Face it. Europe is now more civilized than America

[russky joe]

Face it, Europe is a better place than America, as American Jeremy Rifkin admits. Especially now that Bush and the imbecilic fundie douchebags are running our country. We should try to emulate a lot of what goes on over here. If not, I think I might stay in Europe.



"Much of American "productivity" is accounted for by economic activity that might be better described as wasteful: military spending; the endlessly expanding police and prison bureaucracies; the spiraling cost of healthcare; suburban sprawl; the fast-food industry and its inevitable corollary, the weight-loss craze. Meaningful comparisons of living standards, he says, consistently favor the Europeans. In France, for instance, the work week is 35 hours and most employees take 10 to 12 weeks off every year, factors that clearly depress GDP. Yet it takes a John Locke heart of stone to say that France is worse off as a nation for all that time people spend in the countryside downing du vin rouge et du Camembert with friends and family.



European children are consistently better educated; the United States would rank ninth in the EU in reading, ninth in scientific literacy, and 13th in math. Twenty-two percent of American children grow up in poverty, which means that our country ranks 22nd out of the 23 industrialized nations, ahead of only Mexico and behind all 15 of the pre-2004 EU countries. What's more horrifying: the statistic itself or the fact that no American politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich would ever address it?



Perhaps more surprisingly, European business has not been strangled by the EU welfare state; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Europe has surpassed the United States in several high-tech and financial sectors, including wireless technology, grid computing and the insurance industry. The EU has a higher proportion of small businesses than the U.S., and their success rate is higher. American capitalists have begun to pay attention to all this. In Reid's book, Ford Motor Co. chairman Bill Ford explains that the company's Volvo subsidiary is more profitable than its U.S. manufacturing operation, even though wages and benefits are significantly higher in Sweden. Government-subsidized healthcare, child care, pensions and other social supports, Ford says, more than make up for the difference.



The new EU constitution should also serve as an inspiration to progressives around the world. It bars capital punishment in all 25 nations and defines such things as universal healthcare, child care, paid annual leave, parental leave, housing for the poor, and equal treatment for gays and lesbians as fundamental human rights. Most of these are still hotly contested questions in the United States; as Rifkin says, this document all by itself makes the European Union the world leader in the human rights debate. It is the first governing document that aspires to universality, "with rights and responsibilities that encompass the totality of human existence on Earth."

Meanwhile, at home, the inmates run the asylum. "Freedom fries" is considered a weighty matter worthy of deliberation by the US Congress. Regulating who people can love is considered a matter of national security (a greater danger than terrorism, say the GOoPers!). Our foreign policy is run on arrogance, while Europe earns international loyalty through a much more generous and benign foreign assistance budget. And a "shoot now, ask questions later" mentality pervades the government and a majority of US voters. Intellectualism is considered weakness, ignorance is celebrated (yeah, just take a peek around this board).



"I am a democrat," James Joyce wrote in 1916, while an entire generation of Europe's young men were slaughtering each other in the fields of Flanders. "I'll work and act for the social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future." People read that and laughed bitterly. Europe seemed poisoned by mustard gas and history; America was the land of liberty, democracy and the future. Nobody's laughing now.

[Seismic Anamoly]

Quote:

---

If not, I think I might stay in Europe.

---

Oh, My GOD!!!!!!!!



Say it ain't SO!!!!!!!!!



HOW will America EVER COPE??????!!!!!!!!!







(Is it gone??)







STOOPID Cossuck.

Edited by: Seismic Anamoly  at: 12/7/04 21:05

[russky joe]

"Are you still here? Why don't you go back to being the professor for a while. At least that persona was amusing, in a stodgy, quasi-marxist kind of way. This Russky Joe construct is played . . . soooooo played. And if you do, you'll no longer have to mention 'the professor' every third post"



Yeah, we're all the same person, Rononguitar. Me, Rockchick, the professor, antman and bitwhys.



You can tell that by looking at our collective footprint inside the dinosaur footprint that was found on the planet after we were gassed by a Soviet test-kit and abducted by the alien who was dressed up as Saddam Hussein from a little country road near Arkensaw.



Ya frickin' fundie nutball conspiracy theorist.

[russky joe]

Hey, have you noticed how that Anamoly guy likes posting lots of little pictures?



He seems to struggle with his words. They're mostly small and never in proper sentences.



Ah well, he's from the south, probably worried about his spelling.

[Seismic Anamoly]

Keep struggling, Little Stevie.



Maybe someday you'll get out of your Diapers.



Doubtfully, but I suppose there is a chance.



Old Chicken $hit.

[russky joe]

He thinks I'm the professor too. D'ya think the professor is the only one who can spell round here, ya stupid frickin' douchebag?



Soviet test-kits



Weapons of Mass Destruction



Iranian missiles aimed at Europe



10 million year old human fingers



I'm the professor and everybody else round here



These @#%$ got me bursting my buttons.

[Seismic Anamoly]

Quote:

---

Hey, have you noticed how that Anamoly guy likes posting lots of little pictures?

---

Not as much as you obviously, you hypocritical imbecile.



Do they normally let Morons with IQ's the same as their shoe size roam around the streets of Crooklyn??



Oh....wait.....your roaming around. They DO!!



I guess living in a toilet like the Brooklyn shithole tends to turn one into a drooling pencil-dicked idiot.....



A Pencil-Dicked, Pea Brained @#%$; will wonders never cease.

[garbage detector]

anamoly? wtf?

[Seismic Anamoly]

Oh, Look.....another Eunuch has come to the Board.

[answerraire]

Profussky Jove wrote:



"Yeah, we're all the same person, Rononguitar. Me, Rockchick, the professor, antman and bitwhys."



Nah, just you. Stop obfuscating.

[The Master68]

Pure entertainment...

--------------

When you argue with a fool, be sure he isn't similarly occupied...

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Music - Organismo Cibernetico (Cybernetic Organism)

[Data Thieves]

They go round this loop all the time here Mike,

[The Master68]

Yeah, I know.



Breaks up the monotony of work...

--------------

When you argue with a fool, be sure he isn't similarly occupied...

--------------

Music - Organismo Cibernetico (Cybernetic Organism)

[garabage detector]

"Stop obfuscating."



wtf does that mean?



only a professor would use a word like that



the professor is pretending to be the guy tracking him down? what better disguise?







hey, Master68, these old men aint sharp enough for us



i'll see you back over at Talk Soup

[The Master68]

Ha ha ha...



Okie dokie.

--------------

When you argue with a fool, be sure he isn't similarly occupied...

--------------

Music - Organismo Cibernetico (Cybernetic Organism)