Sep 20 2007
Recession Too Mild a Word
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By Pablo Ouziel
9/20/07
Except for a select group of corrupt politicians, powerful businessmen, media barons and pundits of the law, the rest of the world was fooled into the Iraq war. Granted not everybody believed its declared motives and a few tried to stop it, but in the end we are all paying the price, notwithstanding the Iraqi people. Donald Rumsfeld said at the beginning of the war, “I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.” We are now in the fifth year of what I dare term ‘genocide’.
The same group of people who lied to the world about the war in Iraq are doing the same about the state of the global economy, and again the public is sleepwalking as it listens to their lullabies. We could be witnessing the collapse of the capitalist model of society as we know it. According to President Bush, however, we are seeing a “thriving” U.S. economy.
The lesson we should all learn from Iraq is that this group of ‘Elites’, the ones Bush refers to as his ‘base’, have no respect for human life; all they care about is financial profitability and personal power. They will lie to all of us and use any excuse to justify their objectives, but as they fall from grace, they themselves will describe their own actions. Alan Greenspan just said it; “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
But the public will keep digging into the realities of Iraq and we will not rest until the truth comes out from all these pundits, who undoubtedly should be facing trial for crimes against humanity. The problem is that while we dig into Iraq they will be playing the same game in other areas of social interest. The lies they fabricated to unleash that war, they are fabricating right now to make us feel our economies are solid and we should be consuming, having fun, and keeping calm. As Bush put it in a press conference on December 20th, 2006; “I encourage you all to go shopping more.”
Yet yesterday in Crain’s New York business this could be read; “Only weeks after financial-sector employment in the city hit levels not seen since the technology-stock bubble, investment banks have switched into firing mode and halted most job searches… As a result, at least 10,000 Wall Streeters of all stripes could lose their jobs by year’s end, according to estimates from the Manhattan recruiting and consulting firm Options Group.”
The same story is apparent in England where yesterday the UK prime minister and chancellor met with US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to discuss the growing turmoil in world financial markets. After the meeting the chancellor insisted that the UK economy remained strong and that it would weather the current storm. Yet as the government promised depositors of Northern Rock they would not lose a penny as the bank’s share price plunged, thousands queued to withdraw their savings.
In this chaotic world of war and recession, which has Iraqis running for cover and Westerners heading to the bank, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. According to the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago, just in Britain “the wealth gap is at its widest for more than 40 years, creating ghettoes of the richest and the poorest that have virtually nothing to do with each other.”
But as Westerners we don’t seem to react too strongly, because (according to Professor Ruth Lister, a social-policy researcher at Loughborough University), “people at the very bottom tend not to have the energy for rioting because they are too busy trying to survive, the middle-classes because the credit market has not yet fully collapsed and is still sustaining their unsustainable lifestyles and the rich because this is the perfect atmosphere for their wealth build up and accumulation.”
However other countries are being warned and are moving away. A week ago a United Nations agency report said that China, India and other developing countries needed to take steps to protect themselves against a possible recession in the United States by lifting domestic demand.
Then the China Daily ran a piece by Lau Nai-keung, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which advised the following; “There are growing concerns that the US financial meltdown will lead to a global recession, and this in turn will hit China badly… It is therefore not too early to kick-start internal consumption.”
Finally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez warned this Sunday in his program “Aló Presidente” of the danger of a world financial crisis due to problems related to the high-risk mortgage business in the United States. He stated that the authorities are studying a combination of measures “to protect us from a large financial earthquake” that would affect the entire world.
So while we Westerners remain hopeful that this time our leaders are not lying to us as the recession is masterfully pushed away and hidden under the rug, all I can do is wonder whether this silenced recession is a lot more than that, just as Iraq’s ‘little’ war is rapidly becoming the biggest genocide since the Nazi concentration camps.
Maybe Chavez was right in his interview with John Pilger (for the documentary film “The War on Democracy”) when he said, “The American Empire has reached its end, the world must now be governed by the rule of law, of equality, of justice and of fraternity.” If Chavez is right, maybe we should all buckle up for a global economic collapse and begin to plan for a new world.
-Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in Spain. His work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet, Palestine Chronicle, Thomas Paine’s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.
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You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Substitute Hugo Chavez for Chairman Mao and you will see why I am not sending you the 5 bucks you are asking for. While your ideals sound noble, your heroes are as corrupt as the elitists you protest against.
Dear Kevin:
Ditto, no $5 from me. This web site gets it about half right most of the time. Venezuela is a lot less prosperous than it should be, in spite of it’s oil revenues, because of Chavez’s statist policies, although I appreciate the donated heating oil offer, however politically motivated it may have been.
Communism is the goal of socialism, which is but a temporary pause in leftists’ forced march of humanity towards hell on earth, about which hell this scribbler has been giving warnings to anyone sympathetic to that cause – to that horrific insanity! – of socialism/communism, which ism’s bottom-line underpinnings are expertly retold by Long Visalo, a returnee to Pol Pot’s communistic Cambodia in 1973, and who gave this horrifying account of an indoctrination seminar for intellectuals at camp K-15, conducted by Khieu Samphan [”Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare,” by Philip Short, pp. 316-317]: “How do we make a communist revolution? The first thing you have to do is to destroy private property. But private property exists on both the material and the mental plane…To destroy material private property, the appropriate method was the evacuation of towns…But spiritual private property is more dangerous, it comprises everything that you think is ‘yours’, everything that you think exists in relation to yourself—your parents, your family, your wife. Everything of which you say, ‘It’s mine…’ is spiritual private property. Thinking in terms of ‘me’ and ‘my’ is forbidden…The knowledge you have in your head, your ideas, are mental private property, too. To become truly revolutionary, you must…wash your mind clean…So the first thing you must do to make yourself fit to participate in the communist revolution…is to wash your mind…If we can destroy all material and mental private property…people will be equal. The moment you allow private property, one person will have a little more, another a little less, and they are no longer equal. But if you have nothing – zero for him and zero for you – that is true equality…If you permit even the smallest part of private property [and private thinking!], you are no longer as one, and it isn’t communism”…[p. 325]: “The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought…In the end we will make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that will be needed will be expressed by exactly one word [no hint of what that one word is here], with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten…Every year fewer and fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller…In fact there will be not thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy [communist orthodoxy] means NOT THINKING [my emphasis]…Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”; an INSANITY, dear reader, that’s lost on all leftists harboring any hope of goodness and truth being found in socialism/communism, and so extreme in its Utopian pursuit of equality that even to THINK of how beautiful a sunrise is or to smile at the missteps of a toddler at play or to feel even a hint of pleasure from a warming morning sun invites MENTAL INEQUALITY, which necessarily leads to material inequality, according to the leftist Utopians. How dare you to steal a mental pleasure that some comrade, somewhere, cannot equally share with you? There can be no private thoughts! And today’s socialism-/communism-/feminism-driven Left within Western democracies is incrementally leading us there, as today’s fairness-driven leftists are tomorrow’s equality-driven Pol Pots – those Marxian ARCHITECTS and their liberal-Christian and secular-humanist dupes! – who’ll eventually come to TORTURE and/or KILL any opponents of their perfect Marxian equality, and which fact about them ought to horrify any reason-driven person anticipating future results of the Marxists’ DIVERSITY MOVEMENT and requisite FORCED INTEGRATION, which their open-borders immigration policies now demand worldwide. -Deacon Elurby
http://corporateamericawhatwentwrong.blogspot.com/ -Deacon Elurby
Kevin makes a good point! What is your response, “Thomas Paine”? If your hero is Hugo Chavez and his hero is Fidel Castro… Cuba: an entire nation held hostage for 48 years! Does the end (free health care to anyone who was not shot at dawn) justify the means (murder and mayhem)? What say you, “Tom”???
The whole world wasn’t fooled about Iraq. I wasn’t fooled. I knew for a certainty that Bush had plans in his pocket, and was bulling his way through so that he could use the American military as his private army for … ? … ends not stated. There are others who knew this at the time too and knew it was stupid, ill-considered, and would be a failure. I don’t claim to be clairvoyant but it seemed as obvious as the nose of your face that we had brought 911 down on ourselves and that attacking a country that had not attacked us, and where the Saudis who were being blamed for attacking us were not even living, was done because Bush wanted to. No other reason. No one asked me, of course.
As for the economy, perhaps the American people can’t do math. It is very clear that we get less for our money when we go food shopping. Just because nobody talks about inflation dooesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s been happening for years. When it reached the point that a new car cost as much as a house, I knew we were screwed for sure. Things are way out of balance. Spending more and getting less is the Bush administration’s definition of “strong,” in that psycho-babble way they have of speaking, but, then again, those folks are not much in touch with reality.
Hell, what do words mean anyhow? They call it whatever they want to, haven’t you noticed? Black is white. War is peace. It doesn’t have to make sense! They’re creating a society in which we have no common language any more. We can each make our own definitions for the words we use and then call the other person insane when they don’t agree with us. Sound familiar?
Honestly, don’t kill the messenger. Even though Chavez is a person of indefensible political affiliation, he is correct.
When the DJIA is at 16,000 and milk is $7 a gallon, maybe then you’ll see that America is no longer what she once was, and it will take a breed of leader we have not seen in almost 50 years to bring us out of it.
Just ‘cuz a commie says we’re in trouble don’t mean it ain’t so.
There were books on the shelves at Barnes and Noble that discussed a financial meltdown from a derivitive market polluted by corruption. The focus of these books discussed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This wave has been on the radar for awhile.
Also, remember all those crazy ass ads on the Internet for mortgages that offered high price homes for meager monthly payments? What kind of a banking system uses obnoxious clowns, peacocks and boogie jive dancers to hawk such serious financial contracts? If you looked at it all, you knew the deed was rigged with a final outcome in mind. How could our astute bankers and Lawyer lawmakers not know this was a deck of cards laid to unstablize the sturdiest of foundations?
Some asses in power saw this coming and let it happen… It’s no less than a financial hit and run. There will be dead bodies.
Addressing Kevin, Douglass, Deacon, and Richard,
I am a long-time reader of TPC and have commented several times on other articles.
It’s difficult to gauge what Thomas Paine might say since he has been dead for a couple of centuries. (He was a Brit like me, you know–not an American like you “politically astute” devils). However, if you took the time to actually study Marxism, socialism, and the writings of Thomas Paine, you would discover that they share many of the same goals and values, including egalitarianism, concern for the welfare of the community rather than self absorbed obsession with the individual, the empowerment of the working class and poor, a desire for a more democratic sociopolitical system, and an end to exploitation and oppression.
As far as those who produce this website, you are fortunate they don’t delete or censor your sophomoric inanities. I don’t see an indication that this site specifically endorses or champions any politico, including Chavez or Castro. Nevertheless, however imperfect they may be (and they are far less imperfect than the idiotic propaganda which in which your stunted minds are obviously immersed makes them out to be) Castro and Chavez represent a very thin line of very courageous leaders who refuse to roll over and take a buggering from those rotters in the States who cloak themselves in the raimants of “freedom and democracy” whilst raping the world.
Incidentally, Deacon Elurby, those with Marxist beliefs do not advocate the elimination of private property. Such a society would be absurd and dystopic. Their goal is to eliminate the private ownership of the major means of production. The dreaded “Reds” aren’t coming after your toothbrush, your child’s teddy bear, your house, your wife, or your car. They would certainly love to eliminate Microsoft, Big Pharma, and the military industrial complex though.
Kevin, Douglass, and Richard, you are jejune, myopic, and trivial individuals. I just donated $30.00 to this site. That is $10.00 for each of you. You can each take your 5 spots and stick them up your arses.
Smythe
One can smell a dead skunk in the road. It dosen’t need to be seen to know exactly what it is upon being smelled. Treason and approaching doom also has a smell that is unmistakable. They did their work very well. Were going to have to fight to hold this one back. Fight or get plowed under. Tea anyone?
