The term comes from having darker skin around the neck. People who work in farming and ranching spend long hours in the sun. Their neck becomes sunburned around the collar of their shirt. It is a sign of hard work. Some people find it offensive, others do not. People in some rural areas tend to vote more for right wing, conservative political parties. It is a reflection of religious, economic and political values.

It is not always the case. There are parts of Canada where "rednecks" have voted for left wing parties. Saskatchewan was the birthplace of the National Democratic Party, Canada's socialist party. The left wing ideals sprung during the Great Depression. As Saskatchewan was runed into a dust bowl, the right wing governments failed to do anything to help farmers. People in those areas turned to socialism as a counterbalance to urban right wing conservatism.

I will never speak poorly of rednecks. I might disagree with their political views or their religious conservatism. However, they are the ones who plant and grow all the food I eat, and for that I am grateful.

Tuesday: the labels "rednecks" and "white trash" are considered by many to be offensive, just so you know

Tuesday: Morality of the dollar in some cases I think.

"can't get used to a new face in the White House, and it's the white trash that don't and can't vote and can't get used to a new face in the White House."

But it was inevitable after the end of segregation and out birth of the various civil rights movements that someone rather than a white male would end up as President. Just as Maggie Thatcher ended up breaking the run of all male Prime Ministers.

What is the difference between British Conservatism and American Conservatism?

various comments...

...."A lot. British conservatives, politicians all together don't base their campaigns on issues like gay marriage, stem cell research, pro-life/pro-choice and all the rest of the unnecessary garbage Americans waste their time arguing about."

"British conservatives are the equivalent of moderate American Democrats. The education system in Britain is a lot better than in America, so they don't have this thing we Americans call a "Republican". This is a person who thinks its still 1952, the red scare is in, women belong in the kitchen, minorities belong anywhere but here, and we all pray to a crinkly old white guy with a flowing white beard. Hence the term "Stupid Redneck republicans".

On an interesting side note, in the UK, as well as in every industrialized country besides America, the working class realizes that conservatives represent the wealthy. They might still vote conservative if the Labor party does something ugly like abuse funds (happened recently I think), but by and large they know that conservatives are bad news for the working man. Only in America has the conservative party managed to fool the rednecks into voting for the very party that keeps them in the trailer park."

...."Both are fiscally conservative, but there's much more social conservatism in the US. If you had to compare them, then I'd say: American conservatism is made up of 50% fiscal conservatism and 50 % social conservatism. British conservatism is made up of 85% fiscal conservatism and 15% social conservatism."

GT:

> The U.S. media censored and right wing???

Consider for example the reporting of casualties in Iraq. Every day news channels reported who had died on the American side and the number of casualties that America had suffered. Then they would mention in passing bombings or casualties of other parties involved. Not even once did I hear a reporter say the number of civilians killed in Iraq. There are millions of Americans who don't even know that nearly 400,000 Iraqi people have been killed. Then it is illegal (that's right, illegal according to the Patriot Act) to show the American flag draped over a coffin of a dead soldier.

These thigns are legacy of the Vietnam War. The Bush admnistration did not want public opinion to turn sour when people saw dead Americans returning home in coffins, or when the level of killing reached an unacceptable level in the public eye.

Even those "left wing" channels were unwilling (or unable?) to do any true reporting of the extent of the killing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American media are heavily controlled and anybody can be labelled a terrorist or unpatriotic. Before a journalist can have access to the White House, he/she must be screened to amke sure that they will not ask questions that would embarrass the administration. White House news briefings and questions from the media are carefully choreographed.

The Democrats (who are described as the "left") are as pro-corporate business as the Republicans. They also exist to favor capitalist monopolies. The workinng class matters only to the extent that they cast a vote during the election. However, the entire modus operandi of the american government is to make sure that monopolies reign supreme. It took no effort at all for Democrats and Republicans to fall in bed together to save financial companies from a self-made catastrophe at the expense of working class taxpayers. When it came down to giving money to the rich both parties were equally right wing. For all the criticism that they purported to cast, both parties voted for bailouts for banks and car makers. I wonder, would they bailout the poor when they go hungry?

GT: Why then was Bush having those who were protesting against the Iraq war "moved" away from areas he was making a public appearance to what were called "free speech zones"?

