Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "Steel town waits for President Trump's promises to come true" video.

This Trump Russia thing is just a new cold war rivalry invented by liberals who want Trump out at all costs. The old secret policeman Putin has more in common with Mueller and Comey the ones who had J Edgar Hoover's job. Hoover's FBI ran Mission Impossible tactics against the Socialist Workers Party breaking in without Guns or Badges at night and sworn to secrecy. Don't tell me that the FBI has changed otherwise Hoover's name would be on the FBI building. The FBI even sent ML King a suggestion he kill himself or be outed for infidelity.
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The thing is everything about the FBI being America's secret police force is true no matter what unprincipled liberals are saying today. They don't investigate crimes they investigate people looking for a information that can be used as political blackmail, information for disruption purpose and murder. Unprincipled liberals are cutting their own throats be jumping on this type of FBI bandwagon set up to investigate Trump. Just Google Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI, Cointelpro, SWP v. Attorney General, Fred Hampton.
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The FBI has been protecting liberal and conservative capitalists since its inception in the early 20th Century. It started with a campaign against radical immigrants. Don't you have WalMart board meeting with Hillary Clinton or is she on some other board of directors now like Berkshire Industries or Bloomberg.
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Commodities are cheap until you can't afford to buy them. One third of those newly printed Federal Reserve notes head out directly on airplanes to foreign banks. The largest economy needn't worry about debt that much because it does all the lending. A small economy needs to worry about debt because it may be cut off like a family that defaults on their credit card debt.
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Clinton didn't feel it necessary to even pay any attention to us. She though we could be just taken for granted. We had eight years of hopey changey and what did we get from that?
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I'm stupid because I know what a BOSS is and your smart because you don't?
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It's the profit drive that moves work from higher wage areas to lower wage areas and replaces production labor with machines. However the world is only so large so at a certain point this process has to end as far as moving production to lower wage areas. Then a new problem appears the workers can't buy back what they produce. The individual capitalist then stops or lowers production because overproduction has produced a falling profit crisis. Workers are thrown out of their jobs in cost and cost cutting measures. Taxes can't pay the costs of the unemployed so the move to slash benefits and throw millions out of their homes because they can't pay the mortgage or rent. Now if the capitalist really needed more educated people they would be lower the price of education as provided by their state. Instead they have been raising the price of education. They don't needed workers who can think. They need workers who will follow orders from the chain of corporate command. In fact they have spies reporting on workers who are deemed to 'know more than the should."
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The fight of the workers for higher wages is progressive but the workers must inscribe on their banner not just higher wages but the end of the wage system all together. Their is no such thing as a 'good capitalist' they all participate in the exploitation of the working class using the army of the employed to hold down wages.
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Those federal reserve notes are issued by a private bank own secretly by no doubt the richest families in America.
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Eight years of hopey changey so what did we get from that?
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BOSSES have already done plenty. Closing plants and moving for cheap labor elsewhere. Busting unions another 'good' action just like a BOSS who hungers for higher profits and bigger markets. If fact since 1973 BOSSES have been doing such good work that wages have been stagnant while productivity has skyrocketed. Now are you sure that you want to step it and fechet? http://www.thestand.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ss-productivity-earnings.jpg
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Hillary and Bill Clinton are personal friends of Trump they went to his last wedding. My candidate for President was Alyson Kennedy a former coal miner and candidate of the Socialist Workers Party. Now don't you have a sales motivational meeting to attend? Or maybe one titled Restarting and Relocating: Career Advice for Downsized Middle Managers.
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Donald Trump University of Pennsylvania, The Clintons, The Bushes, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh Yale, and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Ruth Ginsburg, John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan Harvard. Years ago the would have been called "The Best and The Brightest" today we call them idiots.
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She had policies that would have helped who? We had 8 years of hope and change already.