Also addressing Kevin, Douglass, Deacon, and Richard,
The rightwingers and libertarians are coming out of the woodwork here, and as is customary for this highly biased tribe, always relying on falsehoods and sarcasm, they conveniently bend history to their cause by forgetting that if Mao or Fidel Castro made mistakes it was due to the desperate circumstances they inherited or emerged from, none of which are inherent in either socialism or communism. Socialism and Communism, the antitheses of capitalism are, valuewise, structurally, against any form of exploitation, police state, etc. If they occur, it is due to gross deformaitons induced by the murderous hostitlity of the older, more mature capitalist powers. Capitalism, on the other hand, is indisputably based on exploitation of labor by an absenttee ownership class. (Pls., spare me that rigmarole about pension funds, meaning “us”, the hoi polloi, owning the economy, which is just plain propaganda for suckers.)
Thus, while attempts at building non-cap;italist societies have been attacked to the point of serious deformations and even derailings of some of their principles, the capitalist nations have no such excuse, as no one ever attacked them or invaded them. Have these rightwingers conveniently forgotten that it was Nazi Germany that invaded Russia and not the other way around, with the consequent loss of 70,000 Soviet towns and cities, and the death of 22 million Soviet citizens, larger, at the time, than the entire population of California? What on earth compelled the capitalist nations to kill, invade, and subjugate at will, just because they had the technological and military means? Are you going to deny that West European colonial powers grabbed India, most of Africa, and much of the rest of Asia, through guile and sword, and held them as brutal colonies until the Second World War?
Furthermore, it was the centuries, millennia-old abuses of the right that historically created “the left.” Fact is, the US has a history of foreign interventions—direct and indirect, as befits an accomplished hypocritical power—that has caused millions of people their lives, half a milion (low estimate) in Indonesia alone, and that continues to this day to hold billions of humanm beings in the prison of abject institutionalized poverty? The rightwing morons will never see that, because it’s a mental and temperamental disease, like admiring “order” over justice, and regarding institutionalized robbery as a fine thing if it benefits you. The morals of gangsters and degenerate Calvinism, which is the religion most closely associated with this plundering system.
I, too, am sending $100 to this site, and may it help it spread the word that is usually distorted or suppressed by the corporate media. Indeed, it is a tribute to the editors of Cyrano that while they certainly will take exception to many very jejune and idiotic views in these threads, they refrain from censoring any, and let the debate itself carry the argument and light to its logical completion.
By the way, Symington, I appreciate your nuanced explanations and very lucid distinctions. I always read your posts with great interest. Good to know Brits are also reading these columns and sharing with us, the former “colonials,” the difficult moment we all traverse. Let’s never forget that FASCISM is just the naked face of capitalism, er, “capitalist democracy.”
Smythe: So much for respectful conversation! I was obviously referring to the “Tom Paine” of Thomas Paine’s Corner, not the historical Tom Paine who must be rolling in his grave these days.
Do we then replace our “obsession with the individual” with the socialist robot? Are you saying that the end does indeed justify the means, that Castro is just “misunderstood”?
You claim to be a “politically astute” Brit. Are you proud to live in a totalitarian surveillance state where cameras watch your every move and punish your every mistake?
Why does my “stunted mind” think that a socialist government would be just as corrupt as any big corporation?
If the web site chooses to “delete or censor” our “sophomoric inanities”, how will they deal with your rantings? The good points you do mention are lost in the arrogant tone that only invites reprisal.
Overthrow your lizard queen, destroy the spy cameras and the revenue cameras, drag the surveillance perverts out of their protected bunkers and into the streets and then you can call us Americans “buggering rotters”!
I did what you said I could do with your generous donation in my name; I stuck the ten dollars up my “jejune, myopic and trivial” butt and then I crapped it down the toilet.
Publius: If fascism is the “naked face” of capitalism, what is the “naked face” of socialism? Is it Zimbabwe where an “elected” dictator, Mugabe, is destroying and pillaging a once prosperous country in the name of socialist “reform”?
Many of the capitalists you decry are just big money socialists who believe in capitalism for the elite and socialism for the masses.
Socialism’s ghoulish march through the pages of history is littered with corpses, societies of automatons and a dead letter of the law mentality. It breeds and feeds on dependency. We can do better! Ron Paul, anyone?
I’ve noticed lately that libertarians do generate a lot of hate on the left and the right. Liberals and conservatives both want a big government in place. They resent anyone who wants to wean them away and deny them their “fix”.
Most modern day “capitalism” is a hybrid monster infused (infected) with socialism. Socialism is just the grim reaper with a smiling face!
What few people understand is that Capitalism is not a political theory, but rather a very efficient means of managing wealth. Any form of government today will use capitalist methods, whether it is a kingship, a dictatorship or a communist state. Thus, the notion that Capitalism and Democracy are inseparable is a myth the capitalists have cleverly broadcast, even though it is true the two can work together extremely well for the benefit of the State and its people.
Pure Communism places all ownership and investment in the hands of the State, but that idea has been given up long ago, now resticting state ownership to those industries and resources necessary to provide security, such as in oil and water, and in providing affordable services to peiple as in the delivery of health sevices, sewage, roads etc. The true communist state today must lack Democracy.
The failure of communism derives from the fact that - in keeping with the prevailing thought of his times - Marx did not incorporate Democratic principles into his theory. The result was an autocratic state, with State and Military officials becoming as corrupt as the wealthy aristocrats they replaced.
For many States, particularly in Europe, Communism has morphed into Socialism, which while it protects the duties of the State as described above, also promotes the growth of private industry, regulated by government through a Democratic system, the element Marx avoided.
Those who rail against Capitalism are thus misguided. What is now coming full out of te closet is instead naked Fascism (as Publius G noted above), which is simply allowing the Capitalist free rein to do as he/she pleases. Their goal is to “get government off industry’s back” and set up a “Free Market” in which the only determinant of good is the dollar bill. As in a communist state Democracy is to be avoided, and paid only lip service to. This is evidenced today as ever more people find governments unresponsive to their needs, and uncaring of election promises.
We are now seeing the results of that in the US, as it hovers just above an economic collapse brought about by unregulated Capital as seen in Enron and the current subprime debacle, “privatised” armies as in Haliburton, and the profligate printing of the fiat currency necessary to keep it all afloat - as seen in T-bills that are becoming ever harder to sell.
Besides those ills, the authoritarianism inherent in Fascim. as seen in the “War against Drugs” and now the Patriot Act, is turning Ameica into a Stalinist state. As the prison system balloons, all that is needed now are some Gulags.
Economic tyranny requires the collapse of dollar. A dollar, now, is worth four cents of what a 1933 dollar was worth. Tyranny is leveraged by those who hyperinflate the money supply because the money printers are the first to use the new money to obtain assets and power. The citizens bare the “costs” of the act of inflation. The Fed is a front for the Bank of London and others. These people are four (1933) cents away from using up the dollar. When the dollar is entirely used up then they’ll introduce the new currency…
So, what’s next is the Amero… The Money tyrants will use it up after decades and then they’ll bring out another currency after that… The tyrants own most of the assets begotten by this system of top down inflation in this way they will always be your masters… shackled by taxes and beat into submission by legalized counterfeiting!
It is time to eat the rich… don’t you think?
“If the American people knew what we have done, they would hunt us down in the streets and string us up from the lamp posts”
- George HW Bush -
Sounds like a plan to me Georgie boy!
I was one of those that thought “Oh the market goes up and down, but nothing really bad will happen. ” However, after doing a lot of research over the past few years, I have become more than a little scared. Consider the follwing:
- The percentage of national debt against gdp
- the amount of US treasury paper in the coffers of foreign governments such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia
- the mounting trade deficit
- the loss of manufacturing jobs, then the loss of many white collar jobs to other countries
- the rise of unhindered speculation and reckless investment overvalued real estate
- and finally the emergence of research and development projects in China and India taking our last advantage over foreign companies.
I want to make one more point about the discussion here on capitalism/socialism/communism: Unregulated capitalism is just as bad as oppressive communism. You end up with a few folks controlling the market. The Soviet Union was a gigantic failure. I dont think anyone wants to go down that road again; so stop talking in absolutes and get to the reality: the only sensible economy is one of regulated capitalism, allowing people to make money but making sure everybody has a chance. We have had a mixed economy in the United states for almost a century. The SEC, Social Security, and the FDA, are not useless institutions. Absolute capitalism has not existed since the 1800s (although Bush’s ilk has tried their damnedest to bring it back. Look at what Bush has done to the small business administration for instance). I am sick and tired of people screaming “communism” whenever anybody speaks of government taking a role and making sure the comman man has affordable healthcare and a decent education and job. Has a mixed economy thrown Canada, the various European countries, or Australia into communism? No!
What bothers me is that when the coming calamity hits, we wont have any money for essential government services, then the multinationals can gobble up everything, just as the REAL ELITE want it.
Equality is not possible in this universe. Even if you only have two different atoms, these two atoms cannot possibly be made to be equal, because one of them is in one place, and the other one is in another place. The conditions may be extremely similar, but they are not equal. If even two atoms of the same element cannot possibly be made to be equal, you certainly cannot make two people equal.
The destruction of the dollar has been planned for a long time. It is part of a big game plan. The powers that be have run up a huge international tab based of faith not gold. Want dollars? have as much as you want. What is any body going to say when they pull the plug on it (probably next month October just for fun). They will simply issue a new currency (the Amero) and anyone who wants to convert their old US dollars can for 1 to 100 or 1000. Take that or furn them. What is anyone going to do? Wake up kids. It is all a big ugly dirty game and we have already seen the faces of the players.
War? War is nearly always business backed.
Always has been. Wake up and stop being led around. Those genocidal kids are laughing all the way to their Swiss banks (gold backed currency).
I like the Amish for many reasons. Their Earth-friendly sustainable communities are partially socialist, or perhaps communist by definition. The goal is the survival of the individual and the community. This is accomplished by shared ownership coexisting with individual ownership. Our tax-built infrastructure could be viewed as an example of shared ownership in this country. The difference is that no Amish person would decide to sell off shared assets and keep the profits. When our highways are sold to the private sector, will the people get a return on their money? No. When a school our tax dollars built is decommissioned and sold to a private developer to turn into apartments, do the people get a return on their money? No. Once tax dollars enter government hands, those dollars cease to refer back to the people who “contributed” them. Because taxes are extorted from the people under duress [threat of fine or imprisonment], that money becomes the government’s money, as money robbed from a bank becomes the robber’s money. With the Amish, communal money remains communal money.
Deregulation is a “Take all you want” card. I thank god that the power company is still under regulation in my state. Otherwise, a large percentage of the working poor would be able to afford electricity. A large power company recently decided to raise rates 20% and actually charged customers the higher rates for a period of 6 months before the state approved the raise. When the state approved only a 3% raise, the company had to return the money to the customers. How good that felt, to not get screwed for once.
Slad, “equal” does not mean exactly the same, placement has nothing to do with it when circumstance is identical. Two atoms in identical circumstance are equal. Presuming you are referring to the equality of men, as in Jeffersons principles; he was talking about being held equal under the law. It’s a political thing. Jefferson wasn’t some idiot who believed every man could bench press the same weight. In mathematics are two symbols: One is the ‘equals’ sign, which is two slashes (lines) above one another. One is, ‘is exactly’, which is three slashes (lines) above one another. They mean different things.
As far as sosialism/communism; Lets face it, we have more choices (which are different than “decissions”) than deciding between fascism and communism. Hayek’s arguments against socialism, are perfectly reasonable, once you ‘get’ that central planning is the ‘devil’ in all this. But that is fascism as well! Central planning.
Anyone who thinks that the American economy is a free market system is choking on propaganda–it is a centrally planned system (the FED)…it is ALREADY socialism, regardless of the Orwellian language used to describe it.
