Why do Americans hate Socialism/Communism?

EDIT: Wally said it better.

Originally posted by FREEwoman
I can't believe how many people on this site think socialism and communism are wonderful - I guess none of you fared too well in history class :/

What history would that be exactly?

The workers revolution in Spain that increased productivity by 20%, housed and fed everyone, improved their cities infrastructures?

Everyone who believes that capitalism (the real thing - not the corrupt system/gov't we have now) is the best system - all of you can live, let's say, on the east coast of the US. These are the people who value small gov't - for the people, self-responsibility, keeping the fruits of their own labor, charity on their OWN TERMS, as well as HONESTY and TRUTH.

The real thing? Do you even know what that is? Capitalism is not your government. Capitalism does not guarantee you a good government, and it doesn't guarantee you freedom, only economic freedom if you are one of the lucky ones. Capitalism is not small government. Capitalism is not keeping the fruits of your labour. Your labour is exploited, and most of what you produce is taken by the private owner in profit. In a socialist economy the profit goes back to the workers, which will increase your standard of living.

Socialism is not charity. Charity is a reaction to the unfair system of capitalism. In a socialist system you will have to work just like now the difference being is the way the money created is distributed. With out the private owner (the capitalist) the profits made would go to the workers.

Socialism, in it's traditional and true definition, means "the workers democratic ownership and/or control of the means of production". Such a definition implies that rather than a government bureaucracy for managing such means, there is a focus on highly democratic organisation, education and awareness, and every individual is encouraged to become an active, rather than passive participant in that which effect their lives. Only the workers themselves bear the knowledge of what their own freedom and liberty means, and only they know what is best for themselves, ultimately. Advocates of the state, be they on the left, or the right, have repeatedly defined the meaning of "socialism" to mean arbitrary rule by a set of "leaders", or a political con-game in which socialism is no more than capitalism with a few token adjustments for bearability.

flag.blackened.net...

All those who believe that sharing the wealth is the answer (communism/socialism) - you all can live on the west coast of the US. These are the people who have no problem sharing the fruits of their labor with others, who may or may not have earned those same fruits. These are the people who SCREAM for the government to REGULATE the economy, finance, education, etc. - and especially PERSONAL LIFE ISSUES. These are the people who want more and more laws created in the name of 'protection' and 'charity'. Well, you know who you are.

Why should a private owner take the majority of what is produced by your labour? Don't you think it would be more fair if you took a bigger piece of the pie you help produce?

More laws are only required because capitalism is an unfair system, and most of the laws are designed to protect privilege, and allow small groups of people to exploit larger groups of people for personal gain.

I live on west coast and I fail to see why you think people here support socialism, they may be more liberal but socialist, or even left wing, they're not. I am as much an outcast here as a socialist than I would be on the right coast.

Anyway, if this experiment were to actually happen, it would be the best day of my entire life. I would certainly be on the east coast - and I would be thrilled to FINALLY be in a place where the government is small and for the people, therefore unable to be corrupt.

Again small government is a myth. It's not the government that is the problem, it's the private ownership of the means of production (capitalism). Government is just a tool, and is used by those with power and privileged to maintain the status-quo in order to maintain the capitalist exploitative system that keeps them in power.

Where the government does not stick its nose where it doesn't belong - such as in the economy, healthcare, education, etc. Where I would be free to learn about, become and DO whatever the hell I want (as long as it does not infringe on another's rights). Where all substances are legal and usage relies on SELF RESPONSIBILITY. Where dishonest, or just plain crappy, businesses fail because no corrupt government is going to bail them out! (This allows better, more innovative and equipped companies to fill that gap - naturally.) Where the fruits of my labor are not STOLEN - for any reason. Where I am responsible only for the well-being of myself - no one else.

Socialism requires no government, whereas capitalism does. Capitalists need the government to protect their assets, to protect their exploitation of labour. It's a myth that capitalism is smaller government, as socialism requires NO government at all. Your form of government is nothing but a King and his army.

It is recognized that there are authoritarian systems and behavior, distinct from libertarian, or non-authoritarian ones. Since capitalism's early beginnings in Europe, and it's authoritarian trend of wage-slavery for the majority of people (working class) by a smaller, elite group (a ruling, or, capitalist class) who own the "means of production": machines, land, factories, there was a liberatory movement in response to capitalism known as "Socialism". In almost every case, the socialist movement has been divided along authoritarian, and libertarian lines. The anarchists on the libertarian side, and the Jacobins, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, and reformist state-socialists on the authoritarian side. (And liberals more or less split down the middle.)

There was also a movement called "Propaganda by deed", around the late 1800's to early 1900's, in which some anarchists (Such as the Italian Anarchist Luigi Galleani (1861-1931)), believed that violence was the best strategy for opposing the state. This proved a disaster, alienating anarchists from the general population and exposing them to negative characterizations by the press... the "bomb-toting anarchist" is for the most part a creation of the corporate media- before this stigma anarchism was recognized as an anti-authoritarian socialist movement.

Many anarchist groups and publications used the word "libertarian" instead of "anarchist" to avoid state repression and the negative association of the former term. Libertarian Socialism differentiates itself from "Anarchy" as a movement only in that it specifically focuses on working class organisation and education in order to achieve human emancipation from the fetters of capitalism.

They would finally learn that nothing in life is FREE. That you have to EARN everything. That taking someone's earnings for a good cause is still STEALING.

Again you prove you fail to understand what socialism is. It's not free stuff from the government. Socialism does not require government. Socialism is not the welfare state.

We are robbed by the capitalists every day. Your labour keeps them wealthy.

That the more power you give to a government, the more CORRUPT it becomes. That there is no INCENTIVE to work if you think everyone else is going to do the job for you. That you are not FREE if the government is controlling every aspect of your god damned life!

Again socialism is not government. Socialism is a system that was created as an alternative to capitalism and overbearing government, controlled by the capitalists for their benefit.

Anarchism is traditionally socialist. How can that be if socialism means big government? Socialism is an economic system that puts the power in the hands of the workers as apposed to a private individual or entity.
The planet and it's resources belong to us all, no one person should have the right to monopolize resources and exploit people by keeping those resources artificially scares to make themselves wealthy, at the expense of most of the rest of the planet (including the planet itself).

We have the technology and resources to feed and house everyone, yet 80% of the world lives on less than $10 a day. How is your capitalism working for them?

www.globalissues.org...

The rich poor divide is getting wider, if your capitalism was working for people shouldn't it be getting narrower?

I sincerely wish people were able to see the bigger picture in this life- an ability that I am blessed (cursed?) with.

Oh the irony! The only picture you see is the one you've been conditioned to see. You are nothing but an expert on what the state has conditioned you to believe.

Originally posted by nenothtu
It has the added advantage of taking the Federal Reserve entirely out of the loop, and I like that notion a lot. If we can't twist their arm hard enough to make 'em abolish the Fed, the next best thing to do would to be to make the Fed entirely irrelevant as far as possible.

Hehe, imagine paying taxes with it.

Inter community trade would be an entirely different thing. There would need to be some sort of super-currency or similar system for inter community transactions, or else the external community would have to redeem the local currency within the local community,which could get a bit cumbersome.

I imagine an intercurrency one hour note that's standard. Everyone can buy in, trade, buy out. flawless.

I can see how it could be made to work with a little tweaking, and the look on Bernanke's face when he realized he had a tin cup full of "foreign" labor dollars at the end of a hard day of panhandling (which would be the outcome of the Fed being made irrelevant, one could hope) would be priceless.

Wouldn't it! They'd just try to tax it. But, I don't think you can tax labor, so it won't get them anything.

I'm not quite as comfortable with the systems that use centralized ledger entries instead of a scrip, though. That introduces a third party into an essentially private transaction. Third parties are notorious for finding inventive ways to skim their cut of the action out, which is one of the problems with the Fed to begin with. The folks keeping the ledgers would amount to being "bankers", and I'm thoroughly uncomfortable with banks and bankers. They are part of the problem to me, and no part at all of the solution.

Me either. The less people who have a hand in the processes the better off we'll be. I'm glad you like the idea though. Enjoy your rest and I look forward to your response.

Originally posted by AdAbsurdum
EDIT: Wally said it better.

edit on 6-12-2010 by AdAbsurdum because: (no reason given)

Oh no! I just stared your post. Not sure I said it better, I thought you made some really good points.

Originally posted by Wally Hope

Originally posted by AdAbsurdum
EDIT: Wally said it better.

edit on 6-12-2010 by AdAbsurdum because: (no reason given)

Oh no! I just stared your post. Not sure I said it better, I thought you made some really good points.

Well, crap! I felt I got a little too ambitious and over extended myself. You have been handling the randoms really well and I thought you said it better. I'll stay focused on the over all implementation of the theory since you are doing better than I at refuting the revisionism.

Also, I'd appreciate it if you chimed in on what I've got so far worked out with Nenothtu. What do you think?

Originally posted by AdAbsurdum

It took being smacked in the head with George Bush to ram that realization home...

I think this is where a large portion of America woke up. This is what kicked off the push for "Change" that people were still fooled into believing Obama would provide.

I'm also noticing a lot of Obamites waking up to the same realization lately, which tells me that I wasn't too far off of the mark. It just seems to take your "own guy" making a travesty of the office to shake some thought loose.

The power mongers exist in either system. But I argue that communism allows for more checks and balances. Look at the industrial revolution. Capitalist countries employed children as young as four years old. It took the people demanding intervention to put a stop to that. We also have the 8 hour day, vacation days, health insurance, etc. thanks to economic intervention. A "free market" isn't anymore free than a Russian gulag.

It is easy for us to look east and understand the failings of State Communism, our media and government went to great lengths to educate us as to it's failings; but, we don't have the same kind of information about the retardation inherent in capitalism. It took Bush and all this bailout nonsense for America to even see things from the socialist perspective and even now people are still opposed to socialist views because of some sort of xenophobia that I can't even begin to understand.