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We have had a third party come out and permanently replace one of the other two. They were a new class party of wealthy industrialist called the National Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was there 2nd Presidential candidate. The workers do not need access to bourgeois courts in order to fight back and win. You need only look at what the school workers were able to achieve in West Virginia. The were able to strike and win because they organized both socially and politically. All possible within a deep red state with Republican Governor and Republican legislature, no strike laws and right to work laws.
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Every deep political and economic crisis in the past has produced at least one third party. However those crisis were resolved, capitalism was able to continue and those parties were either crushed or reduced in influence.
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I care and it only takes a few to begin a revolution. You need to understand what is going on how and what forces you can build and make real change happen. The people with both the power and the reason for change are the working people. We are not the owners but we are the producers. Every item you see in a store has passed through our hands and machines we build, fix and run. That's where real power is not some jerk in Congress or a lazy boss sleeping in the office. We need to rebuild our unions and not just here but around the world. We need our own party free of the bosses to challenge them politically. Than real change can start to happen not just so many empty promises. " We built this city on Rock and Roll!" with our hands, brains, and tools.
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Look capitalist from any country lose the profits made by the workers in a factory when it is shut down with a strike. Maybe they can move production elsewhere and then maybe they can't but thats just another reason to build a real International union movement. As long as we play by the bosses rules regarding strikes and grievances we will keep losing. Let's say the workers shut down the GM Truck Plant in the US. What keeps them from adding a shift in Mexico moving them across the border and undercutting the strike here? You don't really believe the government won't come up with a reason (National Security AT&T need new trucks) to allow them across the border temporarily without a tariff? That's why our real allies are other workers and not some Patriotic US Boss. It is possible to go on strike and win as the recent West Virginia school workers strike did in a red state with right to work laws and a Republican governor and a majority of Republicans in the statehouse. In fact the rank and file insisted in remaining on strike until a bill was passed meeting all five demands. Since I don't know the details in your fathers case I can't speak to that.
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Volkswagen and Toyota build vehicles here because it more profitable to build them here than in Japan or Germany and ship them here. Plus the cost to disassemble and reassemble a plant elsewhere is not a trivial cost nor is building another plant elsewhere cheap or a guarantee they won't have a strike there. If a strike hits a foreign manufacture in the US you won't be worrying about the picket line being attacked by German or Japanese police or troops. In fact you will find that the cops and national guard for that state will be the first problem outside of negotiating with the company management.
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A lot of past teachers strikes have failed because they only involved one district and did not reach out to the community and school workers as whole. That and the sending of a whole contingent to Charleston and refusing to end the strike without a bill passed in the legislature is what made this strike both different and a win. The original AFL unions were called Internationals because they included both US and Canadian workers. I don't have any specific plans or ideas other than to say we need more International solidarity and cooperation. I no nothing about what's in the TPP and just a little about NAFTA. Mexican workers have an Union Federation as do many other countries.
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I recently heard of the Chinese Labour bulletin it reports on strikes in China. http://www.clb.org.hk/
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The best anti poverty program is a union job. That is what we should be doing. Making every job a union job. Organizing and striking when necessary. Raise the minimum wage despite all the cries of poverty by sweatshop bosses like WalMart and McDonalds.
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The consumer didn't ruin whole industries. It's the drive for bigger profits by paying lower wages while keeping prices the same. It is the same reason that older machines are replaced with newer ones that require less or lower skilled labor and labor costs. Now if GM moved a plant from Detroit, MI to Shreveport, LA Should we all go on a buy Michigan campaign?
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No because policy only changes slowly between administrations. Reagan prepared the way for welfare reform and the first attack on the Social Security Act of 1934 however Bill Clinton signed TANF to replace AFDC, a disaster for all poor families,.into law. Ms Clinton holding secret meetings and said healthcare reform was impossible because the right wing was to strong. Ms. Clinton campaigned as a defender of Children's rights who just happened to be out of town when her husband signed the new TANF law. She said, "Abortion should be legal and rare.' Which is exactly what it is .Legal but for women outside of the big citie's is is unavailable. Women with money, the ability to travel or hire lawyers will always be able to procure abortions just like before Roe v Wade. However those without will have to become mothers or go to the back alley.
