New Mars Forums

So, technically, that would be the marxist definition?  Now I am a bit confused.  Poor people reacting against the rich for exploiting them is the standard marxist def. but when the rich exploit poor people to react against other rich people. . . . I think where you are going is interesting.

How bout the fact that the arabs blame all the suicide bombings on us?  I wonder how this factors into all this.

IMHO, you are right. 

In the last ten years, 580,000 people in the USA have died from automobile accidents.  Essentially, every decade, a large city the size of Cleveland is wiped out due to car crashes.

In the last ten years, about (guessing here) 10,000 people in the USA have died from terrorism. 

If we responded to automobile crashes the way we did to terrorism, it would really, really, really suck to live in the good, old USA. 

Of course, terrorists are sworn enemies of the USA, and their goal is to destroy it.  They need to be stopped; but not at the expense of civil libertys and ungodly amounts of money, time and hassle.  Perhaps the money spent on homeland security could better be spent by the coast guard?

And why are we in such an hurry?  Rash and unnecessary action will only aggravate the problem, when other, longer avenues could accomplish the same goal at far lesser cost, in gold and lives.  What, indeed, is the great emergacy to eradicate global terrorism? 

A blockade can last many years; but if successful, it will almost allways bring about the destruction of the enemy.  A rash attack like Pickett's charge straight down the cannons of the enemy will bring more immediate results, but less often the one desired. 

The fate of our nation does not rest on the successful conclusion of finding Bin Laden; he is the fly on the elephant.  Even at his most terrible, he could not even begin to bring the USA to submission, and only sealed his own doom when he did so. 

The united states has the right, and the might, to act in its own accord.  But I do not beleive that the present course is one that will benefit it.

However, the automobile companys are not sworn enemys of the states.  But thats a story for another day. . .

The lack of gravity means more exotic alloys can be created, more perfect crystals can be grown.  This means harder, longer lasting tools can be made.  Not to mention mining would be a whole lot easier with that much less gravity.

If it was done in orbit, the near total lack of gravity would be even better when considering the relative hardness of the tools.  Getting the materials off mars would be a whole lot cheaper than getting them off earth.  Asteroids would be cheapest in material transportation, but the total lack of enviromental support would probably counterbalance that.

It aint sexy, but I think machine tooling might be something the colonials could make.  Small, exteremly valuable bits that last for months instead of shifts would catch an incredible premuim on earth.  And the miners would need gravity eventually.  And Mars is much easier to escape from than earth.

Why?

Think about it.

Capitalism is exploitation of the willing exploitees.  Exploitation is not a one way street; consider the multitude of material affects that one can own in todays world.  Then consider the affects that you can make for yourself.  Ever try to put a computer monitor together yourself, eh? 

Of course, I do not support denying the fruits of labor to a man.  Taking advantage (exploiting) of a persons willingness to work is ok, but denying/limiting him any other recourse is wrong.

Consider that if sweatshops were shut down, those familys would be denied access to most any income.  Better half a loaf than none.

But slavery is wrong by virtue of no compenstation for labor.  Even in the sweatshops the people earn compenstation.  If they were denied this compenstation, I would support legal actions against the sweatshops.

Besides, what harm is there in exploiting material things?

Lets say I want to build some great thing in space.  Something that would benefit all of mankind, and myself.  If I build that, and if anyone can use it without my permission or without paying me, what motive do I have to build it in the first place?  None.  And no one benefits in that case. 

My only recompense to holding my precoius "thing" would be violence. 

Property rights would help ensure civil relations in space, and protect economic expansion.

Why should it stay that way?  Why not harness it to our own good?  What good is it to leave it free and unfettered?  What is desirable about a free and unfettered solar system? 

There is a certain value in conservation; perhaps things like the Mariener Valley on Mars would be off limits.  But to put the solar system outside the reach of man is almost like locking man out of a continent.

I agree with that, execpt for one thing; if we don't hurry up, china will do it first. And we (USA) will never make it up there without directly threatening china.  Space, despite all of its size, is not the South Seas or the pacfic.  Nations cannot sail space without other nations knowing-and forcing the emergant to quit. 