The xenophobia stems primarily from the large-scale implementations of socialism that we have witnessed. The problems inherent in capitalism were harder for us to see, since we were on the inside of it looking out, and there are those who had a vested interest in keeping us from seeing the larger picture in a head-on comparison between the two. The same was true to a certain extent in the old USSR. They also had their campaign to demonize capitalism vs their own system. I've seen the propaganda posters that were sometimes used there during that time. They showcased legitimate gripes against capitalism and the "western" system (I still see the USSR as just another "western" system, rising from a monarchy as it did). As with all good propaganda, our own included, it starts with facts and legitimate gripes against the "other", and applies spin to make a point. They, and we, showcased and stressed the "bad" in the the other system, and ignored the good, hoping that no one would notice, thus building up a skewed picture that was passed off as the reality of the situation Propaganda based entirely on lies never has the same impact as that which is spun-up from a grain of truth.

I think, during those days, that most westerners had a Kafkaesque view of the USSR that saw everything there as all hardship and no joy at all. Most of us probably even thought, without really thinking, that everything on the other side of the Iron Curtain was entirely black and white, shades of gray, and that those poor folks had not even any color in their visual world at all! Now that we are ON the other side of the Iron Curtain, we at least realize that they could see in color!

I think it's important that we distinguish between politics and economics. Communism and capitalism are purely economic models. My argument is that the problems with the communist countries we know all to well are not economical, they are political. The problems with the Western world are both economic and political.

Assuming we could out the corrupt members of our current administration and get the country back on track, I argue that we would only be buying us time until we are right back were we started at best and only facilitate a faster rising of the Corporate State at worst.

This is where we differ, I suppose. I see the problems here as political. In both cases, I think, it was a problem with the political being allowed to intermingle with the economic to too great a degree, to the point where they became inextricably intertwined. In socialism and related systems, you had a central planning committee that politically directed the economy with far too much micromanagement, leading to a State Corporation, and here we have the opposite, with the economic model taking far too much managerial control of the political, leading to a Corporate State. Just as Church and State are separated here, I believe it would help to insulate Economics from State, with appropriate barriers not to be crossed. I'm developing a line of thought where State involvement in economics is restricted to coining and distributing the economic tokens, with the local people deciding just how to employ them. The only other economic functions of the State would then be preventing monopolies, either State OR Corporate monopolies, facilitating negotiations between lower order polities (not to be confused with setting internal economic policy FOR them), and enforcing the barrier between Politics and Economy otherwise.

I see the function of the State as limited to matters of law and order, and negotiating between polities, not micromanaging people or economy. Local people and individuals are perfectly capable of making their own decisions in such matters, and living with the consequences.

There is no such thing as "too big to fail", and the State had no business at all interfering in the natural death of mismanaged Corporations. If I mismanage my personal affairs, there are consequences up to and including death to factor in, and corporate entities are no different in that respect. Miyamoto Musashi said "from one thing, know 10,000 things". In other words, the macro is no different than the micro, it's just a matter of scale. Corporations, like individuals, should not be insulated from the effects of bone-headed decisions, made by bone-headed decision makers.

Government should be as neutral as possible, and in the matter of economics, regulate commerce between lower level polities, not regulate whatever system either chooses to use internally. What I'm getting at is that I believe any given level of government should STOP at the next level (up OR down), and deal only with those units - AS those units, leaving the still lower levels alone to be dealt with internally.

Interesting... So, allow the people to choose the economic model for themselves? I'm on board with this as long as every individual is educated on the benefits and failings of both systems. I believe that we can find some sort of coexistence with the political model I was describing earlier. On the State level everyone could decide for themselves and one person go move to another if they didn't like that particular people's process, politics, etc.

Exactly so. Local people decide their own economic model, which is limited to their own sphere of influence. Not much different, really, from the way it is now politically - just extended to economics as well. For example, if I don't like the way things are run in Massachusetts, I can always give Florida a try, and if I don't like it there, there's always Montana... the main difference is preventing over-interference and micro-management by the higher level bodies. That would have the effect of strangling over centralization in the cradle.

I believe that taxation is theft on one hand, but I believe that people should have "buying power" when dealing with their government. I think some form of taxation may be necessary for infrastructure, however I think that the people should also be able to opt out and hold onto their earnings if they disagree with the governing bodies decisions.

I believe that OVER taxation is theft. A certain amount is necessary for proper operation, but what we have today goes far and away beyond that. Administration of social programs, arts, scientific research, and like programs has no place at our current federal level. Those would be better handled in the communities where they exist. Instead, we have the Federal Overlords, who must pick our pockets to fund such endeavors elsewhere, with not much direct benefit to those so robbed. THAT situation, to my mind, is so close to the 20th century conception of "communism" as to be indistinguishable. It's what I fought against, and what I wound up living with an increasing amount of at home any how. One can view it as "feudalism", "colonialism", or USSR style "communism". Not much difference in my mind if "my People" are being robbed, and "other people" are deriving all the benefit of the proceeds. I don't much care if those "other people" are Corporate CEOs and shareholders, a foreign colonial government, or Central Committee paymasters in Ukrainian dachas. The main thing is it's being robbed from my People and being given for free to other folks. My People suffer in that exchange, as all people do. Even the recipients suffer, by not being educated in how to do for themselves.

I think we can agree though, that fanaticism is a problem that works counter to both our ambitions.

Yup, we can agree on that. Fanaticism is counter productive to individual thought and progress, as well as collective thought and progress. It really doesn't matter if that fanaticism is political, religious, economic, or cultural. Fanaticism is fanaticism, and all are under a dark cloud in its presence. It is by definition unreasoning and unthinking, as well as counter to any freedom of any kind. "Freedom" is replaced by subjugation to the current vogue.

What a concept! Institute a draft, but for politicians rather than military!

You know I'm kidding about that, right?

Hehehe, I'm not.

After this conversation I think we'd both be able to live in the same community and serve it well regardless of differences of opinion. So why not a draft or the taking of turns? We can put some educational and experience based checks in place to ensure we don't get some 18 year old in an insanely powerful position, so why not?

Not so different from the current process of jury selection, just with different qualification tests for the pool of potential selectees. I can see how that would work, and trend against career politicians, replacing power tripping with civic duty. No one WANTS to be on a jury, but we go when we're called.

Yeah, this seems to be the average outcome. There has been some kind of Orwellian double-speak going on this country for some time involving political ideologies. I saw a guy throw his monitor once because he hit the "Paleo-Conservative" area. He just yelled, "My ideas are not old!"

Anyway, I figured we had to be touching on some spectrum and it looks like we are.

I first noticed the "double speak" thing about the year 2000, when the meanings that held before of "red" and "blue" were swapped, blue becoming the "left wing" Democrats and red becoming the "right wing" Republicans which had previously been the opposite. I'm just waiting on China to become "Blue China" now instead of "Red China".

I would still sleep better knowing there wasn't a chance they weren't going to create some sort of nation who's culture was based on a grudge... but I would just take it upon myself to ensure that everyone knew that was a possibility and the people would be prepared for it.

A SMALL island, with a ring of guardians to sink any attempts at escape... but flat out execution would have a smaller economic overhead, and prevent the necessity to watch for them over our shoulders for ever.

No no, it would still be a Republic like process added with the extra benefit of the mobility of the person to truly change their residence to something all together different.

I can live with that.

Oh yes, there has to be! That's just not an area I've educated myself enough on. Wikileaks has helped spur me in that direction now that I can see how diplomacy has been handled. It's just been difficult to see any "hands-on" processes and how what is said is interpreted since I didn't even know where to start.

As far as safe passage, most certainly. I believe that the freedom to travel as we please is inalienable.

"Diplomacy" has been defined as the fine art of saying "nice doggie" until you can get your hands on a big rock. The Wikileaks episode hasn't been nearly as damaging as has been let on. Looks like a tempest in a teapot to me. Most of what has been released is only internal gossip, like a bunch of old women across a backyard fence. Embarrassing, but not really earth-shattering. My thoughts on that are don't say anything in private one doesn't want going public, and you never have to worry about it. My thoughts on "state secrets" that actually do bear on national security is that they are ALL military or espionage-related in nature, and only valid as "secrets" for the time they are ongoing. After an Op is finished - or no longer active, it should automatically declassify - just as soon as the troops are out of harms way. Diplomatic missions don't even begin to qualify for "secrecy" in my mind.

Oddly, or perhaps not so much so, gossip was among the highest of crimes to the Shawnee of old, and was punishable by death or disfigurement.

Agreed, but how does one go about eliminating materialism? In my case, I just weed them out of my own little corner, but that just makes them someone else's problem, it doesn't do a damned thing about the materialism present to begin with. Hoe do you go about changing a quality so ingrained in so many?

Well, firstly I think we have to get to the bottom of why it is so prevalent in the first place. Personally, I think it stems from a lack of heritage. A lack of historical context that other cultures have. That's my reasoning for why what's good for France isn't good for America, etc.

True enough. If you can't see where you've been, you can't map out where you're going. It's impossible to place one's self in a context when no context exists. Perhaps the materialism is emplaced as a safety blanket in lieu of having a real context.

I guess now we may need to find a Fascist to point the holes in our system. But, since they aren't exactly known for being open minded I don't think any are going to show up to lend a hand, hahaha. So, I'll just ask: What would happen from the Shawnee perspective if a man attempted to destabilize the group and/or seize authority over it?

In the old days, execution or exile, with exile being the more common remedy. Nowadays, it's usually exile or ostracism, which often enough leads to self-exile. A tree cut off from it's roots soon withers and dies, and few indeed are willing to risk that. Since it's the entire group at risk, which is made up of all the individuals, there is rarely a lack of people willing to enforce the punishment.

Fascists tend towards fanaticism, so unless one of an open-minded nature can be found, that input might be interesting, but not necessary.