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And what do liberals propose? Anything of substance? No what they propose is singing songs in Congress. "Na Na Na Hey Hey Good Bye." Who is being childish now? Business owners use bankruptcy laws to stay in business not to lose their capital. Its just part of the business game. Trump is estimated to be worth 3 Billion.
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"Business owners use bankruptcy laws to avoid paying their creditors which is basically theft and embezzlement." Capitalism is full of corruption legal and illegal nothing really new. "This 'liberal' proposes a massive stroke that leaves Trump a vegetable.." Like I said other than a changing of the guard to make liberals happy nothing new. Favors for Putin? Like ending the Syrian war? Of course for liberals owning stock in defense contractors that is bad. ."..sooner or later the law catches up with people..." I seem to remember at least two presidents that broke laws (Clinton (D) and Nixon (R) who never did a day in jail. "...The banks won't lend to him ever again..." I tend to doubt that. Many US Bankers will be happy with the Trump administration and gladly lend if the see profits ahead.
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Nope it is caused by the natural workings of capitalism. Trump and Clinton are yours. Your politicians rewrote the equal time rule so only your parties would get equal time on radio and TV. Same thing for ballot status Democrat or Republican usually no signature petitions required anyone else almost always has to get signatures. Although Trump is part of it, it is a fixed game. If your family had money and power you could avoid the Vietnam war draft in a number of ways. Joining the National Guard, Homosexuality, Student Deferment, Medical Deferment, Psychological Deferment, Government Job, and Defense Contractor Job.
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The successful development of capitalism began first in Europe out of the middle class of merchants, artisans and small manufactures. It operates in such a way that it produces its own contradictions. The profit comes out of the production and sale of commodities where labor power is bought for one price and sold for a higher price on the market in the form of the commodity. The division of labor is such that just to produce a pencil requires basic industries including steel, rubber, and coal or oil. The pencil is made of graphite from coal or oil and wood from trees paint which requires a pigment and vehicle usually an oil product and a rubber eraser made from oil or latex. To make and package the pencil requires a machinery powered by electricity. Just to get the electricity to the factory requires a whole host of materials. The capitalist reinvest their profit into areas that produce more profits. However since adding new machinery doesn't always result in higher profit to investment ratios he is driven to drive up the price of paper values instead. This eventually will result in recessions or depressions because the actual law of value will come into play resulting in the disappearance of what started as real capital that was changed into fictitious capital. The profit drive and competition within individual countries results in monopoly capitalism where only a few or a single firm has control of certain markets. Industrial Capital and Finance capital work in such a way that as individual firms sell their products, from one to another, finance capital sees that each are paid usually within 30 days. This is what ties Industrial and Finance Capital together. Another contradiction within the capitalist system is that the capitalist classes of every country seek the foreign markets and labor of other countries. This why trade wars are fought and often lead to real war like WW1 and WW2. A total waste of labor and resources is seen in the vast sums spent for US foreign military bases and by standing armies of capitalist countries the world over. For capitalism to keep going it always requires more cheap labor and new markets. The world is only so big. So while globalization is good as long as it keeps developing the underdeveloped world it too comes to a halt because of the declining rate of return on investment in industrial capital. These processes caused the deep world wide recession of 2008 not a case of bad regulation.
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I think CS is right all the Democrats want is to play partisan politics without any real action on their part. National debt goes up and down based on which economist you ask some say its good or other say it's bad. Tax pays the debt but the debt belongs to those who own the most and should be paying the biggest taxes. The biggest worry is that states will become like Puerto Rico where the debt became unpayable, disaster stuck and bonds went from triple A to junk status. They still haven't even been able to turn on the lights in Puerto Rico. The reality is bonds are just paper values supposedly backup by government and like paper money and are subject to a change in value. Ask yourself what can government sell if it can't pay a debt? Roads and Highways? Government buildings? School busses? They could mortgage everything and promise to pay it back but wouldn't that be what the problem is in the first place? In other words refinancing?
