it earned and felt that it should be nationalized and thus returned to the people.  That is exactly what I said for federal workers only I only wanted 10%.

you really seem angry with your posts, is everything ok?

The war of northern aggressin??

South Carolina seceded because it felt its right to treat human beings as chattel was threatened. South Carolina then opened fire on Fort Sumter when federal troops refused to surrender and vacate. Seven more states seceded, each in turn copying South Carolina's declaration, in which it outlines fears that slavery might be ended as a core reason for leaving the union.

In other words, the southern states, spearheaded by South Carolina, committed treason against the country and instigated the bloodiest war in American history, because they felt it was their divine right to treat human beings like farm animals.

I tend to call it the 'war of Southern treason.

Lifter -

Cool your jets, my friend - you're going to have a heart attack over these things.

There were many causes behind the secession of the southern states, slavery being only one of them.

Please don't think for a nano second that I would stoop to advocating slavery.

Slavery was a dying institution, however.  Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, together with the subsequent mechanization of all forms of agriculture made the relatively high costs of keeping slaves prohibitive.  

I was a history major in college before the "political correctness" movement, after which many historical facts were "revised" to meet a political agenda.

Slavery would have disappeared within about 20 - 30 years after the War Between the States, even if there had been no secession and war.  Even the most liberal of my American history professors knew and taught that.

Like many other aspects of the economy, once the industrial revolution took hold, the old ways of farming by horse and human labor retreated into memory.  Once slave keeping became more expensive than mechanical farming, slavery was doomed.

In the 1850s, the North and the South were truly disparate sections of the country.  The cultures of the two regions were far different.  You have to remember that in those days, most common people lived their entire lives within, at most, a radius of 50 miles of their birth places.  There was next to no travel, and next to no intermingling of these two cultures.

To a Georgian or Carolinian of 1860, a Michigander, Ohioan, or New Yorker was as foreign to him as a Turk or Russian is to us today.

If you really get into the history of American culture, you'll see that the serious conflict between the North and South had many roots.

Lifter -

Again, we'll respectfully argue this one without end.

I know lots of Southerners - I know none who refers to the "loss of their property" to mean slaves.

Most mean the loss of everything that Sherman, in particular, destroyed.

Don't think that modern American soldiers invented rape, pillage and plunder.  Sherman's tropps were real pros at it long before Vietnam or that prison scandel in Iraq.

Sherman killed, either thru outright execution, or induced starvation, far more innocent civilians than our history books ever taught us.  But since the North won, it's expected that this slaughter would be shoved under the rug.  That's why Lincoln, Grant, and other Northern figures aren't reviled in the South today - but Sherman will be hated and despised for generations of Southerners to come - he was a true war criminal.  There was no excuse for his strategy or tactics.

Lifter -

Just more proof that the character of war never changes.

You and I, as former military men, know more than most, that war is a total revulsion of everything human.

Career soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen value peace far more than those who never "put it on the line".

The only real difference between us isn't the goal - it's merely the means to accomplish it.  We all hate war.

Oil spill's ugly reality sets in

Source: New York Times

Reporting from Grand Isle, La.

This seven-mile squiggle of homey rentals and streets with names like Redfish and Speckled Trout had wrung hope for weeks from a single belief: Oil would land somewhere else.

But on Friday, oil the color and consistency of brownie batter began tarnishing the shore of Grand Isle, a tourist town of 1,500 that draws its livelihood from thousands of weekend visitors.

The dark ooze — the first direct hit from the massive gulf oil spill on a populated, popular shoreline — deepened anger and anxiety on the Louisiana coast as the slick swirled offshore with no containment in sight.


"This place is shot now," she said, her voice quavering.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oi...

Last night, on the CBS News, Katie Couric reported that BP officials said
it will probably take until August to plug the oil gusher. The damage
from waiting until August would be more than catastrophic. Is there even
a word for how damaging it would be to our planet.

The problem is...people can't see it. It's not like a fire, that you can
see burning and progressing. The damage is hidden and there is a delay
in the damage.

I'm afraid that this disaster will have Obama's name on it. I think he
needs to be doing more. He's allowing BP to run the show, and BP was
even allowed to threaten arrest--by using our own Coast Guard!--when CBS
reporters tried to take pictures of oil-soaked beaches.

I don't have all of the answers, but if this gusher keeps flowing--this
will be an epic, paradigm-shifting event. Our government has scientists
and researchers--they should be dispatched and they should be working
to solve this.

Looks like we now know why Barry is taking so long to get anything done in the gulf. He's in bed with BP oil!! He took over $77k, the largest single donation by BP to a candidate since 1990.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6584A5A0-18FE-70B2-A838E6437FBEC75D
And I thought the Bush's were in the oil biz...