Neil Goforth, you are mistaken, socialism no matter what you name it is central planning, Canada, Europe, and Australia are all in the same fascist economic boat as America–this is a global fix we are in. Health care wouldn’t be the problem it is in a truly free society–it is in the fix it is because the elites have stolen most of the wealth of the planet, leaving only crumbs for the rest of us. If you didn’t have to pay almost half of your earnings in taxes you could afford a Dr. when you needed one, and the Dr. could afford to live fine without bilking you for every cent he can, because he gets to keep all the money he makes too (this is a problem lawyers have designed for us through litigation)
Manipulation of perception is the main cause of all the problems this world faces.
Capitalism, isn’t the free market; it is using money to make money, the free market is making money off of goods and services–different things.
“Democracy is always the last step before dictatorship”–Plato, THE REPUBLIC
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb arguing over what to have for supper, liberty is a well armed lamb.” –Ben Franklin
There was a good reason the founders of the US established a republic rather than a democracy. Read the Federalist Papers, the Constitutional Debates, etc.
Democracy is a mob, a wild fire that will burn down the kitchen. A republic puts this fire in a container–thus the ‘Lamp of Liberty” or the “Torch of Liberty”–to control the flames of passions and emotions.
In a democracy, the rabble rouser’s of elite media, play upon the emotions of the mass mind and manipulate the society against it’s own interest; this is tyranny as sure as any dictatorship–it is just playing all the fools against one another in a casino, owned by the house, the games are all fixed.
My solution would be to get back to the Constitution, it provides for “The General Welfare” when it is adhered to, because everybody gets an equal chance.
Idealists, who have the best of intentions still lay the bricks to the road to hell. All utopias of the imagination end up dysopias when manifest in the real world.
A perfect world would be nice, but some peace and harmony, and good will amongst men would be enough for me. I am affraid however, that the elites have put us in a situation here–they are shutting down the funhouse as we speak. There is a rough ride ahead. Good luck to all.
RICHARD says:
“Most modern day “capitalism” is a hybrid monster infused (infected) with socialism. Socialism is just the grim reaper with a smiling face!”
Leaving aside that this just so much infantile reasoning (that idea that a thing is the way it is because I say so) you yourself prove in a backward way that socialism is MORE desirable than laissez-faire capitalism—let alone outright fascism.
First of all, the big corporation is a huge bureaucracy which, BY LAW AND BY DESIGN is not and does not operate as a democracy. Consider Chomsky’s dictum: “Privatization does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person…it means you take a public institution and you give it to an unaccountable tyranny.”—Noam Chomsky.
In this case he just about says it all. You and your rightwing mind cannot examine history on balanced terms and probably never will, but for the sake of others on this thread, I address your points.
In a socialist democracy, the system is by design at the service of the people. That IS its central marching value. As the movie SICKO reminds us, we have already socialist institutions in our capitalist fabric, and they are among the best: the public library, the firemen, the emergency response teams that save your life (or damn well try without asking you first whether you have “good credit”), the social security system, and even the police, when it’s not corrupt and being used for the benefit of the vultures in this system. Further, our political class—up to the President himself—are all on socialized medicine. All of this means that we have in the USA “socialism for the rich” and capitalism for the masses, which is a backhanded compliment indeed to the real character of socialism.
Second, you talk triumphantly about Mugabe, but tyrannies and abuses occur in this highly imperfect world under all systems because there is still much to be done to elevate the masses to their rightful place of full not just nominal citizenship as we see in capitalist democracies. Under capitalism, given its unrelenting dynamic of enriching and empoowering the rich and disenfranchising the middle class and the poor, the direction is precisely the opposite of that laudable social goal. Third, although no doubt people have died and been thrown in jail for unjust reasons under some socialist governments, that doesn;t prove that saocialism is a bloodebath, or a blueprint for the robotization of the people. That’s pure hypocritical, age-old capitalist propaganda for the reactionary in temperament and stupid of mind. Have you ever watched the bloodbath that always attends getting rid of a rightwing regime or dictator? Yet when communism, such as it existed, with many flaws, in the USSR and associated states fell, the much talked about “gulags” were nowhere to be seen, something that no one in the corporate media cared to mention. Check the statistics that Michael Parenti has collated on this. In any case, the Soviet Union hardly had a gulag of astronomical proportions.
Meanwhile, in the good ole USA we have more people as a percentage of the population in jail than in ANY OTHER NATION today (and for many years now).
Finally, regarding the wonderfulness of pure capitalism, I refer to you to something in the British code that existed for a long time called the “Bloody Code,” whereby many people were hanged for ridiculously minor offenses to property not persons.
I could go on but I dont think that your mind will accept these arguments no matter what evidence is shown. For that, it’d be necessary for it to be reconstructed from scratch, throwing out a lot of the crap it has carefully stored for a lifetime of looking at the world in unfair terms.
SLAD says: We cant have equality and plunges into a physics example to show us that this is the case in the social ambit. Fucking WRONG way of looking at this kind of problem. The idea of equality is a concept, a destination, that never implies IDENTICALNESS, 100% congruency, but a fairness of treatment across all aspects of social intercation: political, economic, genderwoiese, racial, etc. In asocial terms this constitutes the direction to strive for. Or would you rather just abandon this striuggle and allow a system WIRED for maximum inegalitarianism to screw us all to death. Your kind of faux-philosophiocal attitude is defeatist and will opnly lead to runaway inequality. certainly not a good idea in any sociaty, and inadmissible in one that proclaims itself to be a real democracy.
Adjust your blinkers or vacuum your attic! Thinking intelligently is an art and a discipline. Acquire it.
The problem I see with the supposed “ideal” of working for the exclusive so called “socialist” “good of the many” is that it most always seems subverted by “a few” to plunder the very existance of “the many” giving them really nothing back of substance but “smoke and mirror” *benefits*. This is the very same thing capitalism is often accused of.
I don’t believe it is ‘capitalism’ perse that is fundamentally flawed it is the ‘flawing of capitalism’ morphing into unethical capitalism that seems to me to bring the problems. One can abuse ANY system and they are ALL abused whether it is here in the U.S. or in China, or perhaps in Germany or even in Venezuela.
“Isms” themselves are very hard to quantitate and too often simply stereotypes. The so called “capitalism” we claim to have here in the states is anything BUT a free market one. If it were, everytime citizens got screwed by some company they would have alternatives to go to and would be able to quit giving their dollars to the criminals. That is far from the case today though with many markets locked up to STOP free competition and there is little alternative but to simply NOT BUY or do at all. That to me is a bigger problem in ANY system– LIMITED CHOICE. Where does one go for alternatives that claim they are based on “social-ism” or “commun-ism”. Let’s not forget many of the same financier ELITISTS are at work behind the scenes syphoning off the labor and prosperity of citizens whether they be a so called ‘capitalist’ or so called “communist” or even “socialist’.
These invasive parasites find their way into ANY system the thing that needs to happen is to keep the playing field OPEN and FAIR such as a good referee would do at a basketball game. The ref doesn’t step in and simply hand the ball to the opposing team when they get behind the other team has to WORK harder, smarter, more intuitively, AS A TEAM if they want more of lifes fruits. I suggest perhaps some teams need BETTER COACHES and more motivation THEMSELVES. This being said, I am NOT against lending a hand to those who need the help, in fact I’m for it, but creating inneffective programs ran by thieves who only siphon off money isn’t the answer IMO.
In any successful system that values true Liberty CHOICE must be at the forefront IMO and respect for the INDIVIDUAL. If one doesn’t have respect for the freedom and rights of the individual I don’t see how one can effectively have it for “the many”.
I have seen people VERY unfairly portray Dr. Ron Paul and the absurdities of thoughts they ascribe to him is WAY over the top, innaccurate and does little to address real concerns. The one thing so many more people seem to agree on each day is that the two MAIN parties candidates and current officeholders are ineffective, sold-out, seem to have NO new ideas on how to solve any problems, are basically corrupt, and are failing MISERABLY at leading this nation away from the abyss.
Show me ONE presidential candidate that would offer REAL WORKABLE solutions to the current problems this country faces, that respects the Bill of Rights, our Constitution, and the right to run our own lives as much as Dr. Paul. Nobody is perfect obviously and it’s possible I might even find some fault with Paul, I’m simply saying show me someone better and please describe just how.
In closing I’d simply add those setting around waiting for “government” to “solve their problems” are IMO going to be in for a long , long ,long wait.
____________________________________________________________________
and did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage
T.A.
THIS AMERICAN:
The flaw in your argument is that working for the common good, to help others, is a noble call. To focus only on yourself, is selfish. (Look it up!.) And if a socialist system is flawed, work to make it better. I suppose you are not just sitting there and letting this immense capitalst corruption go unheeded, are you? Well, the same process would be in order in the other system, except that you’d have a headstart since it is structurally based on generosity and not mutual plundering. Those, like you, that claim that capitalism can be tamed, made into a “compassionate capitalism” (an imbecility by definition as talking about “compassionate conservatives”) are out of your minds. You understand nothing. Educate yourself for chrissakes. The right of an opinion in these columns must be matched with a solid desire to speak well researched points.
Thanks for the comments onewaratatime. Let me clarify though. It’s possible we might share more in common than you originally find.
Note firstly,I don’t disagree with you, IMO being in service to others IS a cause I find “noble” or better yet one that I find “intuitively resonating”. Rather than speak in generalities which are always very hard to quantify let me try more at giving examples.
They most always IMO help us to better focus on topics at hand. And if you would I’d like to hear your thoughts on the specifics. Let me start simply with just two off the cuff scenarios and we can see if we really disagree or not.
1- Let’s suppose I happen to like carpentry. I work hard,spend years of my life learning the trade, pay my dues, eventually open my own business, become ’successful’ lining up lots of work, building houses, hire several people to help me, pay them well, treat them well, they enjoy the work, they like me. etc.etc. and we’re all successful and happy.
So let me ask. Is this what we are calling a form of capitalism? Is it socialism? Is it communism? Can we say it fits any of those labels more or less closely? When I use the words capitalism this is what I think of in a very simple context. Is it possible we are using the words differently? Would you say this example is a “good” thing for the parties involved, a “bad” thing etc. I would like to hear your thoughts on this simple example. I tend to think it possibley offers more ‘good’ for those involved but perhaps you will see the ‘bad’ in it. But let me not put words in your mouth. What do you see?
2- On a different note let’s take the example of Hillary’s latest proposal for ‘national health care’. One verison is that everyone will be forced to pay into it. Another article says it is proposed to REQUIRE “mental heath screening” and that in fact one of the proposals is that citizens may even be forced to have this to get a job. Without going into to much detail what do you see as the advantages of this and the disadvantages?
Briefly the first thing that jumps out at me is the potential abuse coming from government FORCED ‘mental health screeing’. The obvius worries are first who decides what ‘mental health’ is? We already have fascist types that are trying to discriminate against people who can fly simply based on their political affiliations and beliefs. What if I happen to KNOW the 9-11 official White House ‘conspiracy theory’ as it is given now is one of the biggest frauds perpetuated on the American people in my life. Is it possible or likely at some point as we follow Orwell’s vision that we might take the path of the former Soviet Union and declare disenters “unfit’ to get a job unless they relinquish what they feel is true? Would I need state *certification* to have full citizens rights? Would I be FORCED to take dangerous vaccines, have my children drugged by the state, like we ALREADY see is happening if they too come to know “TRuth”? In short is it wise to give a corrupt state even MORE power over our lives until if reforms itself and begins to show just a LITTLE honesty? That I think is one of the biggest concerns I have simply handing even MORE power and authority to The Beast that has a proven track record of endless homicide, deceipt, all manner of corruption, and helping to poison and sicken my fellow citizens. Would you really want something so corrupt to have even more control over your life? Please explain.