In America after you enlist you attend BMT (Basic Military Training). In other nations they call it Indoc. What ever you call it, end of the day, it's military indoctrination. I may be biased, but I don't really see it as a bad thing. It's just another level of education that would seem to be necessary to ensuring a free people in light of America's history.

As I said above, if you don't know where you've been, you can't know where you're going, so I'm agreed here.

Originally posted by Wally Hope
In a socialist economy the profit goes back to the workers, which will increase your standard of living.

I advocate for a system where the profit never LEAVES the individual workers, and so has no need to "go back" to them.

That way, they get to determine their own standard of living.

"Individual workers" is the key there. I care less than not at all for allowing someone else to determine my "collective" membership, or the extent of it, or handle my "collective" money. I happen to have no collective money. What's mine is mine,comes as the fruit of my own labors, and the collective and corporations need to get their own without picking my pockets.

In short, they need to get a job - one that someone is willing to pay to have done, rather than extorting from the People.

Edit to add: I also balk at "collectivisation" in seizing the means of production allegedly to benefit the workers, and transfer "ownership" to a collective. That creates a need for a dedicated structure to operate the collectivized assets. When that happens, you have traded a private enterprise master for a public works master.

In either case, a master is master, and the structure itself is open to exploitation, which is what we saw in most large-scale implementations of socialism and communism.

For that matter, the same can be seen today in the US in the labor unions. The SEIU, of which I was a (coerced) member, seemed to be best at protecting, enriching, and propagating itself, and didn't give a rat's ass about the workers it was allegedly working for when I was in it. All I've experienced of the Teamsters and UMWA is the wreckage and death involved in the aftermath of their "negotiations". I want no part of them, either. Their brand of "justice" put the hurt on quite a number of uninvolved "little people", whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd fight their indiscriminate bloodshed just as quickly as that coming from any other source. The "workers" were "protected" at the expense not only of their negotiating partners in the corporations, but also at the expense of the general population. Hardly a worthy collectivist goal when it hurts large parts of the "collective" as well.

Originally posted by nenothtu

Originally posted by Wally Hope
In a socialist economy the profit goes back to the workers, which will increase your standard of living.

I advocate for a system where the profit never LEAVES the individual workers, and so has no need to "go back" to them.

LOL companies have to make profit, so how can it never leave the worker? That makes no sense at all.

Socialism has nothing to do with collective memberships. Collective just means the same as cooperative, i.e. the company is worker owned. You will be a worker just like now, it's just that instead of the profit going to the private owners it comes back to the worker. The money you make will be a direct result of your labour, the harder you work the more your company makes the more you make. Capitalism doesn't offer you any incentive to work any harder than you need to keep your job, so most workers don't give 100% effort because it's pointless. Socialism increases productivity (20% during the Spanish revolution) due to better worker incentive, and increases every bodies standard of living (unless your living comes from the exploitation of labour).

The only people that lose are the capitalists, as they would have to work for a living like the rest of us.

Originally posted by Wally Hope

LOL companies have to make profit, so how can it never leave the worker? That makes no sense at all.

Then your problem is with the companies, not the economic system. I suppose you would think you would have less problems with the company if it's owned by a "collective" through the government. I personally don't much care if the "collective" is stealing from me or a company. It's all the same sort of theft to me. I prefer to minimize my business dealings with thieves of any stripe.

Socialism has nothing to do with collective memberships. Collective just means the same as cooperative, i.e. the company is worker owned.

The company is COLLECTIVE owned, not "worker" owned. Just a different name for the Board of Directors, otherwise it's the SOS. Someone else making the operating decisions, and the workers left holding the bag. Working their asses off for the same crust, while some other jackass takes the fat of it. If that weren't the case, the "workers paradises" that cropped up like flies on a dead body in the 20th century would have turned out differently, and every one in the "free" world would have been trying to climb the walls to get into them, rather than the other way 'round.

Where are they now?

You will be a worker just like now, it's just that instead of the profit going to the private owners it comes back to the worker.

Not exactly just like now. Now, I'm the private owner AND the worker. No one else has a say in it, and no one else takes my profit - other than the government taking my taxes for nothing provided. Well, that's not exactly right. They provide "junk" that I wouldn't buy voluntarily, and I just avoid partaking in it as far as I can. Pity I can't avoid paying that particular collective for services I refuse to use, because they're generally second-rate.

The money you make will be a direct result of your labour, the harder you work the more your company makes the more you make.

That's pretty much the way it is for me NOW. Frankly, that argument is no incentive to seek change.

Capitalism doesn't offer you any incentive to work any harder than you need to keep your job, so most workers don't give 100% effort because it's pointless.

Strange argument coming from that side of the camp. I usually hear that argument from the other side. Maybe you guys aren't as far apart as you think.

Socialism increases productivity (20% during the Spanish revolution) due to better worker incentive, and increases every bodies standard of living (unless your living comes from the exploitation of labour).

I've seen collective bargaining, as a subset of collectivism, increase wages, but I've not seen the increase in productivity you speak of. When I was a member of the SEIU, I know for fact that I heard people say that they wouldn't work any harder than necessary, because their jobs were "covered" and they couldn't be fired. It didn't always work out the way they thought, but that was the line of thinking. Often enough, though slackers had their butts covered by the union - enough to perpetuate the notion. That didn't help increase productivity very much. well, actually, not at all.

The only people that lose are the capitalists, as they would have to work for a living like the rest of us.

Nope. I've seen farms collectivized, and entire families dispossessed of their living. I'm not talking huge farms here, either. I'm talking small family farms owned by dirt poor campesinos. Not exactly poster kids for "Daddy Warbucks" style capitalists. Just average, working class, dirt-poor capitalists. They already worked for a living - until that living was "collectivized" and taken away from them. It's a fine theory looking at it from a classroom. Doesn't always look that way from Ground Zero, though.

I know of ENTIRE VILLAGES that were razed to the ground to prevent the relocated workers from sneaking back home after they were relocated to a place deemed more appropriate to the new Socialist State. Places where their families had lived for millenia. Gone, because the State told them that was no longer home, and their labor was needed elsewhere. Not just their living gone, but their entire history, culture, and connection to the land. HOME, erased. You want to see the satellite pictures? I have them, both before and after the destruction, as a reminder to never let that happen to MY home. Not while I still breathe.

No, you can have all of your "collectives" and "co-ops" and all that fine sounding, theoretical stuff. When that day comes to my neck of the woods, I'm hitting the brush, and God help anyone who comes in after me to collectivize me. One of us ain't coming back out of that brush.

Originally posted by nenothtu
Then your problem is with the companies, not the economic system. I suppose you would think you would have less problems with the company if it's owned by a "collective" through the government.
I personally don't much care if the "collective" is stealing from me or a company. It's all the same sort of theft to me. I prefer to minimize my business dealings with thieves of any stripe.

Oh boy no, you are not paying attention. Socialism requires no government, and companies are not owned by a "collective". The term collective simply means the work place is collectively, or cooperatively owned by the workers. A collective is not an authority.

The company is COLLECTIVE owned, not "worker" owned.

You seem to have a problem understanding terms. The collective IS the workers, collectively working together, it's just another term for cooperative. You do understand what a cooperative is right?
The collective is not an organization outside of the workers that has authority like you seem to think.

Where are they now?

Still struggling against the exploitation of the capitalist system.

Not exactly just like now. Now, I'm the private owner AND the worker.

Hmmm private owner of what? Do you own the means of production? You are autonomous and have no need for anything produced by others, such as food?

But you know what it's not about you. I don't care what you have, all I care about is the majority of the worlds population that doesn't have. I'm not interested in egocentric take it all for yourself attitudes.

That's pretty much the way it is for me NOW. Frankly, that argument is no incentive to seek change.

Well great for you. Again you are basing everything on your own experience. You are one of the lucky ones, an accident of birth. 80% of the world population live on less than $10 a day. You're quite happy for that to continue, and get worse, because you are alright Jack?

Strange argument coming from that side of the camp. I usually hear that argument from the other side. Maybe you guys aren't as far apart as you think.

Strange? Not at all. Maybe you've not had too many arguments with people who know how it really works?

I've seen collective bargaining, as a subset of collectivism, increase wages, but I've not seen the increase in productivity you speak of.

Now you're just confusing issues by taking terms out of context.

Nope. I've seen farms collectivized, and entire families dispossessed of their living.

Again we're not talking about the same thing. Collectivized can have different meaning depending on the context, and who is using the term.

Originally posted by Wally Hope

Oh boy no, you are not paying attention. Socialism requires no government, and companies are not owned by a "collective". The term collective simply means the work place is collectively, or cooperatively owned by the workers. A collective is not an authority.

Perhaps you can give an example of a company run without any authority to run it in the real world? That might assist me in grasping your meaning. No directors, no supervisors, you know, NO AUTHORITY, as you claim here? An example of one of your "collectives" that has no authority in the real world might help, too. I've never seen anything organized and run without an authority structure, so examples would help. Eve tribal organizations have an authority structure in the form of councils and chiefs, they just operate by persuasion rather than coercion. If you don't like the consensus reached, you just walk away, and do your own thing on your own dime.

You seem to have a problem understanding terms. The collective IS the workers, collectively working together, it's just another term for cooperative. You do understand what a cooperative is right?
The collective is not an organization outside of the workers that has authority like you seem to think.

Again, without a real world example, it's all just flowery theoretical rhetoric, without the ability for translation into concrete action. All of the cooperatives that I know of, like the rural electrical co-ops, have a separate support and authority structure. The co-op model is just leveraged for mass buying power.

Where are they now?

Still struggling against the exploitation of the capitalist system.

I'm not going there and getting all my alarms going again. See how I'm not doing that? Most of them aren't struggling "against the exploitation of the capitalist system" they have embraced it instead.

Sounds good on paper, though!

Hmmm private owner of what? Do you own the means of production?

Yes.

You are autonomous and have no need for anything produced by others, such as food?

Again, yes. You need to differentiate between "needs" and "wants". I can produce every single thing I need. Every single thing. That includes, but is not limited to, food, clothing, and shelter. It also includes such esoterics as peace of mind.