I think the first colonizer of space will have a definate advantage in allowing what and which nations would be "permitted" to follow number 1. 

Of course, sealth technology could render this entire point moot.  If nations can hide their vechclies from radar, then it would be tough to find us, altough radar is still good enough to know that something is out there.  China does not have sealth right now; we do. 

I am going to bet that some sort of government will be established in space to force property rights.  If this was left on earth, the rights might be suspect to other poltical considerations, but since it truly is in the interest of those involved to have strong rights, those involved would probably create some sort of space gov.

Don't blow out your O-ring.    :laugh:

I'm re-reading "The Power Broker; Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" for the third time.  I LOVE the book a lot.

I thought I would just insert a little book review.

btw Robert Moses built all of these highways BEFORE the National Highway Act. . . . .in the great depression.  THAT is why his accomplishments are so significant, all highway builders after him followed in his footsteps.

I wrote this for school, for my AP Eng. Class, which is why you might find refs. to Mrs. Kozak.

    That crazy SOB author Robert A. Caro writes the most epic, informative, biographical opera about the life history of the mighty Robert Moses and his world in The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.  Caro asserts that Moses was the most titanically arrogant, visionary, autocractical megalomaniac to ever plan the parks and highways of a city.  Yes, this may sound like hyperbole, but Moses in his lifetime spent twenty seven billion dollars of 1968 money to build his gargantuan projects in NYC.  In today’s money that would be about one hundred and thirty billion dollars to spend on parks and highways alone.  Just one of his many projects would make a man immortalized in memory, yet he did one after another, and another.  He was not just a urban planner-he was the modern Ozzymindas, whose works made the nations tremble and fear.  Caro’s mission is to inform us about the man himself-a leviathan in a valley of titans in the largest city of the world, his colossal projects, and their far reaching and tremendous impact on the community and politics of not only New York, but the cities of America. 
    Caro has advanced the tripartite personality of Moses as being a Trinity of three parts to make one that the towering arrogance, visionary brilliance, and autocratic power together summed up all that was Robert Moses.  Robert Moses did not get rich from what he did as he filled in twelve political positions at both the city and state level as “ . . . Robert Moses had, in cash reserves, practically nothing.”(pg. 1060).  If Moses had no desire for money, what he did lust for was the power to implement his gigantic visions of NYC as he thought it should be.  In the early years of NY Governor Alfred Smith, Moses was an especially able, if impromptu, legal advisor in matters concerning legislature.  During this period, Moses spent his free time on Long Island and in certain parts of the city proper, fantasizing about what it could be as a park.  Just about every project that Moses completed had started to formulate in his mind at that time, when he would wander around the city and the island looking for proper areas to make parks when he did not even yet have the power to do so!  To the young Moses, “Suddenly the burning eyes were looking at everything on Long Island in terms of parks.” (pg. 159)  These prophetic visions awed Governor Smith, and as a token of his gratitude for Moses services, Smith offered him the State Commission of Parks.  But right after being granted this power, Moses sneaked certain clauses into an innocuous looking bill to vastly expand the power of his commission to galactic proportions and make it an independent entity with “. .  .virtually all the powers granted to the City of New York in the city’s charter.” (pg. 175)  Once he had that power, Moses used it for forty years to gain more power to carry out his vision, and his vision alone.  In delivering his vision Robert Moses surrounded himself with yesmen that “. . .nodded when he wanted them to nod, they laughed when he wanted them to laugh.  Watching them, you got disgusted with your fellow man.” (pg. 816)  Not only did Moses demand autocratic control over his men, he would ignore all suggestions they made in acts of arrogance and in belief that he was always right.  Moses was “. . .blind and deaf to reason, to argument, to new ideas, to any ideas except his own.”(pg. 830)  Moses possessed arrogance in quantities that would rival Jupiter himself.  In a certain photo, he stands before a panorama of NYC on a steel beam, hands at his side with the elbows stuck out.  A rolled-up draft of plan is in his left hand.  His leonine face seems to announce, Look, and be amazed, for all this I created.  In a stunning display, Caro graphically illustrates the true depth of his arrogance in
When the Sea-Ef was heading back into the Babylon dock, for example, he was given to standing at the very point of its prow, arms folded across his chest and jaw outthrust.  A Bay Shore history teacher, seeing him one day, thought he looked “very impressive”--strikingly similar to pictures the teacher had seen in history books, pictures of Napoleon Bonaparte. . . . .Taking a particularly important guest on a tour himself, he would speak in the imperial “we,” but it was his gestures, sweepingly expansive, as, perhaps from a yacht offshore, he indicated the Belt Parkway sweeping off to the right and left, the park areas alongside, and then pointed to the Verrazano Bridge towering over the boat (“And then we built. . .”), that most strikingly suggested an emperor who looked on all he saw as his creation; standing on the deck of that yacht, he might have been Claudius looking proudly at Ostia.  (pg. 832-32)