Übergeek 바둑이: wow , you're very wrong, there is a viable left wing and Soros is part of it, but to say the U.S. media won't criticize is silly, that would be only because of Obama. When Bush was in it was free open season with attacks by the U.S. media, maybe they weren't vicious enough for your likings , but they were real bad, for the wars and everything else including how he dressed, talked and how his wife and children acted.The U.S. media censored and right wing??? just not so.but opinions are free, its probably because you are very left wing and all to the center seem like right wing and same for those on the right... any dissension to their or your views make those dissenting make them radical opposites

Artful Dodger:

In addition to all the American news networks, cable here is also showing other news networks:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
CTV (Canadian)
Global News (Canadian)
BBC (International Edition)
Al Jazeera (English Edition)
RT (Russian Television, English Edition)

The BBC is great. I find them quite balanced, leaning neither left nor right. I was very impressed with RT. I found that their reporting is very high quality. They are impartial, but once in a while they seem to lean to the left.

I know that in the US some people see the BBC as "left wing", but I think that is because the US doesn't really have a socialist left wing. I find that all American networks have a right wing bias, maybe because of a nationalist undercurrent in the reporting and very strict censorship when it comes to criticising the wars the US is involved in.

Artful Dodger:

I wonder, would a pogo stick qualify as a green vehicle?

Artful Dodger:

I also forgot skate boards, roller skates and roller blades.

I realize that it is difficult for people to use human-powered vehicles, specially in bad weather or long distances. However, I do see people ride their car to go and buy a slurpee to the 7-Eleven just two blocks down the street. Then we use a lot of energy on things like air conditioning, and we literally waste electricity on christmas trees and the like.

It is hard to tell people to give away comfort and joy. So we all just have to be conscious of waste and try to minimize it. We shouldn't knock down green energy yet. It is in essence a young industry and soon enough somebody will design better solar panels and wind turbines. We shouldn't let the politics of global warming and oil distract us from pursuing better ways of generating energy and minimizing pollution.

Übergeek 바둑이: Not everyone. Some do swear by such methods. It is also very much encouraged throughout school years now.

"Then there is public transport, but it is more comfortable to bring out the old SUV."

Not for those commuting to London or in London. Buses, trains and the tube make far more sense. Even in our area, public transport is very reliable and well supported and well used. So much so, that residents have won more hours on routes they felt ended to early in the evening.

Artful Dodger:

There is of course a very green form of energy, but everyone is too lazy to do it. It is called riding a bike and walking. Then there is public transport, but it is more comfortable to bring out the old SUV.

Übergeek 바둑이: Hopefully the long term result will be a shying away from these doom and gloom merchants and the lining of their pockets.

N' yes I think I might email Harold and ask him what he intends to do with his ill gotten cash. If he needs it or not

Artful Dodger: Oh yes it can.. It certainly could take away the need for reliance of certain communities via solar, wind and through recycling their night soil, from the national grids.

At the moment our council burns most non recycled waste and turns that into energy rather than land fill.

It is possible for small communities to be pretty much energy reliant, as an example.. the first guy to put electric lights in his house, powered his house via a water wheel and dynamo system. No national grid, as it hadn't even been thought of.

Several people in the UK run their cars on recycled oil from the local chippy.

I imagine some guy owning a farm in the middle of the USA could if he wanted install enough to create a near or total independence from the power grid.

Bernice: Here, Ethanol is used by communities. People don't like it because it smells bad , so they don't buy cars with this energy.
Yes, it's cheap when you buy the energy but the cost for the maintenance of the vehicle is higher.

Mélusine: we have solar energy but now the Gove. isnt prepared to pau us for the energy/power overload that we are able to produce, so it isnt much good...we pay thousands to get the solar panels installed with all sorts of promises being made and this is what happens.

We are a big cane growing area and they use the rubbish to make ethanol? I think that is what it is called for using in our cars...it is cheap but I dont know how the cars are running on it. we Have something called Baggasse that is currently used for bio fuel and the making of paper etc.

Artful Dodger: Yes, of course, always !

Artful Dodger: We tried to develop it here but no success : needs a lot of lands to cultivate the colza and finally, there's pollution because of the fertilizers used during the farming !
Now, the mode, here, is the solar energy, for houses.

Bah, the same in France. They don't want to reduce the taxs.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think a big step towards peace would be for the Palestinians to recognise Israel.Israel afterall has acknowledged the right of Palestinians for their own state.