Thanks,
T.A.
Modern global warfare targets civilian populations, as does modern global economic strategy, and the resultant degree of devastation is evident in the deterioraton of the American middle class. Wages and salaries have not kept pace with inflation, and just
as modern war gets everyone downwind, so will the collapse of the U.S. economy
promulgate the decline of all the other major players in the global money endgame.
As dire as it is now, we must remember that we will regard present times as”the good old days” unless populations are able to ameliorate the predatory practices of mindless profiteering by the minority in “control.”
In what is to come the safest place to live in would be in Cuba,
why?……simple, Cuba has been living like WTSHTF for the past 40 years so that in the future there will be nothing new for them.
What happened in Cuba transpired over a period of years where here in the state it will happen in a matter of months.
Yes, I am from Cuba so that I have been there and done that and I know what I am talking about.
No matter what your thinking are of Chavez there is one thing that you must realize and and that is that the revenue from oil in Venezuela is going for the good of the people where here in the states is going into the pocket of a few.
It will be really bad in the near future……are you ready? I am.
“If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”… Ponce
To agree with {This American}, I would also show that this following weblink shows how a government can invoke the “law” of tolerance for a few, desiring their utopia model of “normal” on all.
This “progressive” socialized experiments venue Europe is getting out of hand.
No wonder the rational moderate muslims are rebelling….they don’t want this crap in their society either.
I know only about 5% of their society will go along with this, but once it creeps in, it will come another “tolerance” issue on lifesyles…..
What can I say?….. http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07073008.html
Americans were like animals when the war started ,they wanted war, and only war. nothing else would apease them then !
yet war is a last option scenario not to be taken lightly
sadly Americans that saw their kids go to war will see invalids return
no soldiers will return whole all will be sick,disgusted with life suicidal and many will be murders when they return
but theworse thing about the war is that it was fought to try and save america from finacial ruins
in the end they could not win Iran and russia want to sell oil in anything but USD
the NEO cons are mad men literally insane
what they dont understand though is even them with their lofty govt and lobby filled pockets will be paupers soon
even if you have a million usd it will only be worth pennies on the dollar
oct 1 we will find when the numbers are known to us that China has been selling USD the whole world will make a mad dash to the banks
what is unknown to AMericans is that this is a down turn in the markets or a cyclical event it is a day of the locust
a time when every American will be ramshakled
a time when Americans will beg in the streets to please take away the constitution and give us the spp and amero
you see
Americans are like children they cant behave take a look and jena and you will see racean issue still in 2007
in fact Americans can no longer have a country they are not responsible enough for that
they can not be trusted on economic policies they will sell junk as triple A papper knowingly
but the biggest reason of all AMericans can no longer run a country is they have been printing usd 24/7 in an effort to monetise their debts and this the rest of the world refuses to allow
SO Americans will be handed into the SPP and the Canadian constitution laid down over the AMerican constitution
and by god we will lay down the law
your machine guns and revolvers will be ground down into filings
Black water troops will patrol you comprised of international personel
those the resist will be shot on sight and rounded up and sent to concentration camps
your politicians will swear alegiance to the throne and your money will no longer be
legal tender the fed will issue Amero and you will have law and order
do not think this bleak scenario is that far from what is coming it is not far off the mark and not far from the truth
AMerica you act like school children still and will be treated as such
there is no such thing as an American
americans no such animal
there are black americans
there are white americans
there are colored americans
there are indian americans
there are jewish americans
there are intalian american
but there is no real americans
Simply speaking, in general it’s hard really to know what to say about a society that spends so much time, money and professional effort chasing toe tapping senators working for dates in mens rooms, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the incredible suffering and decay and death going on outside the shithouse walls.
Oh America, your priorities are skewed, your compass is lost, you will reap the harvest you have sown…..
T.A.
This is not the end of capitalism…however it may beckon a reawakening of the dangers of MERCANTILISM in which we have been living for quite some time now.
Pick up a book by one of the Austrians, or go even further back and read how all the Founding Fathers (with the exception of that fop Hamilton) warned us of the dangers of Central Banking.
Capitalism is about free choice, mutual cooperation and independent reconciliation. It is not about bailing out hedge funds and banks who make poor high-risk decisions; nor is it about following the arbitrary interest rate and inflationary practices of an elite group of bankers.
Sam Adams helped rally some angry men to dump some mercantilist tea into the Boston Harbor, after Parliament gave the British East Indian Co some monopolistic tax incentives to compete in the colonies. That is Mercantilism; a collusion of private and public interests.
Welcome to the Matrix people, lessons forgotten need to be relearned.
onewaratatime says:
“And if a socialist system is flawed, work to make it better.” Castro has had 48 years to “make it better”. He could have stepped aside years ago, held free elections and brought his country into the modern age instead of being mired in socialist isolationism at any price. Cathy Buckle writes a weekly article concerning the plight of Zimbabwe. Her computer keyboard is a sorry match for government guns and clubs. Tiananmen Square was a commendable effort, but 18 years ago!
Nothing is automatically the way any of us say it is, including you, including Chomsky!
Why do socialists always use municipal services as an example of ‘good’ socialism when the discussion concerns totalitarian regimes. No gulags in Russia? How do we know? Did anyone take a tour? If they were hidden… etc.? Maybe Putin put a sign on the front gate that said ‘Public Waterworks’.
Social Security is not a good example of ’successful’ socialism. It created a society of dependent individuals. Every person in a social democracy is a government dependent. Even the Scandinavians are now rebelling against their cradle-to-grave government programs!
If capitalism can not be “tamed” to become more compassionate, why would we think that the socialist bully can be tamed?
Why are libertarians now considered to be right-wing fanatics? Do they threaten the socialist-progressive agenda, the smiling viper, the snake charmer of government dependency?
“Socialism for the rich” and “capitalism for the masses” is not a “backhanded compliment indeed to the real character of socialism”. It is an indictment of such. The wealthy socialist government elite set up their own health care system because they sabotaged the efficient capitalist one and left the masses with the scraps of their own misdeeds!
Why do socialist elitists always degrade their conversation with comments such as “infantile reasoning” and “I don’t think that your mind will accept these arguments no matter what evidence is shown.” and “You and your right-wing mind cannot examine history on balanced terms and probably never will, but for the sake of others on this thread, I address your points.” Are these statements not: Haughty? Arrogant? Condescending? Patronizing? This ‘better than thou’ attitude is the same attitude I see as being inherent in the ‘progressive’ socialist philosophy and why I reject it!
We can compare the crimes and failures of socialism and capitalism forever and continue to go in the same conversational circles. We don’t have to choose between the best of two evils. Some elements of either system are workable. Why not set up a society that works and forget the ism’s?
You can find more details here,
http://www.confess.co.nz
Why not set up a society that works and forget the ‘isms’?
Good question. My quess is it’s often easier and less risky to debate philosophical generalities than to supply specific solutions.
quote Smythe- “As far as those who produce this website, you are fortunate they don’t delete or censor your sophmoric inanities”.
mmmm. Not to be to provocative but if this indicitive of the type of ’socialist’ idealism of inclusion that is being advocated here, I’d have to say it seems a bit ‘non-socialist’.
Why not let the free market of ideas compete here and as long as nobody is intentionally disrupting, which I don’t see is the case, let the best ideas surface. Is that too ‘Libertarian?’
Correction: The Iraq war(soon to be Iran,Syria and others) is not about oil. It is about ISRAEL! Let me know if you need historical data to back this up. Somehow,I think you know the truth though.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have gone through the discussion of this article so far.
And I see the partisans of capitalism and socialism go at it again, hammer and tong.
Each pointing out the flaws of the other’s philosophy and so on.
But there is an alternative to BOTH of these systems. It is called DISTRIBUTISM.
I am a contributor to two web logs dedicated to discussing current issues, in America and elsewhere, from this perspective. Said web logs also oppose the current economic and political mess that the current Administration has got us into — as well as it’s predecessors. We also know the horrors going on in socialist societies today, and know that is no solution to the current misrule.
There IS a legitimate “third way”. Check the Wikipedia article on DISTRIBUTISM, as well as the links on it, and think about what you read on it. Thank you.
I would advise every ’socialist’ here to read F.A. Hayek’s, ROAD TO SERFDOM.
Then I would like all the ‘Libertarians’ to concider this question; As Hayek was writing after 1913, he was, after all an economist by training; WHY DIDN’T HE ADDRESS THE SCAM OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE?
I challenge all of those who think that socialised ANYTHING is the answer, to read this book I have mentioned here and give some serious thought to the reasonableness of Hayek’s argument. Simply put, socialism MUST be centrally planned and managed. To be efficiant the managers have to include everyone in their plan–one size fits all. Buy all your clothes ‘one size fits all’ and see how you look, but you are going to have to live with it.
To the ‘Libertarians’: Privatization of EVERYTHING is not the answer either. Power and water, mass transit systems, schools, etc. all worked well in a true free market system, when they were administered locally. Central Planning is the devil in the machine. Privitized armies like Blackwell are a very good example of where the extremes of privetization can take us.–We aren’t talking theoretical “ism’s” here, this is on the ground stuff, right now, here today.
I am still for the model of the old republic. If we flush the criminals out of the Federal government, get the Constitution back as supreme law of the land; which would mean abolishing the Federal Reserve–post haste, I think we could put our house in order.
Robert I agree with ya, IMO if I had to name 5 things I think these wars–occupations really– are about I would sum up in no particular order:
Israel
Oil
Petrodollar
Military/Industry/Banker $$$
Permanant Bases
I would suggest too one go look at a graph of the Dow and notice the bottom in early March 03 and then days later when the U.S. went in watch Wall street go for the ride. Up, up, up and away, blue skies until the next war is needed to reinflate the balloon.
Wars are basically economic joint ventures at heart, always have been. Smedley Butler didn’t lie.
As for me arguing for or against capitalism/socialism the earlier posters simply misunderstand. I am only TOO well aware of the nastiness of what both have to offer and I really don’t claim to all embrace either one. As was said before I would simply like to see models on the smaller scale that have proven results, that won’t strip us of our ability of free choice, and that won’t FORCE us into things we don’t want to be a part of, or even try and coerce us. I dislike pushy salespeople selling bottled smoke.
I feel quite sure that if the benefits of ANY plan could be truly shown that people would be lining up to get in. I have little interest in debating macro philosophical models, as a bit of a pragmatist I simply say show us how in our daily lives this, that, or the other can be used to aid us all in meaningful ways. Ever wonder why most politicians talk in generalities and hardly ever provide specifics. I don’t.
I don’t wish to be forced to pay into an inefficient plan that first robs me of WAY too much money, next administers witch doctor harmful synthetics that rob me of my life rather than heal me, doses me with lethal radiation, lops off limbs and cuts out organs unnecessarily, tells me I’m nuts because I don’t believe liars, and then finishes me off and steals every last thing I have left. At least with a health care plan that I can CHOOSE I am not forced into this and I can see REAL healers if I choose and not be double billed.
I don’t see how anyone thinks Hillary’s plan is going to provide BETTER health care until the broken mainsteam health care stops making money it’s god and starts making HEALING it’s main function. Just one example. Reform the health care system first, then we can talk.
T.A.
Willy you’re absolutely correct, I would never argue that the privitization of EVERYTHING such as lifes necessities is a good thing, but neither necessarily is the socializaton of everything. Our state governor sold out much of the things such as the license office to cronie pals and now they often have ONE teller waiting on dozens. But as bad as this is when it was ’socialized’ we often only had TWO. So while one might suggest that was a 100% increase over privatized I find BOTH unacceptable. As a pragmatist I would say show me the PROOF which one can eliminate lines, provide the best service, and operate most efficiently. To put in bluntly they BOTH suck.