But you know what it's not about you. I don't care what you have, all I care about is the majority of the worlds population that doesn't have. I'm not interested in egocentric take it all for yourself attitudes.

Well, yeah, it kind of IS all about me, and you... and you over there... I'm an individual, a free man, and have no desire whatsoever for the dictatorship of the proletariat, or whatever catchphrases your using today. Of what use is your collective without it's constituent individuals?

I'm not interested in egocentric individuals living under the delusion that they are here to save the world... from itself. If the cure kills the patient, at least that patient won't have to visit the doctor any more, will he?

I've got no desire to "take it all for myself". I've also got no urge to let anyone else take what little I have. In other words, I don't care to allow you to take it all for yourself, or your "family of man" or whatever, and leave me and mine holding the bag. I'm OK with being allowed to keep the fruits of my own labor, rather than have it taken by anyone else - whether that anyone is a "capitalist" or a "collective".

You may have guessed by now that I have authority issues, and I don't care if it's a "CEO" or a "collective" trying to impose their will on me and make my decisions FOR me, claiming that I "just don't know what's good for me". I'll figure out for myself what's in my own best interests, thanks. I probably know myself as well as anyone does, and maybe even better than most.

Well great for you. Again you are basing everything on your own experience. You are one of the lucky ones, an accident of birth.

Yeah, that's what Dad said, too.

"Luck" had nothing to do with it. I've hacked my own world out of nothing. I mean NOTHING. If you truly knew the "accident" of my birth, you'd lay yourself down and cry over the "poor, downtrodden masses". I didn't have the luxury of feeling sorry about it. I was busy fixing it, and sort of like how I've done. I'm not "rich" by any stretch of the imagination, monetarily (which seems to be the hangup here - money, that is, and it's distribution) But I'm content with what I have, and confident that I can make it anywhere I find myself.

There' a lot to be said for contentment.

80% of the world population live on less than $10 a day. You're quite happy for that to continue, and get worse, because you are alright Jack?

Sometimes, I wish I could hang on to 10 dollars a week, but it passes pretty quickly. I can't think of anything I need it for. I could give a damn about such abstracts as "the world". I could, but I don't. I care about PEOPLE, individuals. The world can look out for itself. I'm not here to save it, and have no egotistical notions that I am.

Some folks love mankind, and hate people, other folks love people, and hate mankind. You seem to be of the former, and I am of the latter.

Strange argument coming from that side of the camp. I usually hear that argument from the other side. Maybe you guys aren't as far apart as you think.

Strange? Not at all. Maybe you've not had too many arguments with people who know how it really works?

Careful there, messiah. Your ego is peeking through again. I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who has all the answers, so it's nothing personal against you specifically. I wasn't commenting on who "knows how it really works", I was commenting that the argument you employ is more usually employed by your opponents - and with more success, I might add at this point. I've never met anyone who knows all about "how it really works". You're the first.

I've seen collective bargaining, as a subset of collectivism, increase wages, but I've not seen the increase in productivity you speak of.

Now you're just confusing issues by taking terms out of context.

Collective bargaining isn't really collective? Why do they call it that then? How is collectivism "out of context" when discussing collectivism?

Nope. I've seen farms collectivized, and entire families dispossessed of their living.

Again we're not talking about the same thing. Collectivized can have different meaning depending on the context, and who is using the term.

You're damn right we're not talking about the same thing. You appear to be talking classroom theory, I'm talking reality on the ground, at Ground Zero no, not THAT "Ground Zero".

The context I'm talking about in particular there was Nicaragua, 1979. Those using the term were Sandinista Marxists (I'll let you decide for yourself whether they were "socialist" or "communist" - the definition seems to vary with the speaker). Those being victimized by that wonderful collectivization were Miskito indians, Rama and Sumo communities, in what was then Departmento Zelaya, now known as the RAAN.

It was that "collectivization" that caused the refugee camps in Honduras, and ultimately sparked the Contra Wars that had all the leftists up in arms and seeing boogey men behind every CIA-sponsored tree. The CIA couldn't have done a damned thing there without the raw materials created by that collectivization, which manifested itself in ripping a People from their roots.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Is that specific enough context?

Originally posted by nenothtu
I'm also noticing a lot of Obamites waking up to the same realization lately, which tells me that I wasn't too far off of the mark. It just seems to take your "own guy" making a travesty of the office to shake some thought loose.

Yes, the next election cycle is going to get very interesting. I thought we would see the rise of a third party half way through Bush Jr. The Tea Party was not what I envisioned at all, to say the least, and I think the fracturing that's occurred on the GOP side of the house thanks to the Palin debacle and the Libertarian movements stealing voters away is only going to make things more interesting now that Democrats seem to see Obama as a panty-waste.

The xenophobia stems primarily from the large-scale implementations of socialism that we have witnessed...

Makes sense but then... why no outrage about building Chinese infrastructure and outsourcing?

This is where we differ, I suppose. I see the problems here as political...

How would you address things like child labor without any government oversight?

There is no such thing as "too big to fail", and the State had no business at all interfering in the natural death of mismanaged Corporations. If I mismanage my personal affairs, there are consequences up to and including death to factor in, and corporate entities are no different in that respect. Miyamoto Musashi said "from one thing, know 10,000 things". In other words, the macro is no different than the micro, it's just a matter of scale. Corporations, like individuals, should not be insulated from the effects of bone-headed decisions, made by bone-headed decision makers.

I agree but I think the solution is a matter of an oz. of prevention. We're seeing the pound of cure. If businesses were never allowed to get that large in the first place no one would have needed to pump out billions of paper notes in a hope to prolong the inevitable just so their party doesn't look stupid when it comes down around us.

Exactly so. Local people decide their own economic model, which is limited to their own sphere of influence. Not much different, really, from the way it is now politically - just extended to economics as well. For example, if I don't like the way things are run in Massachusetts, I can always give Florida a try, and if I don't like it there, there's always Montana... the main difference is preventing over-interference and micro-management by the higher level bodies. That would have the effect of strangling over centralization in the cradle.

After giving this some more thought I've come up with problem...

I am not sure if I am ok with, say, Texas going full blown Capitalist and becoming what we see here... Wouldn't allowing that sort of system to pop up just turn this nation back into what we are now? I mean, what we are talking about is like "neo-tribalism" from my point of view... It doesn't seem that, historically speaking, tribes manage all too well when faced with an establishment like that.

I believe that OVER taxation is theft. A certain amount is necessary for proper operation, but what we have today goes far and away beyond that. Administration of social programs, arts, scientific research, and like programs has no place at our current federal level....

Just had a brilliant notion... I think the solution is two fold. Firstly, the budget is decided collectively. Secondly, all tax dollars not spent that fiscal year are returned proportionally. What you think?

Not so different from the current process of jury selection, just with different qualification tests for the pool of potential selectees. I can see how that would work, and trend against career politicians, replacing power tripping with civic duty. No one WANTS to be on a jury, but we go when we're called.

Right. I imagine it would work out to be the same type of misery.

Some would look forward to it, others wouldn't. And it's those that wouldn't that we truly want.

I first noticed the "double speak" thing about the year 2000, when the meanings that held before of "red" and "blue" were swapped, blue becoming the "left wing" Democrats and red becoming the "right wing" Republicans which had previously been the opposite. I'm just waiting on China to become "Blue China" now instead of "Red China".

Funny you should mention this! I've been thinking I might have been losing it when I started seeing this sort of thing popping up. Even their logos seem to have indistinguishable amounts of red and blue in them. It's a joke in plain sight.

A SMALL island, with a ring of guardians to sink any attempts at escape... but flat out execution would have a smaller economic overhead, and prevent the necessity to watch for them over our shoulders for ever.

I still say kill them. But, this could be left up to the individual communities.

"Diplomacy" has been defined as the fine art of saying "nice doggie" until you can get your hands on a big rock. The Wikileaks episode hasn't been nearly as damaging as has been let on. Looks like a tempest in a teapot to me. Most of what has been released is only internal gossip, like a bunch of old women across a backyard fence. Embarrassing, but not really earth-shattering. My thoughts on that are don't say anything in private one doesn't want going public, and you never have to worry about it. My thoughts on "state secrets" that actually do bear on national security is that they are ALL military or espionage-related in nature, and only valid as "secrets" for the time they are ongoing. After an Op is finished - or no longer active, it should automatically declassify - just as soon as the troops are out of harms way. Diplomatic missions don't even begin to qualify for "secrecy" in my mind.

The stuff that was reported on the news, I agree with you. I've been rolling them when I have the time and from my point of view this stuff is damaging, but it's only so in circles your average American doesn't know about. I've worked in the intelligence community (INB4: Military Intelligence = oxymoron) and it isn't about what it looks like at face value. It's about what the sum of the parts mean. A little from cable A and a little from cable B and we have an idea of a game plan if you know what you are looking at. (And if anyone is going to ask: No, I won't provide any examples from the latest leaks.)

That isn't always true; however, a lot of stuff is just classified because it's easier to deal with that way. For instance, I stick a thumb drive in a SIPR computer, now that drive is SECRET instead of me having to destroy it. Same thing happens all day long with all kinds of mundane stuff. That's what makes it hard to sift through and find what is "good stuff" opposed to crap.

Oddly, or perhaps not so much so, gossip was among the highest of crimes to the Shawnee of old, and was punishable by death or disfigurement.

Well, when a man is only as good as his character... it makes sense to me.

True enough. If you can't see where you've been, you can't map out where you're going. It's impossible to place one's self in a context when no context exists. Perhaps the materialism is emplaced as a safety blanket in lieu of having a real context.

Exactly what I think.

