MonkeyShines wrote:

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Antisystemicmovements wrote:

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It's certainly a play on Janet's slogan, but there is an important difference between 'the people' and 'taxpayers' in this context.

The people means any and everyone. It means 'the greater good'. Taxpayers, in this context, means the propertied and wealthy. Washo and O'Brien are going to put the wealthy and propertied first.

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Ummm, I know a LOT of people who pay taxes who don't own property. And your point is? The Point is that you are race and class baiting Anti. If you think that's not transparent, then you must be deluding yourself.

In fact, if you have the privilege to work in DOville you pay a nice earned income tax -- even if you live in Section 8 housing. O'Brien is not talking about these people. Again, what is your point? How the hell would Anti know what O'Brien is talking about? Oh, I forgot, since O'Brien is both Irish and Catholic, Anti can automatically assign a context...you know, that whole 'Evil ICN' thing. Similar to what a Klansman does when he sees a black male teenager walking down the street...he automatically assumes that the black male is in route to a drug deal, etc.

Your attempt to drive a wedge between "taxpayers" and "any and everyone" is weak, contrite, and entirely devoid of context. The wedge is obvious, but for whatever reason it is not apparent to you. There is a qualitative difference between "taxpayers" in the context in which O'Brien et al. uses the word, and "the people" that Janet Evans used during her campaign. I love how Anti thinks that by thowing in a big word like 'qualitative' that somehow we are all supposed to take a step back and be impressed. Well, the term 'qualitative' implies a measurement of why and how, both of which require some intimate level of knowledge/understanding about the subject. Since I highly doubt that Anti intimately knows O'Brien, how would he come to this conclusion? Most likely answer: he is sterotyping.

O'Brien is clearly pandering to wealthy and propertied. Anti is an expert an pandering. O'Brien is from a tradition of politican who a.) attept to run the city like a business and b.) treats taxpayers as consumers, not citizens. The more you pay in taxes, the more important you are. In that sense, taxpayers doesn't necesserily mean citizens So in other words, Anti has determined that someone like Corey O'Brien (who I will not be voting for, btw) is intent on disenfracing people based on their level of weath? The phallacy in Anti's logic is that it ignores the fact that the vote of a poor black county resident carries the exact same weight as the vote of a wealthy white citizen. In fact, if you read the statistics, there are more people at the lower economic scale than the upper economic scale in Lackawanna County. So instead of assinging intent to someone like O'Brien, perhaps Anti would be better off expending his energy to encourage the individuals he claims to represent...poor whites and minorities...to vote. But oh, that isn't as much fun as engaging racist internet rants, now is it? (i.e. the people who live in the county.) He could very well put businesses first. For O'Brien, the job of the politican is to lower taxes for the taxpayer-- kind of like how Walmart wants to lower the price for the consumer, or how the corporation wants to raise the profits of a corporation. Are there politicians who put business interestes ahead of individual interests? Yes, and they come from both parties. That's not news. However, we are talking about county commissioner here, not the President of the United States. The county has no income and/or profits tax, so even if elected, the impact O'Brien (or anyoone else) could have on business profits is basically nothing. Finally, maybe in the world of Anti-Economics, business is always bad...and while there are bad, exploitive businesses, there are also good businesses that positively contribute to our society. Again, Anti is being overly simplistic because it fits into his racist agenda.

Janet Evans, on the other hand, is a different type of politician. Prove it...her budget certianly didn't. 'The people' means everyone, regardless of how much they pay in taxes. Rather than run the city like a business, No, we woudn't want the city to be run in an efficient manner that minimizes expenses, no that would be terrible. Janet wants to manage the city in such a way that it provides essential services. The city already does this...but at too high of a cost. That's the issue. O'Brien wants to cut bread in order to give circuses to businesses. Again, Anti makes a claim and his only 'proof' is that O'Brien is a member of some made-up cabal. What circuses could O'Brien give? Cut the county gross receipts tax? Nope...thre is no such thing. Cut the county capital gains tax? Nope...there is no such thing. Cut the county earned income/business profits tax? Nope... no such thing exists.

The bottom line is this: Anti is a self-styled intellectual who looks at the world through race-tinted glasses. Where I see crooked individuals, Anti sees an entire group of individual who are inherently crooked simply because of their race and religion. Yes, there are crooked politicians, but not all are Irish and Catholic...does the name Sharpe James ring a bell? If it doesn't, maybe Anti should consult his buddy Psycho Sam Patilla. How about Marion Berry?

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