I think there is also as usual sterotyping in most all labels, that’s why though I have SOME libertarian ideals, I may also have some so called conservative and some so called liberal. I can argue for gun rights at the same time I argue against the nasty effects of prohibition. I don’t think abortion is very humane and in some ways I think it has a negative effect obviously on the child but on society too. But I would be hard pressed to arrest a young women and put her behind bars for her choice. I know young men that get women drunk ( or perhaps the other way around) and it ends in conception. How old is that? IMO I am all for HARM REDUCTION not just making up laws from some kind of irrational philosophy but for WHAT WORKS to REALLY reduce REAL harm. I would suggest something pragmatic like legal prostitution to take care of a NATURAL biological function something usually not considered a ‘conservative’ value. I happen to think drug prohibition is greatly HARMING society, not because I think all drugs are a healthy choice (though some natural ones CAN help people) but because as a pragmatist I see the HUGE negative impact that the worlds largest prison population does to individuals as well as their families. Much worse than most of the drugs themselves IMO.
So I think as I mentioned and as was mentioned above often there is a “middle path”.
I guess that’s why I more fully side with so called ‘libertarians ( if I HAD to choose a party) than I do with so called Dems or Repubs. They have had their chances and IMO they have failed to take America to the greatness that I KNOW is possible. They are in general as parties promoting just more of the same failed policies over and over ad nauseum.
So I add my voice to say
Ron Paul 2008
America’s BEST hope (and maybe last)
T.A.
I think most people have a gut feeling that we are headed for some very rough times
the powers that be have rode us off a financial cliff. The best thing to do now is get as much together as you can to make your life comfortable if the country crashes. If you can, get a set of the foxfire books. they have a lot of useful info. Get informed about how to grow a small garden. People survived the great depression by knowing how to survive. get camping gear, survival supplies. Seriously. The people who will fare best are going to be the ones who get away from population centers. In the depression, the people who fared the best were the ones who had a place where they could grow food or fish. In a depression, life will get pretty basic, shelter, food. Some people will do ok, and all the ones who dont will be trying to take away whatever they can from the ones who can.
My god are you wrong…What is Ron Paul going to do? Tell the Capitalist class to be nice or else? Destroy labor, and tell us that this economy is not zero sum, or reverse the tide of money flowing upwards at an alarming rate? Yeah sure. Vote for Ron Paul…I’m not sure what the hell he believes in but he seems content to privatize everything not nailed down, and screw working people even harder, while not going to war with Iran. The only thing positive about Paul is that he is a classical isolationist…big f’in deal. Look at Kucinich, he is against the war too, and for giving Americans the best health care in the world, and not pumping our tax money into the military industrial complex, plus he has a concrete exit strategy from the Middle East, which no republican will ever deliver on - evil bastards.
Hey “this American” what has Socialism done for America?
Hmmmm… The 8 hour day (which still isn’t enough when you are working to make some jerk who doesn’t give a rats ass about you rich), Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Protection, and END to child labor, environmental protections (THE EPA), public schools (under funded), the public library, the internet, and a true belief that all men and women are created equal, not just rich white property owners.
I challenge the libertarians to give us a detailed politico-economic explanation of how the Federal Reserve is what is destroying our country? What a reductionist, sorry excuse for the giant failure that Capitalism is – none of you can even explain it, you just parrot it like drones…read this book, read that book…shit, read one essay here, and debate a single thing without that dogmatic 1-liner you extreme right wing “freedom lovers” don’t seem to grasp yourselves.
Explain how your faltering economy isn’t making the globe so freaking hot with it’s out of control / irrational industry that the polar ice caps are at their smallest size in history…of course not caused by your band of hypocritical narcissists…Capitalism did nothing wrong, just greedy Capitalists, who would otherwise be wonderful, and benevolent if not for the Federal Reserve, and a handful of brilliant Jewish guys that were hired to keep the economy in some sort of “homeostasis”. Now we are 9 trillion in debt because the oil boys, the biggest boys inhabiting 20th century Capitalism are hungry for what’s left of the spoils…they want it all, and they are willing to step on anyone and anything to get it.
I didn’t hear all of you complaining when the Euro, and China wasn’t kicking our ass, and your crazy Capitalist cowboy didn’t get too hungry for oil, and scared you that nuclear war might be the only weapon left to preserve the “almighty dollar”. You were content to think Microsoft was going to let you float through life on silk sheets, and water beds while mindless “toned” women who probably married you for your money tended to the 4 floor estate with a 6 car garage homestead, equipt with a maid that looks down upon how spoiled you are, while raising your ADHD kids, because your bourgeois wives are so doped up on anti-depressants because this stupid economy can’t fulfill the human spirit, or make a person think to take some of their spare time to actually go out and help people in need, which actually just may give life some meaning… WIN WIN WIN….
All you over paid software designers do is spend your time sitting in traffic contemplating the notion that this silly economy of technological crap is the best human society has to offer. All of you libertarians seem to be suffering from a serve case of hedonistic, and narcissistic “The one who dies with the most toys is the one that wins” syndrome, and guise it with a sudden care for civil liberties, which hardly any of you raised objections about until a couple of years ago at best? On some sites I see many of you bashing the bill of rights, which even the Founding Father’s knew was necessary to protect the population from the iron fist of industrialists - at least to some extent.
Historically, (something you fail to factor in) Socialism has saved Capitalism’s sorry bottom (”line”) at every juncture in history, in which the pillars of this rabid mad dog economy of consumer bullshit has nearly toppled simply because it is too top heavy. Ideas borrowed from Socialism is the only reason the welfare state is so successful in Europe, although it can’t even escape the laws of Capitalist competition/accumulation and is now seeing it’s post World War II gains dwindle.
That is why FDR had to initiate the New Deal, to save the economy from a decade of despair. Even greedy idiots in FDR’s aristocratic class lacked the vision to save Capitalism and therefore accused him of being a Socialist, and a traitor to his class. In conjunction with military mobilization for yet another World War, (the only time we ever had full-employment) in which tens of millions of lives were lost, and many more shattered because Capitalists were fighting over markets AGAIN - World War 1 wasn’t blood soaked enough. This recipe put in place by FDR is the same logic the “genius” Henry Ford had to use by jump start his factories with the 5 dollar day, because unruly suffering workers, who constitute the majority of the world’s population were becoming too unruly to control by simply shooting them, and beating them over the head with clubs, etc. Therefore he figured out if you pay them more, they actually will work harder, and be less apt to make noise about their misery, instead of cutting their wages and calling them lazy after they built him up from nothing, but that didn’t last forever, as he wrote about the “international Jew”, and helped fund the rise of Hitler, which I know many here don’t raise any objections about. Hitler loved Henry, and would admire many Americans economic ideology today, if us pesky voices from the ashes of the concentration camp would just shut up and leave poor innocent Capitalism alone, so he wouldn’t have to raise his fist, kill union members, and communists, and then call it “National Socialism”.
You can’t change Capitalism because the DNA of the system is built upon competition, which is zero sum – Winner takes all, and screw anyone who doesn’t share it’s grand dogmatic ideological vision to suck the world dry in a never viral process to turn all living in nature into commodities, and ram it down societies throats (billions on advertising) until they know no other life than buying shit. You blame corrupt government yet fail to realize bourgeois government is a reflection of elite economic interests. Many people in America don’t like this “way of life”, or can’t imagine anything else. There is a stupid maxim that consumer demand produces supply, but if that were the case why do can’t you make it to your car without being bombarded by advertising? Simple. People wouldn’t give a shit about Ipods otherwise, or GPS phones, or whatever other geeky crap they are trying to sell us now, which is transforming us into a society of morons that resemble “the Borg” from Star Trek walking around with those idiotic wireless Blue Tooth head sets strapped to our money hungry heads. If Socialism weren’t enough to save you from Capitalism, then you needed John Maynard Keynes to come in an give Capitalism shock treatment due to the fact all the wealth of the upper brass stagnates because the rich, who own the lion’s share of the world’s wealth can’t circulate all of their money back into the economy, so it stagnates, and human progress along with it.
So what do we have here as a result, a culture of jaded cynics, who know nothing but “Americanism” which constitutes a weak economy, and a bloated military-industrial complex pumped up by trillions of dollars in tax payer money, while 46 million people have no health care, in a country which has the best facilities that our tax money can subsidize. You don’t care about that though…where is Paul on that issue? Bumble Fuck is where, with you guys…
You libertarians should turn to the neo-cons for help. They are the only one’s smart enough to know that in order for America to stay # 1, they need 200+ military bases all over the world, and a navy sailing in every ocean to protect their interests. You should be thanking the neo-cons for being as evil as they are, because without them American Capitalism would fall flat on it’s face, because it has no history of the ruling classes acting in an altruistic manner if it had no been necessitated by the potential of worker’s uprising.
Why do they need that oil?
The life-blood of the Capitalist system, and it’s productive machinery is oil and other forms of energy; it powers the economic machinery, and technology, that propels the socio-economic system forward, all the while creating a back draft that threatens to burn us all, as if Saddam threw a match into an Iraqi oil field.
Oil is so important because machines need energy to work. Machines are nothing but “dead-labor” without energy being pumped into them, in the same way our bodies rely on water. Therefore whoever controls the supply of oil is a strategic position to control the world.
Capitalists are keenly aware of how important energy is to their beloved machinery, and therefore they know best what resources are the least expensive to power them, and as you may have guessed the fuel that lights up their lives is OIL. It is safe to assume that if Sigmund Freud were alive today, he may conclude that the Capitalist suffers from an acute case of necrophilia when it comes to “dead labor”.
This unholy love affair with the machine (I say “affair” and not marriage only due to the fact that the businessman is notorious for his infidelity in all spheres of his life) stems from the fact the Capitalist doesn’t want to pay people, not because he has yet to read the “Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama, but because human labor is the most expensive resource among the factors of production, and in his myopic pursuit of happiness, property, profit, equity, whatever…(the terms have been known to be historically interchangeable) spends nearly all of his life finding new, and innovative ways of cutting costs, screwing consumers, and workers, all the while looking for new market opportunities everywhere - Most of these demented behavioral patterns condition the personality of the Capitalist in a way that makes me not want to have him over for dinner.
That’s why in times of recession, or “bust” the Capitalist lays off people first, but keeps the machines around, adding to the reserve army of labor, which in turn keeps those tentatively employed “workers” or “temps”—most of whom live without affordable healthcare—scared shitless that they will lose their job at any moment, due to the fact they can push the worker to the absolute limit, in a lab rat experiment of hyper-micromanagement to maximize productivity, and get the most for their money. The worker in the United States, and elsewhere in the 3rd world, probably has no union protection, or signed a document that says the employer may “hire or fire at will”, and he and you, in an unspoken language both know that there is a line of people sending emails, and placing phone calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week, falsifying their resume just a little bit better than you did, with the most prestigious new template they found on “Monster. COM” ready to replace your depressed butt at any minute.
As your mundane job slowly sucks the life out of you, you begin to toss around the thought in your mind; “Which was a less stressful or miserable life…Being unemployed, or employed? And then you think at least you can pay the rent now, and fear a stroke less, which sustains you just to work hard enough not to get thrown out on the street. Some of the more fed up “office folk” find high powered artillery weapons are fair pay back for the companies lack of appreciation – It’s evident things are a little fucked up in our fluorescent consumer paradise.
This is why the modern Capitalist “insources” cheap labor from India, or Pakistan for his “techy” endeavors, and outsourcers the production of less “skilled” or less labor intensive commodities such as sneakers, and sweatshirts to “free trade” zones, where he doesn’t have to deal with troublesome labor laws, and those fucking minimum wages that our schools tell us are bad for the economy.