    With near biblical powers at his command, Moses then proceeded to do what his namesake did.  Staff of power in hand, he parted the sea of buildings to make way for his vision of highways and parks.  His roads, constructed at a time when there were no superhighways, seemed to put everything else in Lilliputian scale.  Moses protean might was well expressed in Caro’s expression “. . .he was the spearhead, the cutting edge, of this Panzer division of public works.” (pg. 927)  A momentary listing of some of Moses greater achievements can be given here, yet their scale cannot be given except by a city native or visitor.  In buildings, he built the Lincoln Center, New York Coliseum, UN Headquarters, Co-op City (projects), the Astoria Pool, Fordham University campus, Pratt University campus, Long Island University campus and the World’s Fair of 1964-5.  In highways he was as a Prometheus unbound, the diamond tip of the spearhead in this department, as he built his revolutionary parkways when the autobahns were even yet born.  In his forty-four years of service, he constructed just about every single highway that was ever made in NYC.  A fairly complete list would include the Henry Hudson Parkway, Saw Mill River Parkway, Sprain Parkway, Bronx River Parkway, Hutchinson Parkway, New England Thruway, Harlem River Drive, Deegan Expressway, Cross Bronx Expressway, Bruckner Expressway, Staten Island Expressway, Shore Parkway, Marine Parkway, Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, Atlantic Avenue, Grand Center Parkway, Van Wyck Parkway, Clearview Expressway, Cross Island Expressway, Northern State Parkway, Long Island Expressway, Meadowbrook Parkway, Wantagh State Parkway, Seaford-Osyster Bay Expressway, Ocean Parkway, Southern State Parkway, Bethpage State Parkway, Robert Moses Causeway, Sheridan Expressway, Throg’s Neck Expressway, Nassau Expressway, Gowanus Expressway, West Side Highway, Prospect Expressway, Whitestone Expressway, Sagitkos State Parkway and the Sunken Meadow State Parkway.  In total, the miles add up to four hundred and sixteen for NYC alone.  The bridges Moses built would have made him the greatest builder in the world alone, as Caro expresses,
Only one borough of New York City--the Bronx--is on the mainland of the United States, and bridges link the island boroughs that form metropolises.  Since 1931, seven such bridges were built, immense structures, some of them anchored by towers as tall as seventy story buildings, supported by cables made up of enough wire to drop a noose around the earth.  Those bridges are the Triborrough, the Verrazano, the Throg’s Neck, the Marine, the Henry Hudson, the Cross Bay, and the Bronx-Whitestone.  Robert Moses had built every one of these bridges.  (pg. 6) 
Missing from this list are two titans built at other places, the Alexander Hamilton and the Robert Moses Twin Causeway.  And yet the achievements still do not end, as Moses was also the park commissioner, which was his original job.  When he started, there were 119 small parks, but when he ended, 777.  He built beaches-Orchard Beach, Jacob Riis Park, and Jones Beach.  Moses created or reshaped Wolfes Pond Park, Great Kills Park, La Tourette Park, Silver Lake Park, Owls Head Park, South Beach Park, Dyker Beach Park, Marine Park, Kissena Park, Van Cordlant Park, Hempsted Lake Park, Bethpage State Park, Massapequia Park, Giglgo State Park, Belmont State Park, Robert Moses State Park, Heckscher State Park, Caumset State Park, Sunken Meadows State Park, Connetquote State Park, Wildwood State Park, Hither Hills State Park, Orient Beach State Park and Ms. Kozak’s favorite, Montauk Point State Park.  The one project that was his crowning achievement were the mythological dams on the Niagara and St. Lawrence waterway.  In terms of scale, these epic dams stood immense next to even his seven fabled Bronx bridges.  The Niagara River is a relatively short river, but more water rushes between its flanks than any other river in the world.  A mere inkling of the colossal immensity of these dams is gathered here from Caro’s comments,
. . .is the St. Lawrence--and stretched across it, one of the most colossal single works of man, a structure of steel and concrete as tall as a ten-story apartment house, an apartment house as long as eleven football fields, a structure vaster by far then any of the pyramids, or in terms of bulk, of any six pyramids together. . .And at Niagara, Robert Moses built a series of dams, parks and parkways that make the St. Lawrence development look small. (pg. 8-9)   