Artful Dodger: Don't worry, we are giving it back slowly ..thru the birthrate.. same as what is happening in Israel/Palestine.. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate melting pot in a few decades.. one world

Übergeek 바둑이: Not all (and I doubt even most) of the rich have "ill gotten gains". Do you consider it "better gotten gains" when it is taxed away from them and given to others?

(V):

> Now the 'faithful' must wait till October 21st for the world to end.

5 months left to party and I haven't got any cash. Maybe I can borrow some of those 110 million to throw an end-of-the-world bash. Lady Gaga might be available for the gig.

Of course, Christ said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man ot enter the kingdom of heaven. Come October 20th, the rich of the world will be giving away their ill-gotten gains to the poor, or else they might try to use their cash to buy themselves a ticket to heaven.

(V): How old is Harold? He obviously intends on keeping this up until his own time is up, so I'm wondering how many more of these end of the world predictions we can expect to see from him. Last Sunday the pastor at my church said he went looking for his wife but couldn't find her anywhere.. uh oh! He was kidding of course. Even Jesus said he didn't know exactly when it (the rapture) was going to happen, and even then it won't be the end of world.

... Interesting that Harold Camping's "Family Radio" is worth about $110 million dollars of which 1/3 is invested into the stock market. You would have thought that if the world is ending the church would give away such assets as it no longer needs them.

.. Yet Harold is now saying he got the significance of May 21st wrong..

"Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, it dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a “spiritual” Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ’s judgment, he said."

... Now the 'faithful' must wait till October 21st for the world to end.

Artful Dodger: There was a special offer about the gel for hair.

Artful Dodger: Oh yes !
But I prefer the one on your pic, specially the blue hair.

Artful Dodger:

Artful Dodger: No, they go to the same hairdresser !

Übergeek 바둑이: CNN???

Artful Dodger: Student after Student... I think they thought it was a craic!!

As for supporting Hitler... Perhaps Henry Ford is to close to home for you? As he and the likes of GM owned and profiteered from manufacturing plants used by the Nazi's to build war machines.

At the end of WWII ".....GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as a result of Allied bombing...."

Artful Dodger:

This guy is a joke. Why is he not blaming the Nobel Committee in Oslo? They are the ones who give that moronic peace prize. People forget that people don't ask for the prize and they don't nominate themselves. They also don't decide who gets it and who doesn't. It is the Oslo people who do all that. And what are they supposed to do? Insult the Nobel committee and refuse the prize? People who have refused the prize don't fare any better. Jean Paul Sartre refused it, and even today people criticize him for doing so. I wonder, would Bill critize Henry Kissinger for receiving the prize? Kissinger is probably the most destructive double-faced fascist to arise after WW II, and he got the Nobel Peace prize. Should he give the money back too?

The Nobel Peace Prize is highly political, and the recepients are chosen on political grounds as much as on accomplishment. Half the recepients don't really deserve the prize, and those who deserve it are never recognized.

Artful Dodger:

There is a lot of people that don't like what passes for news at Fox. One of the tenets of journalism was impartiality, something that Fox is unable to do with their right wing bias. However, banning anyone from the air is stupid. Whoever comes up with petitions like that is an idiot because anybody with a brain knows that it is unacceptable either ethically or legally. I might dislike biased right wing commentators, but it is their legal and ethical right to express their views. However, how would you feel if there was a "Communist News Network" giving their own version and commentary of the news for 300 million Americans to see?

Artful Dodger:

I suppose Prescott Bush and Samuel P. Bush must be liberals since they were manging the finances of the Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen and helped him to come to New York before he moved to Argentina. The fact that the Bushes were indicted under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1942 must mean that they were in essence liberals who agreed with the dictator Bill is talking about.

Artful Dodger:

> There have been many commentaries from Muslims supporting the ideas of Hitler.

The main reason why those countries supported the Axis was because Hitler promised them independence from the British and French empires. It had nothing to do with a collusion of Nazi and Islamic ideology, but rather with a false anti-imperialist stance.

Artful Dodger:

> A petition is presented to liberals to sign. It's a petition that would prohibit conservatives access to a voice on the radio and TV.

If the Communist Party decided to create its own news network, would you think it is acceptable? If not, then Fox News should be renamed the Fox Neoconservative Right Wing Commentary Network.