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I object to liberals who kept quite as long as Obama was in office but are now on an anybody but Trump bandwagon. They operate on basis if Trump is for it we are against it. Trump with Korea. First he was going to start a nuclear war now he's a tool of a Russian Kim Jung Un. This whole Russia interference as a reason that Trump won smacks of cold war hysteria especially when you accept the word of US spy agencies. Some liberals rightly complained about the Patriot act. Now they will accept whatever Mueller does or says about Trump. How long has Mueller been investigating now? Other catching a few people in lies (Which is why you should never answer FBI questions).as usual they've found a story about sex they think they can use. They sent ML King a letter urging him to kill himself or be exposed as having love affairs outside of marriage. Those people deserve no credibility at all. They pick people on political enemies list and than search for a crime they can pin on them or a sexual relationship that they can use to disrupt someone's personal life. Did you know that Hillary Clinton was on the WalMart board of directors? Obama promised to close Torture camp X-Ray. Trump says he wants to expand it. Obama started the biggest deportation effort ever known.did any liberals say much of anything about that? Almost total silence. Trump is a new Hitler? No because Hitler had his own goon squad called stormtroopers. Who has control over the Berkley "No Hate" goon squad?
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Actually I'm a Socialist Workers Party supporter. I trust neither party including Trump. See themilitant.com
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The bosses aren't going to train anyone for new industries unless the new industry can get a bigger return on investment. Also while the bosses can make huge profits selling all kinds of things. They can't open even a small chain of schools without going bankrupt. You can find EXXON, AT&T, WalMart and other companies for sale on the stock exchanges but you won't find Harvard, Yale, or Princeton or another Ivy league University on the Stock exchange. That's because their profit system can't reap even small profits directly from education despite what a private college education costs.
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In Obama's first term the 111th Congress had a Democratic majority in Congress. Republicans maybe "giving away the farm" but with the Democrats the farm goes to the highest bidder. "Yes the steel industry is still relevant but it has changed. With automation and technology it takes far less people to produce what it once did. Obama wanted an emphasis on training for those high tech positions in steel or energy. This is the reason companies bring in immigrants to fill certain post." They've been talking that bullshit since the 1970's how steelworkers would all be airline pilots and work only 9 months a year like school teachers. They bring in immigrants for the same reason they move production elsewhere. HIGHER PROFIT RATES because of cheap labor. New industries always start with low wages because the workers must organize into unions before wages can be forced up. Solar energy is great it just won't keep the lights on or the 2nd and 3rd shift motors running. Solar panels are made in factories with machines just like any other item used in modern life. If it really did require a highly educated workforce to build solar panels they would be building them here instead of hiring Chinese peasant children just off the farm to build them in China.
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Democrats aren't a big business party? So how did a Rockefeller get elected to the US Senate from West Virginia as a Democrat? They don't need a quid pro quo they just need to know who is donating to the campaign chest. The Kennedy brothers made a name for themselves constantly hounding Jimmy Hoffa Sr by calling him up before their Congressional Committee. FDR had John L. Lewis office bugged.
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Depression recession is due to the natural workings of capitalism. Makes no difference which Party is in power.
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The idea that Americans should buy homes as investments went as far back as the end of WW2. As long as the prices kept climbing the banks were flush with cash and couldn't believe their good fortune. On average many working class people bought homes not just the middle class. With the average American moving every five years for the bankers this was a guaranteed market with prices rising. Naturally they sought more buyers and the subprime market was seen as a new way to get the most out of crumbling housing stock with low initial payments and hopes that the new owners (fixer uppers) would reinvest and the rising mortgage payments would move the housing stock back into the market worth more than what it started as. In the end capitalist greed brought the whole scheme crashing to the ground because the sale of repacked loans were overvalued in fact the whole hosung market was overvalued. Couple this with even a slight number of layoffs where unemployment insurance could not cover the monthly housing costs and a drop in savings you get a foreclosure banking crisis that begins to feed on itself driving more layoffs as demand drops.