It’s basically established that the Capitalist treasures profit above all, not because he was born a greedy bastard, but because he needs to produce faster and cheaper than the next guy, which eventually turns him into a greedy bastard. Excuse me for saying “him” most Capitalists post the industrial revolution are rich white propertied holding men, so please excuse the fact that I am not in the mood to write “PC”, or load up on facts pertaining to how you live in debt, or at best pay check to pay check, while he lives in opulence, and when he has a little heart attack on the golf course at 78 years of age, won’t send him into economic ruin.
In fact, times of crisis in the personal life of the Capitalist tend to be the most heart warming for him being most of his relationships up until then, have been cold business transactions, or opportunistic butt smooching by friends and coworkers. Now he can fool himself into thinking his family cares when they come to visit. After all, on the bottom, we all love our family? Right? I think so.
During these times, all of the Capitalists little grandchildren gather around, and the future entrepreneurs take turns kissing grandpa’s flat flabby ass the hardest so hopefully he will leave them a big chunk of change if he happens to croak quick, which is an underlying hope for the parents looking to upgrade to a 6 car garage, and a summer home the Hampton’s – “We Love You Grandpa!” and unlike my loser brother “I made the honor roll”. I’m not being cynical, or even hyperbolic here - this is the truth. If I really wanted to tell the harsher truths you may get too depressed and stop reading, so I am sugar coating much of this.
Excuse my crudity and cynicism, but your third way, going back to an age of Capitalism that never was, and never can be, is about the most naïve, and ahistorical world view I have ever heard. And the pathetic liberals stand in the middle delusional believing you can put democratic chains on a system that is a money hungry blood thirsty tyrant.
The next time a liberal thinks they can teach this violent criminal to love children, care for animals, and pick flowers, think again, history proved your wrong. This stupid Capitalist monster has crushed Marxism, and you have killed millions of us fighting for sovereignty and a different way. Where are the mass graves of the Soviet Union? All Communists have done is save the world from fascism, and all liberals do is sit back and judge, and let the two sides, one good and one bad, bleed each other white, or so the logic goes.
It seems that all of modern history’s contradictions are about to erupt like a furious Volcano; thereby shaking the earth like it’s never been traumatized before. The amount of crises boiling under the surface of our feet is increasingly getting warmer, and is therefore slowly melting away at our soles.
The current Capitalist crisis is an energy crisis, and nearly all layers of turmoil in the world today orbit around this fact. The Middle East is the battlefield, as is Venezuela (the world’s 5th largest oil producer), and both the middle-east region is so destabilized by the psychosis of the energy lunatics in the white house. Who do you plan to replace them with, how the hell can you stop the system from needing more profit to stay alive? Simple, no answer you can’t, and you can’t prove crudely, or scientifically how. You are impotent. This century belongs to Socialism.
When you factor in context, reality and history to Capitalist ideology the two are simply incompatible.
“blah blah blah….government….taxes…..forced relocation…kidnapping…Ron Paul”
I think i’ve summed it up here…
I wish you libertarians would read a little more about things you wish to project speeches about rather than building your political stances around whatever makes you feel insecure, most of the time you’re simply misinformed and missing the total picture on tihngs like helathcare and SS and what the majority of people are living like without these things
I call it objectivity
Wow that was a long rant.
Nobody has all the answers obviously, including me, you Dr. Paul or Dennis.
In my opinion I think the best headway can be made focusing more intently on fewer items and taking them in a rational reasonable ordered approach.
Let’s start small so as not to lose each other.
So let me say first, yes I like some of Dennis Kucinnich’s ideas. I feel he has integrity, honesty, and really cares. I read how he alledgedly took on Big Energy when it nearly crushed him and he stood his ground. He has my repsect.
I’m happy he also recognizes the economic reasons behind these invasions and occupations. That’s a great start and I commend him.
Too, he also seems to value the Bill of Rights as does Ron Paul. Cudos there as well..
You mentioned you’re not sure what Ron Paul believes in.
I would suggest before expending so much enery and electrons, to visit his website and get the story straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
I sense many of us want the same things. We want our country back, we want to be able to make our own decisions, in our own lives, and for the Elitists to butt out. Not likely fully any time soon but a noble desire, IMO.
Would you concur?
Too keep it simple these are a few things we might be able to agree on: (in general)
1- No more “Diabold type” rigged elections.
2- An end to these oocupations and to get our loved ones home
3- A comittment to upholding ALL of the Bill of Rights.
4- A stop to the financial hemoraging of our treasury
5- A reversal of the ‘Police state” mentality (see #3)
6- Returning government back to The people
7- Allowing citizens freedom to decide their own way (see #6)
8- Getting corrupt government out of our lives (see #5 and #3)
9- Ending prohibititon and the damage it does
10-Focusing on real solutions that provide safety NOT just control
Those are just some thoughts at random, some that overlap.
Do you find any of those objectionable. Do you find any you would agree with?
T.A.
“The Black Book of Communism” ought to make any proponent of socialism - or its end-game: communism - hide in shame.
In any case, study the psychology underpinning family dynamics - the inter-relational dynamics of father, mother and child(ren) - to learn from where every political/social/financial ideology is hatched; that is, to apply the theory, capitalism is masculinist while socialism is feminist, where both camps fight over how to run the household. For example, let’s apply the theory to at-large society, where liberals express the feminine ( mothering ) nature and conservatives, the ( fathering ) nature:
Generally, liberals are PASSIVE-FEMININE and conservatives are ACTIVE-MASCULINE (( we’ll ignore those “moderates” who’ll stand for nothing or for anything )), where the former exhibit passive traits on, for example, law and order (( bleeding-heart compassion for criminals; extreme leniency on matters of punishment; and “it’s society’s fault” not the perpetrator’s )) and the latter are active in keeping law and order by touting personal responsibility and requisite punishments for any transgressions.
So what are the specifics of Dennis’s “health care plan” that make admirers so sold?
Anyone?
Deacon, no offense but many “moderates” simply follows Christ’s admonition to be moderate in all things.
Buddhists might call it the “middle way”.
I simply call it not being an ‘extremist’.
T.A.
The apostle Paul spoke of following the “spirit of the law” as opposed to the “letter of the law”.
The Law mas made for man, not man made for the law.
Was the law wrong or right, when it arrested our predecessors for consuming a beer? Is it wrong or right now for allowing them to legally drink?
Was it the “rightness or wrongness” of the beer consumption itself that changed overnight or only society’s every changing view of “right and wrong”?
T.A.
Excuse the interruption. But has anyone here checked the Wikipedia article I mentioned earlier? The one about DISTRIBUTISM?
It will answer a lot of the concerns raised by BOTH the Socialists and Libertarian Capitalists in this - at times - heated discussion.
Do not brush this off. There is an alternative to BOTH Socialism AND Capitalism. Check out the article, click onto the links. Do a thorough reading of what you find there and remark on what you read.
Again, thank you for your time.
Jews did 911 and all world wars. Jews brought you Depression I via the Jew owned Federal Reserve Bank.
Now Jews will bring you Depression II and World War III.
The Jews created Bee Colony Collapse Disorder and one of their favorite weapons is starvation. Just look to Gaza and Iraq for a few examples. Jew Communist Boshevik Russia also comes to mind. Solshenitzen says Jews murdered over 200 million GOYIM there.
If you still live in a city, GET OUT NOW AND DON’T EVEN STOP TO LOCK THE DOOR. IT IS OVER.
Get your guns and ammo because they are going to reduce your numbers to a more controllable size.
Protect your children from Jew kidnappers who supply the Jew Ritual murder Passover Industry, as well as white slave trade, porno and snuff films industry.
Are you still sitting there watching sports and guzzeling beer and booze and pizza?
Sports is nothing but putting a ball in a hole or running circles faster than than some other physical low mentality type. If this is your entertainment you don’t have the sense God gave a goose.
Wake up or you will find a nameless grave is your destiny.
www.Jew-Crime.com
www.PatriotMilitia.com
THIS AMERICAN::
I was not able to get to my computer until late. I appreciate your reasoning and good will, and will attempt to provide a reply to some of the fine examples of problematica we face when we try to sort out systems. I will try to do that tomorrow, my work load permitting. (I’m working now two jobs to just keep my family in the same place we were 120 years ago. I’m sure this is the case with many households.)
Speaking for some of my colleagues on this site who work very hard and believe in the socialist ideal, I find your call for an examination of common ground between your tribe and mine worth exploring as civilized human beings, provided that such exchanges are fair, that both sides remain as open-minded as possible (no easy thing), and that our discussion is as honest as can be expected from admittedly imperfect creatures. Let the better argument and facts carry the day.
PATRIOT MILITIA: You dishonor the word “patriot” with your rampant hate fort Jews or “the other”— one of the longest-playing criminal stupidities in history. Your poisoned mind does not belong in this thread where many readers are honestly exchanging viewpoints, often heatedly, but nonetheless worthy points at a moment when our nation and the world stand on the edge of the proverbial abyss. All you have is a mind rotting with ignorance and prejudice of the most disgusting and contemptible sort. The reduction of the world’s problems to “Jews” is inane, as has been abundantly explained away in these very same articles and pages. Get that simple truth, if you can, through that dense brick that passes for a brain.
I am not saying this just for effect. I am not a bigot or paranoid. But sometimes in history people need to be held accountable. By accountable mean we need painful reminders of how this country came about. I want to see politicians, billionaires, and all those who watched them rape this country and do nothing; imprisoned or killed(preferably the latter). I do not wish for others to have to do the dirty work for me, I will pull triggers and tie nooses myself. The ultra-rich and the politicians who help them need to be reminded that if you don’t treat your serfs well that they will kill you and your family and everyone you ever did business with. These people need to be awakened to the fact that regardless if they made 100 million managing a hedge fund last year it will not protect them from pain and death and anarchy.
ONEWARATATIME,
Your even keel and accomodating tone in your last post seems IMO the type of outlook more posters could use in the various discussions I see going on across the net.
When discussing ideas and beliefs that appear to differ between individuals, obviously we ALL, including me, have the occasional tendency to turn up the volume, and while that has it’s time and place, often as you seem to allude to that can be counter productive.
While it is my nature to look more for common ground than uncommon ground between citizens, the need to remove barriers oddly enough can make us seek out and remove the uncommon ground first, so that the common ground can be more readily seen.
So in saying that, I would ask people to frame ideas not so much as a debate between “two-camps” of “your tribe and mine” (because we all know the manipulation caused from the so called Hegelian Dialectic and we want to stear clear of that) and ask instead where is it we really want to get to first. What is the common destination if there is one? To my way of thinking if the destination remains unclear, then the better way to get there will obviously be much harder to discern. It leaves us all driving around in circles simply arguing ‘philosopical routes’ to nowhere.
While in some ways using “them against us thinking” is unavoidable ,and I myself use terms like Elitists( which to my way of thinking are somewhat in a bit of a different camp) but I do that because I am unable to find much common ground at all. But among the citizenry, I think their IS much more common ground and one doesn’t necessarily have to believe in either 100% “socialism” or 100% “capitalism” or 100% “any ism” as far as I can tell. In fact I would hazard a guess by far the majority of citizens are quite a mixture of many different “camps” as I myself am. And as life progressives I may find myself moving back and forth through camps in a flexible non rigid style as events and circumstances change.
So again rather than to debate “isms” against each other, how about asking first what it is “we” all want, if anything at all? Then if we can answer that perhaps we can find a more unified way to arrive there.
T.A.
ROY F. MOORE,
I took your advice and looked up distributism and as with most types of human living arrangements found much I could like. It seemed at first glance to have components of communal living, mixed with VOLUNTARY (I assume?) tribal like small business guilds that come together willingly for the benefit of BOTH the individual as well as the larger unit. Mt first thoghts were “amish-like”.
While I only scanned it and may look more in depth, the small business unit aspect of so called capitalism is something I can appreciate while at the same time the benefits to a greater good also look enticing.