I think anybody should be free to have a news netork, even communists and nazis. After all, we are all for free speech. People sign petitions without even lookingor thinking at what they are about. Of course, right wingers never put any petitions out there. They are without reproach.

Artful Dodger:

"The Nazi's had made their alliances with Islam".

No offense, but this guy should get some history lessons. Turkey made alliances with the Nazis. Islam had nothing to do with it. Turkey hated the Soviet Union because Georgia and Armenia became a part of the Soviet Unionand Bulgaria became communist. Those other "Islamic" countries that joined the axis did so because they were fed up with the British and French empires abusing and exploiting them. Nice history lesson Bill.

Artful Dodger:

That would be brilliant. A philanderer who still brags of having slept with over 4,600 women. It sounds like women welcoming him to his concerts with "open legs" is a very Christian thing to do. A man who said that he is an Israeli and he feels like a stranger in America. I am sure he would be very patriotic and put America's interests ahead of those of Israel. I think I get the joke. President Trump and Vicepresident Simmons would be a sure winner next election.

(V): Hear Hear!

Tuesday: With respect to the interpretation held by these guys... A certain faithful few will go to heaven, the rest of us who do not believe as these faithful few are hellbound.

It seems that the interpretation held, also says the whole cosmos(not just the world) is going to end as well. Any other life out there is facing being 'raptured' along with us humans.

.. That is what they were predicting. That the guy at the centre of these predictions got it wrong in 1994. Still so it is reported many folk gave up work and went onto to prepare for the end!!

Yet another Christian "prophet" has predicted wrong on the end of the world/universe. Seemingly happy at the death of billions/trillions/zillions throughout the 'cosmos' by the hand of God.

One would suggest to such Christian sects, hell bent on everyone but a 'chosen few' dying... and making a big profit on sales on how to avoid hell.


... to have a beer and relax... and to start living.

Übergeek 바둑이: .. Not all America's wars. I doubt those ratio's were obtained in the first half of the 20th .... hypothetically a war against the USSR would have been a lose.. lose.

"Nobody wants to compromise or make concessions."

Seen to I think more.

Tuesday: Especially if it has a good rope hanging from a tree... to swing in for a good bombing

The Col:

Regarding the Second Intifada (uprising), I found the following snippet. The uprising started in September of 2000 and is considered to have ended in November of 2004 when Yasser Arafat died and the new Palestinian Autrhority president Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to the violence in 2005.

"The death toll, including both military and civilian, is estimated to be 6500 Palestinians and over 1100 Israelis, as well as 64 foreigners."

Regarding overall casualties of war, it is difficult to get accurate numbers, but I found the following:

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1987 to 2010:
Palestianians killed over the age of 18: 7978
Palestinians killed under the age of 18: 1620
Israelis killed over the age of 18: 1503
Israelis killed under the age of 18: 142

This does not include people wounded. I am trying to find better numbers for that, but obviously, more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed. The number being roughly 6 Palestinians dead for every 1 Israeli killed.

This is in line with Israel's superior military force, which is fully armed with tanks, helicopters and war planes. If anything, it is surprising that the numbers are not as skewed as America's wars in which casualties are easily over 100 to 1 (obviously due to America's superior naval and air power).

The situation is sad because both Jews and Arabs are Semitic peoples. Both have been sharing that land for thousands of years, and have been in conflict for thousands of years. Very often the origins of this violence are a case of the chicken and the egg, nobody pointing exactly at when the violence started. All we can point out is to triggers that erupted violence in an already very tense situation. For example, Ariel Sharon visited the Al Aqsa mosque and that triggered the Second Intifada.

Antisemites everywhere must love this conflict. Here are two Semitic peoples killing each other and unable to put aside hate and intolerance in favor of peace. Our western governments are not helping matters by favoring Israel in a one-sided manner. I think it is an issue in which it has become impossible to be impartial. Israel accuses Palestinians of being terrorists. Palestinians accuse Israelis of being fascists. Our western governments want to protect Israel from its hostile neighbors. Those hostile neighbors want to protect Palestinians from Israel. Nobody wants to compromise or make concesions. As always, civilians get squeezed and killed in between.

Tuesday: Just say you are a friend of Adam Young. Thanks to a foul up the anti christ went to a typical English family rather than a prominent American diplomat.

He doesn't like the idea of the world ending.