Hence the reason behind the creation of Christianity and the Western philosophies that have created the world today. A foreign occupying force will always face resistance. But foreign is contextual and with no context the people will accept anything. It's no different then the issues we see today with Reservations. People don't want to accept the white world but don't want to live in squalor and all they hear is, "Why don't you just leave the rez then?". My grandfather left because he needed to feed his family and now from the cultural fall out won't even tell the stories anymore. Just the last time I saw him I asked him to tell me the Niitsitapi origin story to test the waters and he just left the room. The white side of my family stands staunchly against any of it because it runs counter to ever "being successful" by western standards so they view it as all that context would just be doing future generations a disservice. He's now a tired old man and I understand now...

In the old days, execution or exile, with exile being the more common remedy. Nowadays, it's usually exile or ostracism, which often enough leads to self-exile. A tree cut off from it's roots soon withers and dies, and few indeed are willing to risk that. Since it's the entire group at risk, which is made up of all the individuals, there is rarely a lack of people willing to enforce the punishment.

Than it sounds like to me that the preventative measure is cultural and needn't worry. What are they going to do? Since all people can speak and all people are taught that it is their civic duty to speak, when someone comes who will listen? Potentially a minority, but an armed and trained populace is going to be the perfect check to that.

Originally posted by AdAbsurdum

Yes, the next election cycle is going to get very interesting. I thought we would see the rise of a third party half way through Bush Jr. The Tea Party was not what I envisioned at all, to say the least, and I think the fracturing that's occurred on the GOP side of the house thanks to the Palin debacle and the Libertarian movements stealing voters away is only going to make things more interesting now that Democrats seem to see Obama as a panty-waste.

Obama could conceivable pull a second term out, but I don't think that will happen. He'd have to get cracking pretty hard, and make way too many different types of people happy at this point. Last election, he built a base out of the usual suspects, plus a large number of disaffected folk and several uneducated ones that fell for slogans alone. He welded them together at that point in time, but in the interim, they've fallen by the way side, also disillusioned, and now lack the cohesion they had then to make it happen. I look for the next election to produce a surprise dark horse candidate with the potential for a 3-way run and resultant split - possibly opening the door for a third party finally, or irreparably fracturing one or both of the existing ones.

We can look for the power brokers to fight that tooth and nail. They've got a vested interest in maintaining the two party system, and have mechanisms in place in several places already to prevent a third party from even getting on the ballot to upset that. Party splits of one or both may be the best hope for actual change. It could be a really close race, with no one candidate taking a simple majority - say, split 3 ways with no single one taking over 50%, and one winner taking all with 45-48% of the vote. Right now, the Republicans are poised to be the one that fractures, being set up as they are in two armed camps - the Necons and the honest to god Republicans. The Neocon hostile takeover of that party is what prompted me to leave it, and waves of other former Republicans as well. She;s set to blow now.

In that scenario, the dark horse will likely loose, but take enough to grab attention. Then, it's onward to the next contest, with a bit more clout. A guy can dream, can't he?

Makes sense but then... why no outrage about building Chinese infrastructure and outsourcing?

The outrage against those things WAS there, but attention was intentionally diverted away from them, in favor of globalism.

I have no beef with China, but I'm uneasy with their involvement in our economy - but that's a globalist thing, I think. I'd rather they had told us to "get a job" when we went to them hat in hand to bum. That would have prevented any problems with their interference in our internal economics, and forced either a balanced budget or a revolution. Like I said before, nothing is too big to fail, and that includes countries. I'd rather start over from scratch than proceed the way we're going. Sometimes, your "friends" see a different prize in the ten-ring than you do, or THINK they do.

Countries, like individuals, should live within their means. If those means are found to be insufficient, work to increase the means, don't borrow from another that you will find yourself beholden to. You never know when that marker is gonna get called in, or in what way. "Friends" are better held from a position of respect than from a position of debt, which leads to servitude. Those aren't "friends" they are potential masters.

I have a SERIOUS beef with outsourcing, and believe with all my heart that any corporation which engages in that practice should be dissolved or expelled from the country, and barred from doing any business here, even through corporate proxies and cutouts - starting with physical exile of the CEOs, and working downward until someone hollers "uncle!" and the company is here no more, or just "is" no more.

Outsourcing doesn't affect me as much as it does others, since I can't be "outsourced", but it's not right, no matter WHO is affected. Well, actually I CAN be "outsourced", but I don't allow that to happen any more. Things need doing "here" worse than they do "there" nowadays. I guess it's better said that I can't be outsourced against my will. I'm not an American export commodity any more.

This is where we differ, I suppose. I see the problems here as political...

How would you address things like child labor without any government oversight?

Since I've already said that the government has a proper function in law and order, specifically criminal issues where there is an injured party because of the misbehavior of another, I'd criminalize it as "Human Trafficking" - which is exactly what I see it as being - rather than trying to euphemistically soften it as "child labor". It's not "labor", it's abuse, no less criminal than sexual abuse. That would be enforced on the local level, since a) they are closer to the problem, and b) higher government has no business toting guns or enforcing local law. I see the higher government as being more coordinating and mediating in nature, with far fewer teeth than it has currently.

Local folks could of course choose their own punishments, but in cases involving harm to kids, I'd push pretty hard for death. That's just me.

I'm not against government altogether, I'm just against overgrown, over bearing, over reaching government. My problem isn't with it's existence, it's with it's size and power. We've let it grow far too big and menacing, have let it insinuate it's tentacles into far too many nooks and crannies where it has no business at all.. That's not the fault of the government, it's the fault of us watchdogs.

There is no such thing as "too big to fail", and the State had no business at all interfering in the natural death of mismanaged Corporations. If I mismanage my personal affairs, there are consequences up to and including death to factor in, and corporate entities are no different in that respect. Miyamoto Musashi said "from one thing, know 10,000 things". In other words, the macro is no different than the micro, it's just a matter of scale. Corporations, like individuals, should not be insulated from the effects of bone-headed decisions, made by bone-headed decision makers.

I agree but I think the solution is a matter of an oz. of prevention. We're seeing the pound of cure. If businesses were never allowed to get that large in the first place no one would have needed to pump out billions of paper notes in a hope to prolong the inevitable just so their party doesn't look stupid when it comes down around us.

That's where preventing monopolies comes to the fore. Furthermore, there needs to be a mechanism that prevents excessive buyouts of little fish by the big fish. Using banking as an example, back when I was using banks, the bank I dealt with was a small local bank. Over the course of 5 or six years, it got bought out by ever larger concerns, changing it's name and affiliation about every 6 months or so, culminating in Bank of America. Same bank, same building, same people, but different, and ever larger, corporations until it grew into a monstrosity. Concurrently, each ever larger corporate entity treated the little folk, like me, worse and worse, stealing more and more, with an ever-widening reach. BoA recently got into some trouble over that, but a slap on the wrist just doesn't have the same ring as a full corporate deconstruction to me. Growth by those sorts of means should be severely capped at a certain level, in my mind, same as monopolies should be prevented.

I don't do business with ANY banks any more, and haven't for years, because of BoA's abusive, power-grabbing ways. I limit dealing with banks at all to cashing checks - taking money out rather than putting it in. I'll not be putting anything on deposit any more, giving them the ability to steal from me, and use MY money for their own gain. Also, and I kid you not, I would burn a check, set it on fire right there in the bank parking lot and watch it burn, before I would pay a dime of "cashing fees" to a bank that has already been paid by the depositor to handle their money. To be honest, I've never actually done that, but I'm not above it. What I HAVE done is to take the check back to the originator, and say "This ain't working, your bank wants to take MY money that you are supposed to be paying me because they are not MY bank. Unf*k this, right now. Either fix the bank problem, or get me cash, and we'll just deal in cash or not at all from here on out."

That concept could be applied to nearly any company on the planet, not just banks - force 'em to do right or starve 'em - but it would require more people to demand it than is currently the case. The next best thing is to prevent them from ever gaining the power where they think they can get away with theft to begin with.

That involves preventing monopolies, and capping buyouts. Preventing trans-border corporations might also help. If they expand across a border, yank out their ability to do business within your own borders. Make them an entirely foreign entity, subject to the import tariffs and such if anyone in your own borders starts up an international trade with them. That would serve to inhibit growth AND prevent outsourcing. Further, I think if it were me I'd make the import tariffs for such companies astronomical, to protect startup and operation of local businesses engaged in producing whatever widget the traitors were producing. Call it a "punitive import tariff" to differentiate it from business done with with honest foreign companies.

I am not sure if I am ok with, say, Texas going full blown Capitalist and becoming what we see here... Wouldn't allowing that sort of system to pop up just turn this nation back into what we are now? I mean, what we are talking about is like "neo-tribalism" from my point of view... It doesn't seem that, historically speaking, tribes manage all too well when faced with an establishment like that.

I dunno. Texans are pretty tough, but how do you suppose they'd fare in a war of conquest against all other 47 of the continentals with mutual protection pacts in place? look at Tecumseh. He gave the opposition a pretty good run by negotiating several alliances, building one larger confederation without subverting the individual identities or autonomy of the constituent tribes. I believe that run would have been even more successful, and stood a real chance, had not little brother Tenskwatawa ignored the plan and jumped the gun prematurely at Tippecanoe.

In the matter of guarding against expansion of a hypothetical full-blown Corporatocracy in Texas, it would rest then, as now, with the watchdogs. An armed to the teeth, irascible, and educated populace who have no intention of being taken over, or allowing those in the "buffer zone" to be taken over - because then WE would be next. The main difference between our situation and Tecumseh's would be that in our case, there would be a damn sight more of "us" than "them".

Just had a brilliant notion... I think the solution is two fold. Firstly, the budget is decided collectively. Secondly, all tax dollars not spent that fiscal year are returned proportionally. What you think?

It could work, assuming that budgetary matters were confined to a level manageable by a straight democratic process. That would, in turn, require a limit on government size to a much smaller level, and so the idea has it's merits. Also, if the Federal Bureau of Picking People's Pockets ad Bugging Their Living Rooms pissed off enough people this year, they could find operating funds entirely absent next year, and be forced to close up shop and get a real job to feed their families. Where the idea heads south is in allowing people to vote themselves raises in matters of social programs. Assuming that social programs are confined to the local community, both in funding and disbursement, it could work, especially with the notion that keeping government smaller through less funding translates to a direct tangible benefit to the taxpayer - returned funds.