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The basic problems with capitalism is that it can only work in a world with an unlimited market and new sources of cheap labor. Once the end of new markets and cheap labor happens then so does capitalist production for profit. You are now living through a crisis caused by the capitalists themselves. The workers can't buy back what the produce because that is where the profit comes from. The crisis is not one of scarcity but one of producing to much without markets to absorb it. Does it make sense that one group of workers has too much overtime while others are looking for work. Workers in China and India making too much steel but living under abysmal conditions? When an American Steel company gets tariff protection do the keep the same prices or do they raise them for increased profit? Do they thank their workers with raises or do they demand more overtime and maybe put on another turn at closed down mill and seek a lower wage structure for ' their new job creation efforts?'
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It's the natural workings of capitalist greed that produced the 2008 crisis. They only way forward for workers and farmers is the strike and protest which will logically lead to a socialist revolution within the United States itself.
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So who will stop the greedy capitalist CEO's? Not them obviously and neither will the corrupt two party politicians. I will tell truthfully that I alone can't do it either. Only a new and rebuilt militant labor movement can start the ball rolling in the right direction.
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It takes time to destroy enough capital so that an upturn can once again restart primitive capital accumulation.until once again a crisis and downturn occurs worse than the last can happen.
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Traditionally Americans credit the politician in office for a good or bad economy. Right now we are seeing an uptick for how long how big nobody knows. So Trump will get some credit in the upcoming election and the rich are happy with their tax cut.
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Steel is used in almost everything and when it isn't most likely it was used to produce that thing. Pipes, nails, wire, railroad tracks, cars, trucks, buses, cranes, bridges, buildings, cans, shipping containers, and screws. Without oil, steel, and electricity modern ways of life would be impossible. Iron and steel making were old and specially skilled arts. It has been less than 200 years since huge amounts of steel could be made by using the Bessemer process. The same goes for oil and electricity.
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First there is no such thing as a united American people. There are two basic classes of 'American' people in the US those who create everything but own nothing and those who own everything but create nothing. The fight over who can sell what where is strictly a fight amongst the capitalists. A new 25% tariff on steel means that US Steel companies can raise their US prices by 25% without so much as adding a single worker. The workers have no interests in giving the capitalist US or foreign another single dime in profits since more profits always means a greater ability to make even more though more and better ways to exploit us. The allies of workers in the US are other workers in all the other countries not our own exploiters or their counterparts elsewhere.
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The fact that less labor is needed to produce commodities should result in higher living standards and more development in the poor nations. instead it results in misery because industry is controlled by finance capital. An increase in productivity means fewer jobs and lower wages. Their only goal is to make profits not to meet the needs of humanity. Capitalism is why some are required to work 70 hour weeks while others have no job at all. The so called libertarians would have no problem allowing a disease like ebola to spread across the world because after all you must be able to buy insurance or be able to pay as an individual to protect yourself from disease. Fortunately the doctors trained as a result of the Cuban revolution don't think that way.
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"Compete with the past." What you really mean is how can the US BOSSES compete with Chinese BOSSES in terms of profit? Strikes in China are already raising the price of Chinese labor sending BOSSES scurrying elsewhere for cheaper labor. The world is only so big so eventually the BOSSES run out of cheap labor and new markets. The workers can't buy back all they produce so the BOSSES begin cutting back on production throwing millions out of work. This then strains the social safety net. In order to keep up the profit rates the BOSSES demand tax and benefit cuts while screaming about how they are going broke because of their own BOSS regulations put in place to control their BOSS greed.
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We are already in a global economy. Going on a trade war will only make things worse. The only thing tariffs do is protect the profits of different national capitalist class industry.
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Clinton had four times the campaign money than Trump. Obama spent 8 years in office and what did we get form that? Obamacare just a repackaged Republican Romneycare from Massachusetts.
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