Only God knows if the world will ever see such an monumental serial builder again. 
    Unfortunately, Robert Moses lost contact with everyday reality and his programs became a catalyst for urban decay.  Moses also held prejudices and did not want the poor to use mass transit on his highways because most of the poor were black.  In a most damning indictment of Moses, Caro states,
Robert Moses had always displayed a genius for adorning his creations with little details that made them fit in with their setting, that made the     people who used them feel at home with them.  There was a little detail on the playhouse-comfort station in the Harlem section of Riverside Park that is found nowhere else in the park.  The wrought iron trellises of the park’s other playhouses and comfort stations are decorated with designs like curling waves. . . . .The wrought iron trellises of the Harlem playhouse-comfort station are decorated with monkeys.  (pg. 560)

Not only did he design parks and transportation to be difficult to reach for the poor, he also was a virulent racist.  His racism was not only limited to policy of his parks and highways.  He also had the unique position of acting as the intermediary between the city and the federal government.  “‘. . . .represent the city in its relations with cooperating state and federal agencies.’  Moses used. . . .thereby making certain that it would be he and he alone who was presenting the city’s position.” (pg. 705)  All moneys from Uncle Sam and the Empire State came through Moses first, to be used only for what Moses saw fit.  As a devastating result, the funds needed for the expansion and ultimately mere maintaince of critical city functions like schools, rapid transit, EMS, police and garbage were often denied.  And denied to the end of creating largely ineffectual highways that required the displacement of 250,000 people.  The highways also spread blight where there was none, and expanded the city into the low-density suburbs that stretched the need for city services to the utter extreme.  Those who could not afford cars could not afford private schooling as there was no way to escape the heinous public schools.  Even using the subways were not realistic, as they never had regular service given that no money was there to maintain them.  Caro dramatically illustrates the state of affairs, “When Robert Moses came to power in 1934, the city’s mass transit was probably the best in the world.  When he left power in 1968, it was quite possibly the worst.”  (pg. 933)  The poor and minorities were even denied busing access to his parks and the city by his bridges which were too low for buses to pass under. 
“You know” he said, “we’ve had cases where buses mistakenly got on a parkway--we had this on the Grand Central Parkway several times, I remember--buses from a foreign state I suppose, and the first bridge stopped them dead.  One had its roof rolled up like the top of a sardine can.” Sid Shapiro, former Moses associate reflecting on Moses to Caro (pg. 952) 