A guaranteed job there would be in the mail room of the Bureau of Giving Folks Back Their Money.

Not so different from the current process of jury selection, just with different qualification tests for the pool of potential selectees. I can see how that would work, and trend against career politicians, replacing power tripping with civic duty. No one WANTS to be on a jury, but we go when we're called.

Right. I imagine it would work out to be the same type of misery.

Some would look forward to it, others wouldn't. And it's those that wouldn't that we truly want.

No argument here. I see no holes in that theory.

I first noticed the "double speak" thing about the year 2000, when the meanings that held before of "red" and "blue" were swapped, blue becoming the "left wing" Democrats and red becoming the "right wing" Republicans which had previously been the opposite. I'm just waiting on China to become "Blue China" now instead of "Red China".

Funny you should mention this! I've been thinking I might have been losing it when I started seeing this sort of thing popping up. Even their logos seem to have indistinguishable amounts of red and blue in them. It's a joke in plain sight.

Yup, it is, and it all started with the election maps in the 2000 election. After I noticed it, I tracked it backwards, and that was the first occurrence of it. For some odd reason, the change took off like wildfire, and hardly anyone seemed to notice right away. I never found out whose brilliant idea it was, but it seems to have been intended to confound and confuse.

A SMALL island, with a ring of guardians to sink any attempts at escape... but flat out execution would have a smaller economic overhead, and prevent the necessity to watch for them over our shoulders for ever.

I still say kill them. But, this could be left up to the individual communities.

There's a lot to be said for not having to look over your shoulder for the rest of your natural life. Once they're planted, they're not an issue any more.

The stuff that was reported on the news, I agree with you. I've been rolling them when I have the time and from my point of view this stuff is damaging, but it's only so in circles your average American doesn't know about. I've worked in the intelligence community (INB4: Military Intelligence = oxymoron) and it isn't about what it looks like at face value. It's about what the sum of the parts mean. A little from cable A and a little from cable B and we have an idea of a game plan if you know what you are looking at. (And if anyone is going to ask: No, I won't provide any examples from the latest leaks.)

That isn't always true; however, a lot of stuff is just classified because it's easier to deal with that way. For instance, I stick a thumb drive in a SIPR computer, now that drive is SECRET instead of me having to destroy it. Same thing happens all day long with all kinds of mundane stuff. That's what makes it hard to sift through and find what is "good stuff" opposed to crap.

Believe me, I know how a picture can be built up of apparently unrelated factoids, until you decide to relate them. What I'm saying is that there is far to much stuff classified at some level as a matter of course. The figure I heard was on the order of 4000 items daily by the US Government. That's way too much stuff to keep track of, especially when most of it can't be justified as a "secret", and was only classified as a matter of course by a rubber stamp process. Also, if classified diplomatic cables are a problem, they might want to consider limiting diplomacy to diplomatic matters, and leave espionage to the professionals.

Yeah, yeah, I know, most of the Station Chiefs run their ops out of diplomatic missions, but that rug ought to be jerked out from under them, for the good of diplomatic success. I don't know about you, but any diplomat that approaches my negotiating table with something to hide from me isn't going to gain much of my confidence,and one would think that confidence ought to be the stock in trade of a diplomat. Therefore, I think diplomacy and espionage ought to be taught in different schools., and operated out of different shops.

Hiding secrets among piles of "secrets" may be one strategy, but fewer secrets make a more manageable pile, and are easier to control and keep track of. I dunno. It's just my sense that classified government stuff should have built-in expiration dates, and expire when military or intel ops using it are finished, and the lives involved are off the field. That wouldn't extend to individuals, though. Every individual has the right to be secure in their effects, including their secrets. I just can't grab the logic that would extend that to a government in perpetuity.

I mean, hell, FIFTY YEAR non-disclosures? Really now...

True enough. If you can't see where you've been, you can't map out where you're going. It's impossible to place one's self in a context when no context exists. Perhaps the materialism is emplaced as a safety blanket in lieu of having a real context.

Exactly what I think.

Hence the reason behind the creation of Christianity and the Western philosophies that have created the world today. A foreign occupying force will always face resistance. But foreign is contextual and with no context the people will accept anything. It's no different then the issues we see today with Reservations. People don't want to accept the white world but don't want to live in squalor and all they hear is, "Why don't you just leave the rez then?". My grandfather left because he needed to feed his family and now from the cultural fall out won't even tell the stories anymore. Just the last time I saw him I asked him to tell me the Niitsitapi origin story to test the waters and he just left the room. The white side of my family stands staunchly against any of it because it runs counter to ever "being successful" by western standards so they view it as all that context would just be doing future generations a disservice. He's now a tired old man and I understand now...

That's a hard road.

Sounds like a foreign cultural context was forced on him, at the expense of robbing his descendants of their proper cultural context. Then it falls on later generations to reconstruct or preserve it, which I suppose will be you. That doesn't mitigate the loss he has suffered personally, though. The burden on your grandfather is not only having his own culture replaced, but also KNOWING. Knowing the loss of the future, and also knowing that they would be in the dark, and NOT know themselves. For some, that thought could be the worst part. The dichotomy between what they consider a disservice to the future and what he considers a disservice to the future likely creates a strain that he bears all by himself. And still, even now, he feels the pressure from the white side of the family, and feels constrained to remain silent.

Yeah, that would leave you tired and darn near broken.

I only know a little of the cultural fallout you're talking about. I recall being called "chief" and "Geronimo", and I never lived on the rez. I recall one time when I applied for unemployment, years ago. The red-headed lady looked at her computer screen, saw I was an indian, and flat out said "you don't look like an indian". I just gave her what I hoped would pass for a winning smile, and said "Lady, what does an indian look like? Would it help if I went outside, and came back in with some feathers in my hair?" I mean, hell, it was right there in her state supplied computer, from a state supplied database. It wasn't an unsupported claim I made, to be questioned. I didn't bring it up at all, she did. I never even thought it would be in the unemployment database. Never thought about it at all,and she wanted to question the veracity of it?

What did she think I was gonna steal? Did she think I was really working, and just trying to take a free ride on an indian ticket? I just can't fathom some folks' minds, so I've stopped trying.

The white side of the family never bothered folks about it much. They sort of think it's a kick, but they have a different cultural context than most outsiders any how, so I'm sure that helped. They aren't all that far removed from tribes and clans themselves. Appalachia still has a lot of cultural difference from the outside world. Most of the culture there came from tribes and clans to begin with, and it still lives on. Probably why Johnson announced his "War on Poverty" (which I never noticed him getting around to actually fighting in) in eastern Kentucky.

For the folks who think I grew up as a "priviledged son", I grew up in a shack. Gaps in the walls that snow and wind came through. We blocked it with cardboard first, and insulation later as we could afford it. I can recall waking up in the winter because snow was falling through the roof and hitting me in the face. I can recall seeing a glass of water I'd set on the nightstand the night before frozen in the morning. We had no indoor plumbing at all. A shack out back, and a spring for water. I spent most of my time in the woods, because it really made not much difference to me if I was indoors or out. I remember doing my homework by an oil lamp. Anyone who thinks no one lives like that in this day and age in America better think again.

I only mention this to show that I'm not talking out of my ass when I say the things I do, and I'm not as ignorant of the facts of the matter of poverty as some folks would like to think. No, it wasn't the rez, but it wasn't far off from some of them. That shack is no more. It burned down to the ground about 10 years ago or so, after we were all gone.

In the old days, execution or exile, with exile being the more common remedy. Nowadays, it's usually exile or ostracism, which often enough leads to self-exile. A tree cut off from it's roots soon withers and dies, and few indeed are willing to risk that. Since it's the entire group at risk, which is made up of all the individuals, there is rarely a lack of people willing to enforce the punishment.

Than it sounds like to me that the preventative measure is cultural and needn't worry. What are they going to do? Since all people can speak and all people are taught that it is their civic duty to speak, when someone comes who will listen? Potentially a minority, but an armed and trained populace is going to be the perfect check to that.

Exactly!
An armed population, educated in a jealousy for their liberty over material gain, and the ways folks will try to steal it, and you've got a winning combination for all!

Originally posted by nenothtu
A guy can dream, can't he?

Hehe, you are welcome to it. I don't see Obama winning, it's too early to tell, but I'm of the opinion that what ever comes next isn't going to be pretty... I mean, I still believe that McCain sabotaged his own running just so Palin couldn't get in because, yes, people are that stupid.

I mean really, who's going to run? With the GOP eating itself and coming a part thanks to the Neo-Cons they don't stand a chance. I even read a few days ago that the tea party is having problems with fundamentalists and they've split. The irony is hilarious, " I come not to bring peace but a sword."

The outrage against those things WAS there, but attention was intentionally diverted away from them, in favor of globalism.

China is the problem of the Chinese as far as I'm concerned. I brought them up because we outsourced labor to a communist country... yet we still have economic sanctions against Cuba.... It didn't add up for all the Red Menace talk I see a lot of.

Since I've already said that the government has a proper function in law and order, specifically criminal issues where there is an injured party because of the misbehavior of another, I'd criminalize it as "Human Trafficking" - which is exactly what I see it as being - rather than trying to euphemistically soften it as "child labor". It's not "labor", it's abuse, no less criminal than sexual abuse. That would be enforced on the local level, since a) they are closer to the problem, and b) higher government has no business toting guns or enforcing local law. I see the higher government as being more coordinating and mediating in nature, with far fewer teeth than it has currently.

I still believe that the issue is the economic system. It's only a matter of time until materialism takes hold all over again... I fear, anyway.

I get what you are saying here though. I guess my feelings about capitalism are the same as your feelings about communism. We've seen the same things from different sides of the fence, so to speak.