As I’ve said over and over and over IMO it is the abilty to choose our living arrangements that as a so called ‘libertarian’ I value highly and the elements of force, coercion, and one size fits all in ANY living arrangement that I find unappealing and suffocating. So I highlighted the parts I liked while not focusing just yet on the parts I don’t care for or am unsure of.
Again a key question is are these VOLUNTARY unions of citizens and how would society arrive at these cells of tribal units from where we are now. Does this advocate some entity “redistributing” what is currently owned. Obviously IF that were the case, by any kind of coercion I would likely find that VERY unattractive. Once again FREE CHOICE.
This sounds a bit too like it has components of the Essene type living practiced by Yeshua/Christ of which I find appealing. To my way of thinking these communal type arrangements don’t NECESSARILY have to destroy ‘capitalist’ componets and IMO can even still retain ‘work harder/smarter etc. receive greaty bounty thinking of which I also find appealing, not perse from the economic ‘greater bounty’ attainable but more so for the ’spiritual’. Some might feel elements of so called communism here, but the difference again is voluntary unions VS forced unions. A key tenet of so called free market thought IMO allows for a wide range of coop or partnership arrangements and in no way has to be antagonistic towards those choices. I also picture elements of Daniel Quinn’s book Ismael.
Distributism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Distributism, also known as distributionism and distributivism, is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by Roman Catholic thinkers…
According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of a few state bureaucrats (some forms of socialism) or wealthy private individuals (capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton’s statement: “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”[4]
Essentially, distributism distinguishes itself by its distribution of property. Distributism holds that, while socialism allows no individuals to own productive property (it all being under state, community, or workers’ control), and capitalism allows only a few to own it, distributism itself seeks to ensure that most people will become owners of productive property. As Hilaire Belloc stated, the distributive state (that is, the state which has implemented distributism) contains “an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number owners of the means of production.”[5] This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, etc.[6]
Distributism has often been described as a third way of economic order besides socialism and capitalism. However, some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by commitment to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (these being built into financially independent local co-operatives).
… localized and independent communities.
… co-operatives and other measures to aid the poor
[edit] Economic theory
[edit] Private property
Under such a system, most people would be able to earn a living without having to rely on the use of the property of others to do so. Examples of people earning a living in this way would be farmers who own their own land and related machinery, plumbers who own their own tools, software developers who own their own computer, etc. The “co-operative” approach advances beyond this perspective to recognise that such property and equipment may be “co-owned” by local communities larger than a family, e.g. partners in a business.
[edit] Banks
Distributism favors the elimination of the current private bank system, or in any case, its profit-making basis.
[edit] Social theory
[edit] The human family
Distributism sees the trinitarian human family of one male, one female, and their children as the central and primary social unit of human ordering and the principal unit of a functioning distributist society and civilization. This unit is also the basis of a multi-generational extended family, which is embedded in socially as well as genetically inter-related communities, nations, etc., and ultimately in the whole human family past, present and future. The economic system of a society should therefore be focussed primarily on the flourishing of the family unit, but not in isolation: at the appropriate level of family context, as is intended in the principle of subsidiarity. Distributism reflects this doctrine most evidently by promoting the family, rather than the individual, as the basic type of owner; that is, distributism seeks to ensure that most families, rather than most individuals, will be owners of productive property. The family is, then, vitally important to the very core of distributist thought.
“[10] To prevent large private organizations from thus dominating the body politic, distributism applies this principle of subsidiarity to economic as well as to social and political action.
[edit] Society of artisans
Distributism promotes a society of artisans and culture. This is influenced by an emphasis on small business, promotion of local culture, and favoring of small production over capitalistic mass production. A society of artisans promotes the distributist ideal of the unification of capital, ownership, and production rather than what distributism sees as an alienation of man from work.
[edit] War
Distributists usually use Just War Theory in determining whether a war should be fought or not.
… the ideal of the worker owning the means of production as much as possible…
… a group of artists and craftsmen… ‘Men rich in virtue studying beautifulness living in peace in their houses’.
… notable parallels between the Corporativists’ Corporations and the Distributists’ Guilds. But there are fundamental differences between the two philosophies, notably the secular Corporativists’ permissiveness towards big business and big government, and the ignoring of the principle of subsidiarity.
____________________________________________________________________
T.A.—So those are some of the thoughts I edited out that I think are worthy of a further look.
Having said that I am anything BUT a “purist” so as to with this idea of “distributists” I will always pick and choose the parts I like best, while spitting out the bad tasting ones IMO, and staying free and flexible and adaptable and not allowing rigid “systems ” to force me into a one size fits all conformity but rather conforming “systems” into my life as needs be. As I would hope we all would. Allowing room for constant change, and growth, and evolution.
Are you people ready to DO anything? When Bush invaded Iraq it became pretty clear that it no longer matters what you THINK. All that matters is what you are ready to DO. Everybody talks and nobody does anything, which is why that old phrase “All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing,” or something to that effect, has been bandied about so much in the last years as things continue to get worse. How is it possible that Bush is still in office? BILLIONS of dollars spent to destroy a country that did not attack us, poisoning them and our own soldiers with DU, committing future genocide on the Iraqi people … and we can’t get mercury out of our own childrens’ vaccines because it COSTS too much? We are so bizarrely twisted as a country that it boggles the mind. How is it possible that we can DO nothing to get better leadership? Where is it written that we just have to suffer through each day of a four-year term without any power to DO anything about it?
Get a group of people together and make a village and you all decide how it is that the individual members and the community as a whole will survive. You’re not going to make it by working for yourself only. And you’re not going to have anything like justice unless you actually CARE about the individual members.
TO “THIS AMERICAN”:
Thank you very much for checking out the Wikipedia article. There is also an archive of articles by the leading lights of Distributist thought.
It is the web log called “The ChesterBelloc Mandate”, and the link to it is here:
http://distributist.blogspot.com
There is also a Yahoo Distributism Group that also has vigorous discussions on current events and matters from this perspective. Right now there are discussions on insurance in a Distributist society, consumption taxes and so on.
I invite you and all here to check out both websites and find out more about Distributism.
And again, thank you and everyone else for your time.
ThisAmerican, I am with you in so many ways…both on the right to bear arms and the bogus drug war nonesense.
Still…there is this thing about socialism that few seem to get. Unless y’all are willing to check out Hayek’s book THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, you’re just not going to get it; unless you can simply ‘Grok’ the idea of what central planning means: STATE CONTROL is what it means, CENTRAL STATE CONTROL.
AntFranny, how many TVZombies have you been able to snap out of trance? I’m serious, do you have a technique that actually works? How can we organize into little villiages when everyone we talk to ‘flatlines’ with the first mention of reality?
I live in a little town in Georgia, where everybody believes in THE BORN AGAIN BEAST. These people don’t know anything about history, civics, the nature of political power in the 21st century–nada, nothin’,zip. Having a serious conversation with any of them is like talking to a brick. “If it wuz upta me I’d just nuke the whole damn place and be done with it.”–one of my co-workers on the Middle East. This is a common sentiment in these parts. The only people here I can even talk to are from somewhere else.
This site is getting long on wind, so I won’t say much else, except for Good Luck Everybody!
WillyWhitten:
Willy, whatever else you do, always come back to this forum generously offered by these editors who seem to have infinite tolerance (as we am afraid are toward their postings!) toward all points of view, including many which are clearly at loggeheads with their personal beliefs. In my view this place only bans a handful of perspectives that are truly beyond the pale in cultivated ignorance, hatred and sheer olympian stupidity.
I wanted to tell you that I understand quite well your sense of isolation (as probably many readers here do since they face similar conditions). Decent, intelligent human beings have often stood alone or in ludicrous minorities against tidal waves of ignorance and fanaticism. But you have brothers (and sisters) in this informal community of readers and writers. Let the pages of Cyrano be your home, as they have become mine, and I have dwelled for a long time in mental and emotional isolation. Being a thinker in a deliberate dumbed down nation (another crime to put on the tab when the New Nuremberg starts) is to condemn yourself—at least momentarily— to reside in a painfully small region of society. But better days may come—the product of our stubborn resistance to the forces of backwardism and indisputable evil. So stay around and teach us about your experiences in your area, as you did in your brief post above.
And, in any case, keep coming back.
Exactly Publius,
These neo-KKK need to crawl back into the hole of history where they have long been buried. Nobody needs to listen to that trash - it’s pure idiocy. And yes American, there is such thing as a “stupid opinion”.
I don’t want to necessarily dominate this thread, but I find the return comments quite interesting and worthy of a few more words.
ANTFRANNY– I recall being on a “spiritually inclined” web board years ago right after 9-11 when at the time I was quite ready and pushing to ‘do something’– (legally)– in response to those whom we all KNEW were REALLY behind 9-11.
At the time I FELT some of the others were quite lame there as they couldn’t come around to my sheer need/desire to try and do something physically or otherwise. They appeared like the smiling monks one sees sterotyped whom I thought at the time simply set around and comtemplated their navels as the old saying goes and weren’t of much value to ‘the cause’. They appeared very wise and intuitive in personal matters but at the time I couldn’t relate to there appearance of apathy. Over the years and much reflection later I have come to believe THEY were doing EXACTLY what THEY needed to do then, even though they might not have appeared to be doing what I thought they needed to do.
I am not sure if that will sound hollow or make sense, but to take off from that in a slight twist, sometimes I think the thing those of us that want change might want to consider doing is simply this—-not doing. I am not advocating not doing ANYTHING in the “buddhist” sense perse exactly (simply using it for illustration) but in more of a way that maybe ties back in to Roy’s ‘distributist thoughts’ and also ties back into Daniel Quinn’s Leavers in his book Ismael.
Sometimes I think, like Christ’s Essenes, our choices of what to do (or not do) may be quite limited at least for the moment and may simply allow us ‘not to do’ as a very first step, to simply share ourselves, and to make sure FIRST we are not just simply adding to ‘the problem’. I might suggest ,without sounding like too much of a cliche, that the logical place to start would be in our immediate circle of influence and work outward. Is there anything there, we can work on first that has been left unfinished? I know there is for me.
I can’t speak for anyone else’s life, but as for my own I am still struggling and learning to get where I need to go and be, and secondly working with my immediate own world, familiy, extended family, neighbors etc. to TRY daily to be a proactive force in what I feel is an evolution. And to prepare.
In some ways it’s like wanting to be a hand or an arm of the body but first realizing we have to form the cells correctly and in harmony in order for the hand or arm to come into being. Then perhaps we can join up with another hand, an arm ,find some feet, lungs, eyes, head and become one day a whole body. I hope that doesn’t sound too bogus, it’s just an off the cuff attempt to try and relate in an abstract way where I’m at for now.
To get back to specifics though as to doing or not doing, in a more earthy sense I am trying to become more sustainable, use less, buy less, go less, etc. in short to not FEED the very BEAST that I know may someday devour me. To work more on relationships, increase my own knowledge, wisdom (tough going), ability to share, tolerance (for most things) and generally radiate outward. To be a light and a help to those near as much as I am able at this stage of my life.
That perhaps is all I’m capable of at the moment. Perhaps tommorrow may be different and I will be called to take a firmer stand of some sort and apply things in a more physical sense.. If and when that calling comes, I hope I have prepared sufficiently to meet it.
One last thought I learned a concept the other day some may recogize called the Fourth Turning. While I have some knowledge of various cycles, this idea on cycles was very thought provoking. While I am unsure of it’s precision, I would intuit it’s overall theme might have some relevance. If it is indeed correct you nor Iwill have to work exceedingly hard to produce big change. Big change is on the way like a tidal wave regardless. What we WILL have to do is prepare as best as possible, adapt, and perhaps pick up the pieces once it’s said and done and a new cycle starts. If one is not familiar with this concept I suggest google Fourth Turning. Don’t expect to agree with everything there (or here) I simply say intuit possibilities and likely outcomes.
All for now,
T.A.
