Comments on: Watch As Tool-To-The-Billionaires Tom Donohue Gets Raked On Live TV

By: SomeGuy

SomeGuy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:12:44 +0000

Tom Donohue doesn’t sound like such a bad guy from what I’ve seen of him on TV. I’m not saying he isn’t wrong on some issues, but he definitely know international business and has some pertinent things to say.

Maybe not the things brought up on this site but things like:
1. Enforcing our bi-lateral trade agreements.
2. Defending trade agreements with Korea. They are cutting separate deal with the EU that will kill 300 thousand US jobs if we don’t stop it.
3. Change national security export rules that prohibit exporting items you could buy on a street corner in France. This would add hundreds of billions of dollars in salable items to our exports.
4. Addressing the training needs of our workforce going forward.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:34:41 +0000

Exactly to who are they going to lend money too, when third world countries are paying wages at cents on the dollar to workers who can never afford to buy the products they make.

By: Joseph Culp

Joseph Culp — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:10:43 +0000

Capitalism in destruction! Dont worry, the crafty US government will use its super-glue and duck tape to piece it back together and make it good as new. It should only take about 10 or 20 years.

By: ...

... — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:13:59 +0000

“The outrage directed at Wall Street today recalls a long tradition of populist resentment against ﬁnanciers, and suggests that elements of
this tradition have persisted alongside the ever-increasing integration of ‘working people’ into capitalist ﬁnancial relations. Yet populism has also long been used to manipulate anti-authoritarian mass sentiments in ways that fortify political authority; the curious mix of individualism and conformity that Tocqueville noted in American society is epitomized today by Fox News. American elites have developed an uncanny capacity to play to such sentiments. This dialectic of uproar and integration was amply illustrated in the wake of the dot-com meltdown, as widespread practices of corporate fraud emerged. The ensuing legislation provided only a minimal degree of protection from ‘Enronitis’, and did nothing to help those who had lost their jobs or their pensions.
But the sight of a few CEOs being led away in handcuffs served to assuage the ﬂurry of popular anger, while ﬁnancial elites continued devising chains of intermediation of which they were the main beneﬁciaries, just as before.”

this is what’s happening again. inveighing against “stealing” “give us our money back!” and so on, IN ORDER TO retain the status quo, to ensure that the power configuration does NOT change.
so that if there is a recovery (far from certain, that is…) average americans will be fucked again in some years time.

it’s appalling and at the same time comical how certain people, who claim to be the most fiercely opposed to “corporate bullshit” and so on, completely suck up to the ruling ideology when it comes to serious questions.

By: nosuchthingasshould

nosuchthingasshould — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:50:26 +0000

@21 actually
You’ve got a point, I was thinking about ammending my original post with something simmilar. Still, there is not going to be a succesful popular resistance in america that doesn’t fit in with the predominant cultural conditioning. This happens to be coined by the vampires. You’re fucked.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:08:55 +0000

Yeah, so even if they speculate or don’t speculate with that money, the original capital or the profits eventually get funneled down into lending capital for these huge banks.

So, essentially, our systems cure for this thing is to take the taxes earned on the backs of Americans and then eventually lend that money back to them, at 6-28%. So we get to pay interest on money that we already earned, for the privilege of it being returned into the economy. After all, thats how banks ultimately make money, right? Through lending? Sounds good. Not criminal at all. If thats not a rigged system and ponzi scheme that criminally steals from its people, then I don’t know what is.

Solution? Stop promoting population growth through your bullshit religious propaganda, welfare, and food subsidies and let the economy shrink back to a manufacturing base only. But that would never happen, because that would mean that you couldn’t buy and cheat your way to the top nearly as easily, or as extensively. Also, its much harder to steal from large politically powerful manufacturers than it is from everyday Americans, through their taxes, in a vastly overleveraged economy and currency. In a normal economy, with a balanced and just (guffaw) political and legal system, you’d actually have to produce something to make real money. Politicians make the equivelant of other public servants, and campaign donations and lobbyists would be illegal. Heaven forbid.

By: actually,

actually, — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:41:21 +0000

I find this report nauseating.

Are you ### blind? Can’t you see that the reporter, behind a ridiculously cheap façade of vacuous, paranoid outrage and empty slogan-honing, is actually legitimising the very system that creates all these catastrophes??

like “oh, if only we had a pristine capitalism, one that would live up to its ideals!”
guess what: this is how capitalism actually works. this is what you get from an exploitative, profit-seeking, oligarchic class society: permanent immiseration of the majority (not necessarily physical, though there is a lot of that too) and then periodic crashes – and a government that serves as the defensive arm of the ruling class. THESE ARE NOT COINCIDENCES.