I'm not against government altogether, I'm just against overgrown, over bearing, over reaching government. My problem isn't with it's existence, it's with it's size and power. We've let it grow far too big and menacing, have let it insinuate it's tentacles into far too many nooks and crannies where it has no business at all.. That's not the fault of the government, it's the fault of us watchdogs.

This is why I argue for a communist system... or at least a more socialist one. It doesn't require government oversight and from what I have seen works better the more decentralized you get.

Whether you agree or not, I am happy we have come up with a political system that can be agreed upon. That speaks mountains. It may be possible to finally get people to agree from across the aisles. I'm gonna have to go through this entire thread and write up a manifesto and try to pitch it around here and see what the Average Joe thinks. Mind proof reading it after I finish?

That involves preventing monopolies, and capping buyouts. Preventing trans-border corporations might also help. If they expand across a border, yank out their ability to do business within your own borders. Make them an entirely foreign entity, subject to the import tariffs and such if anyone in your own borders starts up an international trade with them. That would serve to inhibit growth AND prevent outsourcing. Further, I think if it were me I'd make the import tariffs for such companies astronomical, to protect startup and operation of local businesses engaged in producing whatever widget the traitors were producing. Call it a "punitive import tariff" to differentiate it from business done with with honest foreign companies.

I think the tariff and anti-cross-state sanctions to be brilliant. The also way that helps is all that money created from the tariff is distributed to the people at the end of the fiscal year. That ensures there is plenty of left overs to bolster Mom and Pop.

I dunno. Texans are pretty tough, but how do you suppose they'd fare in a war of conquest against all other 47 of the continentals with mutual protection pacts in place? look at Tecumseh. He gave the opposition a pretty good run by negotiating several alliances, building one larger confederation without subverting the individual identities or autonomy of the constituent tribes. I believe that run would have been even more successful, and stood a real chance, had not little brother Tenskwatawa ignored the plan and jumped the gun prematurely at Tippecanoe.

That's fair. But I was more thinking can what we've got so far withstand 500 years of constant attempts at erosion. I worry that in the transition phase we wouldn't be able to rid the cultural issues that allowed what we have today. But, perhaps that's another discussion.

In the matter of guarding against expansion of a hypothetical full-blown Corporatocracy in Texas, it would rest then, as now, with the watchdogs. An armed to the teeth, irascible, and educated populace who have no intention of being taken over, or allowing those in the "buffer zone" to be taken over - because then WE would be next. The main difference between our situation and Tecumseh's would be that in our case, there would be a damn sight more of "us" than "them".

I guess what we would have to do is have some sort of Constitutional agreement that if a group suffers from that kind of exploitation then it is the responsibility of everyone around them to destroy it. In this way we can share the benefits of both individualism and collectivism.

It could work, assuming that budgetary matters were confined to a level manageable by a straight democratic process. That would, in turn, require a limit on government size to a much smaller level, and so the idea has it's merits. Also, if the Federal Bureau of Picking People's Pockets ad Bugging Their Living Rooms pissed off enough people this year, they could find operating funds entirely absent next year, and be forced to close up shop and get a real job to feed their families. Where the idea heads south is in allowing people to vote themselves raises in matters of social programs. Assuming that social programs are confined to the local community, both in funding and disbursement, it could work, especially with the notion that keeping government smaller through less funding translates to a direct tangible benefit to the taxpayer - returned funds.

Here I was thinking something along the lines of a Republic type set up with a Senate these terms would last for 4 years and would still operate under the raffle system. But the pool of people raffled from is individuals elected from their respective communities. This way we still ensure representation and at the same time force another check that disallows corruption. These individuals would have nothing to do with the policy side of the house. Only to do with ensuring that what is produced, be that capital or labor, is allocated correctly as far as the governing body is concerned.

The benefit to this is that if the communist areas see a rise in the State you've come to hate, than the capitalists in surrounding areas come to our aid and if the capitalist areas see the rise of a Corprotocracy we come to yours. This way we avoid the trappings of both systems and allow all the variations in between.

A guaranteed job there would be in the mail room of the Bureau of Giving Folks Back Their Money.

But, that's a good thing. This allows room for people with disabilities and removes the need for social programs in the sense we have them now. End of the day everyone still has the right to withhold taxes.

Also, if classified diplomatic cables are a problem, they might want to consider limiting diplomacy to diplomatic matters, and leave espionage to the professionals.

Right?

Therefore, I think diplomacy and espionage ought to be taught in different schools., and operated out of different shops.

Yeah, I wonder if this has anything to do with our losing international ground. It's easy to claim it's the war on terror because you then don't have to air anyone's dirty laundry.

Hiding secrets among piles of "secrets" may be one strategy, but fewer secrets make a more manageable pile, and are easier to control and keep track of. I dunno. It's just my sense that classified government stuff should have built-in expiration dates, and expire when military or intel ops using it are finished, and the lives involved are off the field. That wouldn't extend to individuals, though. Every individual has the right to be secure in their effects, including their secrets. I just can't grab the logic that would extend that to a government in perpetuity.

I don't think that's the actual strategy, I just think that's how it has panned out. But yes, the Government has gone full retard with the classifying tool in my experience.

I mean, hell, FIFTY YEAR non-disclosures? Really now...

Heh, I know stuff I can't talk about for the rest of my life and there are countries I'm not allowed to visit. It goes way beyond fifty years.

That's a hard road.

Yessir. It all started when I began questioning god and couldn't understand why anyone would accept their conquerors religion. I rejected it and that didn't sit well with my family. He played the game, I didn't want to be like that so I refused. I have been ostracized because of it but that's when I understood him and after 7 years of this, I understand how he grew tired. I can't face the ones who came before me though if I compromised. I don't judge him. He lost 7 brothers because they wouldn't bend. What I've paid is a pittance and still worth the cost.

Yeah, that would leave you tired and darn near broken.

Yeah, I'm sorry for even bringing this up. I just haven't met anyone who could hear me, I guess, and I jumped at the chance.

What did she think I was gonna steal? Did she think I was really working, and just trying to take a free ride on an indian ticket? I just can't fathom some folks' minds, so I've stopped trying.

Yep. I'm defensive because all this hipster trash nowadays seems to want to grab a hold of anything they can and pervert it to their own purposes. Nothing is sacred anymore.

I only mention this to show that I'm not talking out of my ass when I say the things I do, and I'm not as ignorant of the facts of the matter of poverty as some folks would like to think. No, it wasn't the rez, but it wasn't far off from some of them. That shack is no more. It burned down to the ground about 10 years ago or so, after we were all gone.

Now, if only we can convince people in this Country that for some it is the 3rd World. It never ceases to amaze me how these things can go unnoticed.

Exactly!
An armed population, educated in a jealousy for their liberty over material gain, and the ways folks will try to steal it, and you've got a winning combination for all!

Well, it looks like we have pretty much laid out the ground work for a system that works for everyone regardless of political affiliation. I guess I'll do the hard part next and write this thing up.

Originally posted by AdAbsurdum

Hehe, you are welcome to it. I don't see Obama winning, it's too early to tell, but I'm of the opinion that what ever comes next isn't going to be pretty... I mean, I still believe that McCain sabotaged his own running just so Palin couldn't get in because, yes, people are that stupid.

There's no doubt that he sabotaged it for some reason. McCain never did run like he meant it in that election cycle. I'm not sure if Palin was the reason or just additional sabotage. I washed my hands of her when she tried to co-opt the Tea Party Movement on behalf of the Republicans (=neocons) because as I said earlier I'm done with the Republicans after a life - long association. They moved too far left for me...

I mean really, who's going to run? With the GOP eating itself and coming a part thanks to the Neo-Cons they don't stand a chance. I even read a few days ago that the tea party is having problems with fundamentalists and they've split. The irony is hilarious, " I come not to bring peace but a sword."

Interestingly, yesterday evening I heard two Progressives floating the notion of running a Progressive against Obama in the primaries. One was a former speech writer for MLK who was on Tavis Smiley's show, and one was the rabbi who started "Tikkun" who was on Alam Colmes' show. Yeah, I either like to have an informed viewpoint, OR I like to monitor the opposition. I'll let you decide which you think it is.

Anyhow, like they used to say in the old movies, "them natives is restless!" and it's not confined to one party, it's just more advanced in the Republicans.

China is the problem of the Chinese as far as I'm concerned. I brought them up because we outsourced labor to a communist country... yet we still have economic sanctions against Cuba.... It didn't add up for all the Red Menace talk I see a lot of.

Tsk tsk.... "blue is the new "red", so it ought to be the "Blue Menace" now!

I agree, China is the problem of the Chinese. However, we have tentacles so deep there, and they here, that something will have to give eventually. As they move towards the old capitalism, we move towards the old communism. Eventually - and it may already be - we won't be able to tell the difference between the US and China except for the language. This latest thing with the Nobel Prize showcases what once would have been thought of as a dichotomy, (corporatocracy combined with overt [ rather than covert] oppression) but is fast becoming the norm in the US as well.

As far as the sanctions on Cuba go, one has to wonder when "punishment" is enough. I think Castro intended to do the "right" thing after the revolution, but after his falling-out with Guevara (when he would have been ripe for an alliance with the US) we instead drove him into Soviet arms by still trying to get revenge on behalf of Batista. Then, after he aligned with the Soviets, and in the wake of the Bay of Pigs and Missile Crisis fiascos, hammering him just became a matter of policy. I think the world might be a far different place today had the decision makers of the time pulled their collective heads out of their asses and handled things more pragmatically right after Che split. As it was, corporate goons (and in that case primarily mafia-type corporate goons) held too much sway over policy, even then.

The 3 things that have caused more fights, death, and destruction all through history have been politics, religion, and economics. I personally think there should be STRONG legal barriers between all 3 of those, because whenever any two of them get mixed together, someone is gonna die - or at least take a beating. Religion+politics=bad business, politics+economics=bad business, and religion+economics=bad business. See what I mean? The Constitution should have barred all 3 combinations rather than just politics+religion. Those 3 things get folks more overheated than anything else on Earth. The combinations are FAR too volatile.