Publius Gracchuson, I appreciate your reply to my post. Let me introduce myself briefly, as I have been attending this forum for a couple months, and do intend coming back when opprtunity arises. I am an artist, a sculptor. contrary to what some seem to think, I am not an upstart (some lawyer I had an exchange with here kept calling me “kid”, assuming I am a young person(?) I have been studying ‘deep politics’ for close to 35 years; daily, for hours each. I am an original thinker. I never went back to school after graduating from high school…I left HS pissed off because intuitively I KNEW they were lying to me about almost everything. I fell in love with the Declaration of Independence in the 6th grade, and have never lost that love…sometimes I almost feel like I can almost ‘channel’ Jefferson.
I once considered myself a Buddhist (1960s) until I was reading a text on the various Buddhist sects. I was in bed at the time, after several chapters I put the book down in disgust and thought out loud, “this is as stupid as all the Christian churches”–And I apologize to all of you Christians if this insults you, but I don’t buy it, that’s all there is to it–at any rate, there was the dresser mirror accross the room. I saw my reflection in it and had a strange thought: I heard my inner voice say, “Oh, there’s that animal”…
Suddenly EVERYTHING turned ‘negative’ visually, then positive, then negative in a pulse, maybe three times, and a huge breath came into me. I fell back into my pillow, my arms falling across my chest…It was like falling into a pool of bright white light. It is hard to describe in words, the sensation…It was ‘like’ utter peace, and at the very same time a thrill, like being in a roller coaster right on the crest of a plunge.
I don’t know how long I lay there like that. What I do remember is hearing that inner voice again, it was saying, “You did it! You are there!”–and then I wasn’t. I sat up in a state of absolute wonder. I knew what had happened, but it seemed almost hubris to think it. There was no dogma, no message in human tongue, no instructions, no certainty as to the ‘way to go’, just the experience of the Light.
I know this experience has had a great impact on me, my thinking, my capacity for tolerance, my capacity for compassion. As an artist I have always been intuitive, but now it seems…well, uncanny at times.
I can be harsh in my critiques at times. I am not affraid to speak my mind. And I hope those who disagree with anythhing I say, have the courage to confront me with reasonable critiques of their own. Because, I will be back. Thank you for this forum.
Dear This American,
Thank you for addressing me. I have been the lone female voice in this long list of intellectualizations and have noticed that no one is keen on the Amish or appreciates their Earth-friendly, shared, low tech lives. Oh well. I try. I pretty much live that way myself although I am not Amish. I put $10 worth of gas in my car once every two weeks, no matter what the price of gas is. I pay more, I get less, I drive less. Basically I’ve more or less dropped out of American culture and live a very simple, small life while every one around me buzzes around with their cell phones and high consumption and calling me stupid for the way I live. Not that that will stop me. It won’t. It makes me sad that no one is curious about how I can live the way I do and be happy with it, wanting less, having less. I have a lot. I come from pioneer stock, from people who had nothing, who built what they needed, lived pretty good lives and definitely had better food that they grew themselves. If they could, so can I.
As Buddhist as I am myself, and as calm a life as I live pesonally, I do get angry at what I see to be footdragging from the people with the power and the money who could do some good in the world but just don’t seem to be able to get their heads on straight. I keep wondering what the auto industry has been doing for the last 40 years and why it is so difficult to do anything good in the world on those larger scales. I am doing good on my own property, but the ocean of change needed is very large. I am tired of being lied to and tired of people not opening their mouths to speak against the things they know are wrong. I have joined up with a group that is fighting the railroad that wants to build an inland port on the farmland at the start of my beautiful country road, a mile from me. I’m appalled by the people all around me who say “We can’t do anything about it.” I’ll camp on the tracks to keep them from building here.
Maybe it is because I have an immediate fight that needs to be fought that I have stopped contemplating my navel recently and am ready to speak against the wrongs done to our environment, the animals, and people. The brutality of my own government appalls me. At least speaking is something, but I really believe change will require a bigger doing. And nothing beats a little organization. Look at Jena. It’s an inspiration and it got news coverage too. I’m for Gandhian civil disobedience and protest. In that regard the Mexicans put us to shame. We should have been on our feet and in the streets over our stolen elections instead of having intellectual discussions.
Before I raise my bloodpressure any further, let me say that I am not a basically political person. I am basically a spiritual person and approach most of life that way. But there are times … when the spirit leads me to stand up. And if that is all I do, which is what Gandhi lead people to do, it is more than nothing.
Peace and love
Hey Kevin, the beatles suck, and so does your post. No more wars for Israel, and Neocons out of the US. Better yet, hang em from the nearest tree for killing all those WTC innocents.
I don’t know about Thomas Paine, but wouldn’t surprise me if Chief Seattle and other Chiefs were laughing from the Great Beyond as your world grows more & more insane with each passing second of time.
God knows you people don’t have any real solutions concerning anything & all your world will do is become an even more greater Hell upon the Earth.
I am just thankful the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a Representative Republic, Constitutional Republic, nor a Democracy.
Your Nation is Rome reborn & your nothing more than modern day Romans with your Senate, taxes, and mighty worldly armies upon the Earth.
Perhaps you so lost in your sins of Pride & Vanity as well as your Greed you can’t figure out it isn’t all about you, & world?
Perhaps you don’t even know your Nation no longer exists. All that exists now is the New World Order?
If you even understood in the least the Israelites were a Tribal People who asked God for a King because they wanted to be like the other Nations out of their envy of the other Nations.
God told them a King would enslave them, but God knew in their hearts they didn’t want what he wanted for them so he gave them a King. They eventually ended up with both King Herod’s and the Caesar’s of Rome.
You might remember the Israelites rejected Jesus, the Spiritual King, shouting their King was Caesar and they had no other King.
Once again Israel is like the other Nations, and once again their King is Caesar but this time in the form of your Nation with your Nation more than quite possibly being Mystery Babylon or the Beast of Revelation with your False Prophet Religious Leaders who Worship the Beast & the Image of the Beast thinking this Beast is doing God’s work when it is doing the Devil’s work.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of transplanted European Americans think God worships them and their America as they seem to worship themselves & their America.
Would be quite ironic if you are Mystery Babylon or the Beast of Revelation.
You don’t have any solutions just the same old babble & more babble.
All those that share of themselves here, who they are, what they are thinking, where they’ve been and where they are going/ doing, a big cudos. With every post I see more and more of us here have FAR more in common than not.
So let me get back to the so called topic at hand and add a few additional thoughts, simply as I see it, and maybe we can get the comments of those who sponsor this site.
Diving right in, first I have to say in regard to those that love deciding how we will live our own lives free from the DICTATES of others, there is a WAR going IMO to wrest control from us of that ability to make those same decisions. I too love Jeffersonian thought, his love of LIBERTY and his disdain for the jackboot placed upon the neck of the citizenry by kings and tyrants. From what I see this theme seems to resonate with most all of the latter posters.
It’s not that we don’t or wouldn’t want to enter into hopefully VOLUNTARY arrangements for the so called ‘common good’ (if we can determine what that really implies) again it’s how best to get there and at what PRICE.
I’ll say it flat out, IMO groups like the CFR and all those they place at the head of our government are TERRORISTS. To give these people more power over our lives when they have the abysmal track record of failure IMO is insanity. They are working night and day to undermine any last bit of ability of citizenry to make choices for themselves, openly hostile to the Founders vision of LIBERTY and show their Elitist leanings with most every word that issues from their mouths. In short they seem to openly admit they think THEY know best what types of living arrangements citizens should and will engage in and they are going to FORCE this vision of a complacent, dumbed down, subserviant, MICROCHIPPED, 24/7 monitored, spiritually destroyed, physically weakened, financially bankrupt flock of sheeple drones onto the people.
It can be seen IMO it matters not whether one is a so called Dem or a so called REP both of these parties have ben hijacked for decades by the CFR type elitists to wrest control from the citizens both of national sovereignty and individual sovereignty.
When one speaks of isms, and perhaps thinks “socialism” in the form we now think of it might be a good thing, I have to ask a couple of questions. Are we to believe this form of ’socialism’ is going to be implemented and administered by those rich Elitists that made their HUGE fortunes from CAPITALISM? Seems a bit counter intuitive. If they value socialism perse why did they use capitalism to advance themselves. Is it again the do as I say not as I do syndrome, the infamous two sets of laws scenario? Isn’t it really a smoke screen for their OWN personal enrichment and control?
And again if that is the case why is paying into a FORCED insurance system to rich CAPITALISTS to administer socialist plans a better plan that citizens simply coming together and VOLUNTARILY pooling their resources together for a common good? Wouldn’t it be better to have arrangements that cut out the syphoning off of a huge piece of the pie by “middlemen”? Is this a “for profit” type of “socialism”? Is that really socialism at all? It seems rather like mafia extortion.
I’ll keep it short,
comments?
T.A.
Shadow Dancer– Quote ” You don’t have any solutions just the same old babble and more babble”.
mmmmm. So can you more clearly lay out “the problem”? And what was your own “solution” again?
thanks
Shadow Dancer,
Gosh…I certainly like the idea of the Great Spirit more than the maniac ‘god’ Yahweh…
Too bad those missionaries left such a big impression on the native peoples.
I think there are many here who realize that it’s all over but the screaming for the US.
The US as the new world version of the Roman Empire is pretty much a given. I think most here would agree.
I also think that most here would agree that the scam of the CFR, Round Table Groups, the international banking elites, the Zionazis, the Commie Pinko sluts, the Illuminati, the underground Nazis, the Reptilians, or WHATEVER you want to call them–that their plan is reaching fruition right now. In many ways it is a done deal. Or like you said, our nation is already gone.
I can only say this: It’s not over ’till it’s over. Nothing is determined–all is in flux. Hey, Fairy Tales can come true, it can happen to you…if your young at heart (Ask Sinatra).
Defeat is only total when defeat is accepted.
This American,
Yup, yup and yup! It’s not like these things aren’t right in our own face, but this is the main message of that book by Hayek, that I have mentioned several times. It is nice to have the argument layed out in a cogent, step by step fasion. That is the reason I promote the reading of THE ROAD TO SERFDOM. The only problem is with the books ‘reputation’, the copy I have comes with a forward by that fascist fuck, Milton Freidman–the Republicans abscounded with Hayek in the mid 50s.
I would not presume to teach…I’m just asking questions and making suggestions here; but have you studied Hegel at all? Do you understand how that dialectic works–do you see it in action? It seems that most of us here realize that the ‘Two Parties’ in this ‘System’ are merely two teams under the same management–that is the Hegelian Synthisizer in play. Hegel was one of those Austrian Illuminati agents–the opposition to the American Revolution that began as a direct result of the Declaration from America.
Rothschild, the Crimson King…yes, yes! 21st Century Schizoid man…it is wonderous how art antisipates reality! (Maybe it was before your time(?) I speak of a music album from the 60s by Robert Fripp, KING CRIMSON) Please bear with me, I am an intuitive as much as a rationalist…sometimes the flow of consciousness comes over me.
Anyway, before this turns book size–I want to mention Anthony Summers. Read EVERYTHING this guy has written, but especially his book on Skull & Bones; THE SECRTET ESTABLISHMENT. It is in PDF on the web for free. This is deep deep history, well documented, and a great exposition against the real enemy here. Don’ miss it.
My reply: “Richard on 23 Sep 2007 at 1:03 pm” has the added words “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” at the top. It has been two days and it still says “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” What does that mean and why is it being moderated? If I go to the web site and the article “Recession is Too Mild a Word” on another desktop or another computer, my “23 Sep 2007 at 1:03 pm” comment is not there; the last comment I see is “Willy Whitten on 23 Sep 2007 at 9:14 am”. After 68 comments in three days, why are there no other comments posted in the last two days and why has my comment not been posted to computers (or desktops) other than my own?