Not only did Moses physically block access to the poor, he ultimately blocked access to the middle class on Long Island by refusing to expand rapid transit services on the center mall of his biggest highway.  His highway could move 4,500 people in one hour, all six lanes of it.  One rapid transit line could move 40,000 people in one hour.  215,000 people commuted from Long Island to NYC everyday yet Moses refused to let the city use the center of his highway, open and ready space, to construct rapid transit.  “He could do as much for Long Island by spending $20,000,000 as by spending $500,000,000--if he spent it on rapid transit.” According to Caro (pg. 947)  At this point, the arrogance of Moses no longer allowed him to listen to reason and only served to advance what was his adulterated vision.  But nothing could be done to remove Moses.  His twelve public positions meant he could bring stifling pressure on opponents, pressure so powerful it often succeeded in its mere threat of use.  The press also adored and idolized Moses, and all his polices were considered perfect in their view.  Even some Presidents were piteously thrown aside like rag dolls against his overbearing might when they frought Moses publicly.  In essence, all public attacks failed against him, attacks that would have shattered lesser men to oblivion, these attacks were only destroyed in a pathetic fashion against this towering monolith of man and power.  Even one of the most powerful presidents in our history, FDR, at the very crest of his zenith, was, as Caro describes,
There, suddenly spotlighted before the public, stood the President of the United States of America--caught in a most unbecoming posture.  . . . .the faithful public servant(Moses, insert here mine)was seen as a man standing alone without a single ally and fearlessly fighting for his rights against the two most powerful men in the country. . . (pg. 431) 
Robert Moses was a terrible, modern Colossus that had held the city prostrate and helpless before him, and he bestrode it without concern for its welfare.
    If Robert Caro is not qualified to write, then by God, no one is!  The back section on “Author” has the statement,
Robert A. Caro was graduated from Princeton University and was for six years an award-winning investigative reporter for Newsday. . . .To create The Power Broker, Caro spent seven years tracing and talking with hundreds of men and women who have worked with, for or against Robert Moses, and examining mountains of files never opened to the public. 

Every word that is not Caro’s is footnoted and indexed in the “Notes” section of the book.  This book has won many prizes, as listed on http://www.robertacaro.com]http://www.robertacaro.com]www.robertacaro.com, 1974: Pulitzer Prize, Francis Parkman Prize, Washington Monthly Best Political Book award, 1986: Award in literature, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 2000: Selected as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.  The critics are unified in declaring this one of the greatest books ever written, but for some the writing style leaves much to be desired.  Dick Netzer with his flaming rapier of a pen writes “The writing in this book is painfully bad, with no visible evidence of an editor” Book Review Digest, pg 186-87.However, PS Prescott rises eloquently and delivers a slashing riposte of a rebuttal to Dick with the statement “Caro combines the research of a historian with the florid prose of an investigative journalist; in his descriptions of New York subways or the Long Island Rail Road at rush hour he reaches a almost Dickensian state of excitement.  So skillful is he at narrative that he can make the passage of a bill through the state legislature seem engrossing.” Book Review Digest, pg 187.  RC Wade, unfortunately, is not a New Yorker and is a bit jaded concerning the works of Moses.  “Nor does he explain why every major American city was doing much the same thing as New York at the same time without a Moses.” Book Review Digest, pg 187.  Personally I hardly agree with that statement as the sheer immensity of these public works in the largest and greatest city in the world merits special notice, moreso given as they were all spearheaded by the same man.  As for the writing style, I suppose that something as rich, eloquent and wordy as Caro’s particular dialect of English is an acquired taste.  Some people probably just will not bite into such things.  However, Caro has asserted Robert Moses as the Fafner of Wagners famous opera, the dragon that was ultimately slewn by the Seigfried of Nelson Rockefeller. He has made the Hudson the dramatic Rhine with the castles of the mighty Robber Barons on its bank, and protected by the great maidens of Moses bridges.  He has transformed mundane state legislature into divine stages of confrontation situated only on mount Olympus.  This is the single greatest biography I have ever read.