“class war”?!?! these two guys are on the same side of the class war, for god’s sake. I can’t believe you guys don’t see that.

i mean damn.

By: LIExpressway

LIExpressway — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Ratigan is getting closer to being the voice we need. He’s not there quite yet, and may never be. If people don’t have a real choice Fascism will seem like the only alternative.

By: klauposius

klauposius — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:58:40 +0000

Ratigan is very Hannity. Very Roaring Republicans.

Don’t know if anyone ever watched Tim Sabastian on the BBC program Hard Talk. Donahue would not have survived Tim. Sabastian was a calm deliberate hunter of his prey. No screaming just cold facts. He nailed people. Americans seem to think by screaming hard enough, you win. Its the part of the “embrace your failure; celebrate your weakness” theme that seems so prevalent in the US these days. Back in the real world Ratigan will disappear and Donahue will still be there and he will count his money.

By: jester l

jester l — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:28:49 +0000

His tone was Hannity, but his arguments and context were sound, unlike the former.
I think the real deficiency was the whole format: how can one debate something so complex in a few minutes? The format was also predicated on the concept of a genuine debate, with relevant points of view. Donahue, if decloaked, would face an overwhelming consensus of illegitimacy.

By: nosuchthingasshould

nosuchthingasshould — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:11:32 +0000

Choir for fucks sake, choir. Preaches to the choir.

By: nosuchthingasshould

nosuchthingasshould — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:31:29 +0000

The whole point is to be rude and not let the motherfucker speak. There is no sense in attempts at having a polite conversation with that kind of an enemy. These guys have spent decades, generations, molding the average american’s understanding of the very language in such a way that they are guaranteed to win every polite debate by simply pressing the right buttons in the sheeple’s mind, using the right phrases and slogans.
Those arguing against plutocracy meanwhile have to constantly walk a minefield of words that have been vilified and bent out of shape by those same decades of propaganda. Rattigan manages to actually use some of the same catchphrases that these fucks have always relied on to attack them.
He also manages to use another of their tools, the respect for the bully that the american sheeple have been trained to feel. That he seems to be the left’s version of Hannity’s is true, but that is exactly what the left was sorely missing. Someone who’ll stop being reasonable and does something that the peasants can actually understand, namely kick the opponent in the face. In that context it is Maddow, as good as she is, who preaches to the quire.

By: leftneck

leftneck — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:12:31 +0000

There was a good bit in a similar vein from America’s greatest dyke last night, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abRykcjp-XE& . Make sure you watch Part 2, that’s where the money shot it.

You should check it out, Bowman–Maddow is much better at television than Ratigan.

By: James Bowman

James Bowman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:34:08 +0000

I appreciate where Ratigan is coming from, but he comes off like a lefty version of O’Reilly or Hannity. If his purpose is to fire up the people who already agree with him, then I guess it kinda works. If he’s trying to unmask these monsters to an unsuspecting public, however, I don’t see his method to be effective in the least.

By: cheese

cheese — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:15:37 +0000

owned

By: Toba

Toba — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:44:23 +0000

” Screamathons”eh! Klaus #5, People like Donohoe and his ilk should be grateful that folks are still at the point where righteous anger is directed deservingly instead of bullets.

By: General Foods

General Foods — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:19:58 +0000

That was weak. Ratigan brought nothing but indignant outrage and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. No facts, no analysis. The vampire remained calm throughout, mildly pointing out that he could not get a word in edgewise. Finally the vampire won by running out the clock, and looking calm and collected against the interviewer’s spittle storm. Context doesn’t matter; that’s for debating clubs. If you’re going after vampires, you have to bring a stake.

By: Armen

Armen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:09:42 +0000

Deeply, DEEPLY satisfying.

The propagandists have grown fat and complacent on the Fox News tit. Watching the disbelief in their faces when they’re called on their bullshit makes my dick hard.

By: thomzas

thomzas — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:26:14 +0000

Donohue’s going to be fuming on the golf course about that later.

I like how Ratigan can finish with a “thank you so much”!

By: Filler

Filler — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:57:43 +0000

I didn’t realize spouting vague libertarian nonsense is laying out a point or building to a statement! But what do I know, I’m just the guy who can understand english when spoken faster then two words a minute and who actually bothers to understand the fucking context of the videos I watch.