    Caro has accomplished his mission of informing the reader of Moses exceeding puissance that challenged the glory of all Caesars, his empire and the awesome scepter he held of power, the mammoth Coliseums of public works that he built, and their elephantine impact on community and politics.  He has shown that Moses was an arrogant emperor who played his fiddle of power while NYC burned, who implemented policies that harmed the city more than they helped, and saddled it with his own selfish interests.  However, Caro has made me give momentary pause to answer who created more, Moses and his mighty minions of men or the Lord Almighty flanked by His all-conquering angels.  Caro has lifted Moses from the thick fog of obscurity to the outer realm of Divinity itself, in this modern saga of history.  This author has also given rich and abundant life to one of the greatest unknown historical figures of world, in one of the most richly written and sweeping biographies that has ever been written.

Works Cited

Caro, Robert.  The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.  New York:     Random House Inc., 1975.

Caro, Robert.  “The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.”  Robert A.     Caro Homepage, November 2003.      <http://www.robertacaro.com/powerbroker.html>.

Samudi, Josephine.  Book Review Digest, 1974.  New York: The H.W. Wilson Company,     1975.

I sure hope that you mean BARREL not GALLON.  (eyes his large SUV parked nearby a bit warily)

There will never be a entirely free and fair election.  And I am suspecting the democrats will have something up their sleves also.  I think Kerry will win, espically if bush keeps attacking kerrys war record.  Bush is stupid, bringing up kerry's record in a way that can only garner more attention to his own, imho. 

If bush wins, I predict he will resign on charges of corruption as the backlash will probably send the senate into democratic hands, and nothing will stop a full investigation into cheney/halliburton.  And halliburton, unfortantly, has a rather long history of being in unethical positions.

If kerry wins, I predict Iraq will continue.  His hands are tied, and the republicans will simply toy with him.  What, really, can kerry do?  He can't serroiusly leave Iraq, the invasion is a fait acompli.  He can't remove halliburton's influence in the army; the miltary gets 85% of all non-munition supplys from them.  And he can't get out of iraq to remove halliburton without allowing iraq to become a terrorist cesspool.  Halliburton writes the rules for this war.

I think the economy will really, really improve up to the election point, then go into some doldrums. 

Pakistan will become the Archduke Freindand when Musharaff is killed/deposed.  God help us all if that ever happens.  War between nuclear powers india, china, pakistan, and possibly russia, NK and at a time when we have no troops to spare. . . . .

All it takes for evil to suceed is for the good men to do nothing.

On a brighter note, I bet Burt Rutan starts commercial flights into space in 2005.  Hooray for american innovation!

I never heard of a federal university.

30,000 people in the USA die every YEAR from coal emissions.  10,000 people died in cherynobl.  And cherynobl was an exception, not the rule.

We withdrew pretty much all our forces from germany for Iraq.  Same with north Korea.  Last I heard, there was exactly one brigade left in south korea.

The Japanese are realists.  South Korea, Japan and Asia are economically interdependant.  They can't ingore actions by NK against the SK.  We can't either; thats why I want the draft.  So we can increase troops in SK.  But I don't think we need such a large naval capacity in Japan (Naval forces are predominant in the miltary composition of our forces in japan) and those resources could be better allocated elsewhere.  As we all know, the Japanese have a proud naval heirtage. . .

The year is still not out.  Some other predictions still might happen. . . . . . .might as well play clarks numbers. . .

Oh and I think I got two right-

:;):

Have you seen the JDF budget?  It's pretty impressive.

Low income jobs are available at your suburban mcdonalds, starbucks, whatnot.  The problem is that none of these people can afford to live there without resorting to reliance on family and friends.  And there is only a limited number of family and friends for most. . . .

Someone's got to take your order.

Not neccessarily.  If taxes for those under $100,000 where eliminated, consumer spending would probably explode.  Then the earnings of the rich would, at the same time, explode.  More lower middle class people would be able to increase their education, and join the $100,000 crowd.  Reaganomics. . . . .

They(nukes) make power with steam.  Coal power makes power with steam.  Whats the difference?

Have you ever *tried* to pick up the complete tax code?  It would be pretty daunting.

I think my massive tax cut would allow pretty much anyone other than welfare recipants to go to college.