I still believe that the issue is the economic system. It's only a matter of time until materialism takes hold all over again... I fear, anyway.

Then I submit that culture is to blame more so than politics for apparent problems with the economic system. If the culture is adjusted to be more "family" or "people" oriented than economically oriented, the problems seem to vanish. Even with most arguments for Socialism, what I usually see the most of is greed oriented rather than people oriented. Think - what is the first thing mentioned? Some sort of redistribution of wealth. The focus there is on the "wealth". The "have nots" want what they determine to be their "fair share". It looks just like greed in disguise to me.

I say that because I'm not a "wealthy" man by any stretch of the imagination or means of measure that I know of. Yet, for some odd reason, I care nary a bit for my share of any "redistributed wealth". You can have my cut, or give it to a charity or something. I would consider it stolen goods, and want no part of it.

even though I am not "wealthy" either financially or materially, I am as rich as 3 feet up a bull's behind because I'm content with what I do have - or what I can get on my own. I neither need nor want anyone else's "redistributed wealth". To accept it would diminish me in my own eyes. It would make me feel dependent, beholden, less of myself. That sort of damage is hard to fix.

This is why I argue for a communist system... or at least a more socialist one. It doesn't require government oversight and from what I have seen works better the more decentralized you get.

I keep hearing that, but still have a difficult time grasping it. How does an economic system run on auto pilot with no direction or coordination? Still, I sort of get what you're saying, and agree as far as I can. Government should never dabble in economics or religion. Mediation between disputing parties ought to be about the extent of it.

Economists should ever dabble in religion or government (conflict of interest there, eh?), and religion should nver dabble in government or economics. Christians quote Jesus as saying "render unto Caesar those things which are Caesars, and unto God those things which are God's". That, to me, is the ultimate statement on the separation of Church and State, yet you see "christians" breaking it all the time, and dabbling in politics.

A case in point is Westboro Church. Always poking around in politics, in spite of that clear prohibition. Tomorrow, about 45 minutes from here, they're going to make another mess at Elizabeth Edwards' funeral, because they don't like her politics. Too damn bad if they don't. She's dead, what harm can she do to them? More to the point, it takes a coward to make an attack against someone who is unable to defend themselves in any way at all.

I don't agree with her politics, or John's either. His stance on the Second Amendment told me that he cares nary a bit more for the Constitution than Bush did. Still, I'll be damned if I'd intrude and make a cowardly spectacle of myself the way the Westboro morons are going to do. I've got to be on an assignment tomorrow. If I hadn't, I'd thought about going there with maybe two flankers, just two, and standing directly in front of them for the whole time, facing them, until they got pissed off enough to start hollering and asking me what gives. That would give me the opening to give them a simple statement, and then shut up and just stand again until it was over. That statement would be: "Your god has a message for you - he says stop writing policy for him, stop violating his words by involving yourself with Caesar in his name, and he's got something special waiting for you when it's your turn, for making a mockery of him. End transmission."

I can't do it, since I have to be near an hour away from there from 0600 to 1800. I hope with everything I have that SOMEONE picks up that torch and totes it, though. No, I didn't like her politics worth a damn, but I'd still stand in that gap if I could. It ain't right , and demeans all involved to let it go unchallenged. Folks have DIED so that those morons could spit on their memory, and when those folks died, I'll bet not a damn one of them said "This is for everyone EXCEPT Elizabeth Edwards, 'cause her politics sucked." I'll bet none of them limited their sacrifice to just "Democrats" or just "Republicans" either. I bet they most of them risked it all, and paid that price, for AMERICANS, whatever the stripe.

What a rant! Sorry 'bout that. I oughtta make a separate thread out of it.

Whether you agree or not, I am happy we have come up with a political system that can be agreed upon. That speaks mountains. It may be possible to finally get people to agree from across the aisles. I'm gonna have to go through this entire thread and write up a manifesto and try to pitch it around here and see what the Average Joe thinks. Mind proof reading it after I finish?

Sure, I'll proof it. No problem. Might be part of the Next Great Hope straightening this mess out. I have to ask myself, WWAD (What Would Atilla Do?) A little known fact: Atilla the Hun let the local conquered folks run their own jurisdictions as they saw fit. Probably pragmatism - the Huns were on the move too fast to be bogged down with local administration and micromanagement...

I think the tariff and anti-cross-state sanctions to be brilliant. The also way that helps is all that money created from the tariff is distributed to the people at the end of the fiscal year. That ensures there is plenty of left overs to bolster Mom and Pop.

I like that! More mail room jobs for us old guys!

That's fair. But I was more thinking can what we've got so far withstand 500 years of constant attempts at erosion. I worry that in the transition phase we wouldn't be able to rid the cultural issues that allowed what we have today. But, perhaps that's another discussion.

Might be a good idea to build into the Constitution a REQUIREMENT to bloody the nose of anyone dabbling in local affairs from outside. Think... how does that sort of thing usually spread? Colonization, of one sort or another, and sometimes subversive espionage (which to my mind is just another form of colonialism - just a tendril of it, or "Advance Guards"). Minor infiltrations could be spotted and squashed by the people as soon as they spoke up, and major infiltrations are usually viewed as invasions, and would be sure to raise the alarm. The main thing, I would think, would be to ensure that the people were educated in their liberty, and what threatened that, and has threatened it in the past, and how the threats presented and developed.

As Franklin said, you can deliver them a Republic, but it's up to them to hang on to it.

I guess what we would have to do is have some sort of Constitutional agreement that if a group suffers from that kind of exploitation then it is the responsibility of everyone around them to destroy it. In this way we can share the benefits of both individualism and collectivism.

Works for me. As long as it protects MY liberty and THEIR liberty, I'm game.

Here I was thinking something along the lines of a Republic type set up with a Senate these terms would last for 4 years and would still operate under the raffle system. But the pool of people raffled from is individuals elected from their respective communities. This way we still ensure representation and at the same time force another check that disallows corruption. These individuals would have nothing to do with the policy side of the house. Only to do with ensuring that what is produced, be that capital or labor, is allocated correctly as far as the governing body is concerned.

Plus: no man shall be compelled or allowed to serve terms less than 8 years separated one from another; all such selectees are to receive the average wage prevalent in their own constituency, no more nor less, during the term served; and acceptance of gifts in any form from other than immediate family members, including gifts by proxy through such family members, during the term so served shall be punishable by death by hanging, to be meted out immediately, and a suitable replacement congressman selected at that time.

The benefit to this is that if the communist areas see a rise in the State you've come to hate, than the capitalists in surrounding areas come to our aid and if the capitalist areas see the rise of a Corprotocracy we come to yours. This way we avoid the trappings of both systems and allow all the variations in between.

Yup, that's what I'M talkin' about! puts an end to all the shifty-eyed suspicion among the economic systems, too. You have to learn to trust the "other" for one day he may save your ass!

A guaranteed job there would be in the mail room of the Bureau of Giving Folks Back Their Money.

But, that's a good thing. This allows room for people with disabilities and removes the need for social programs in the sense we have them now. End of the day everyone still has the right to withhold taxes.

Works for me. I've never thought of job creation to be a BAD thing!

I mean, hell, FIFTY YEAR non-disclosures? Really now...

Heh, I know stuff I can't talk about for the rest of my life and there are countries I'm not allowed to visit. It goes way beyond fifty years.

70 year prohibitions are the longest ones I was aware of, which amount to nearly a life sentence for all but the hardiest, but I should have known that some are for life from some hints dad dropped here and there. They'd make it beyond that if they could.

Yeah, I'm sorry for even bringing this up. I just haven't met anyone who could hear me, I guess, and I jumped at the chance.

No need to be sorry. Some things need to be heard, or they'll be forever festering.

I only mention this to show that I'm not talking out of my ass when I say the things I do, and I'm not as ignorant of the facts of the matter of poverty as some folks would like to think. No, it wasn't the rez, but it wasn't far off from some of them. That shack is no more. It burned down to the ground about 10 years ago or so, after we were all gone.

Now, if only we can convince people in this Country that for some it is the 3rd World. It never ceases to amaze me how these things can go unnoticed.

Well, to be honest about it, we weren't the only ones living like that, and visitors from outside were sometimes pretty severely discouraged, since we'd had no end of trouble from government types in both Old World and New, leading to a healthy (from our perspective) distrust. I've heard us referred to as "The Forgotten People", and "The People the World Passed By", but really we preferred to pretty much keep it that way until fairly recently, so I can't really blame folks out here for misunderstanding or not knowing. WE fostered that misunderstanding and ignorance of conditions, whether intentional or not.

Well, it looks like we have pretty much laid out the ground work for a system that works for everyone regardless of political affiliation. I guess I'll do the hard part next and write this thing up.

Good! I've got another writing project going on at the moment, but I'll be happy to review it and see if I can find any kinks that need to be shaken out.

reply to post by hawkiye


Excellent response Hawkiye!!! Socialism, Communism, Marxism has failed miserably through out history. It will be debated by so called "intellectuals" but no matter what, at the end of the day, they can not point to one example of collective thinking ever leading to prosperity for a nation's citizens!

In fact, the opposite can be pointed out over and over regardless of how educated the stooges try to sound!

Originally posted by sasquatch5100
reply to post by hawkiye

 

Excellent response Hawkiye!!! Socialism, Communism, Marxism has failed miserably through out history. It will be debated by so called "intellectuals" but no matter what, at the end of the day, they can not point to one example of collective thinking ever leading to prosperity for a nation's citizens!

Oh yes I can, Spain in the 1930's. They started with a civil war, Franco trying to take over the former established republican government. During this war, which in included the Nazi's fighting for Franco, the people started a revolution based on Anarchist and Socialist ideals. It worked for 2 years, the people collectivized industry and farms and raised production by 20%, they rebuilt the infrastructures in their cities. People from all over the world went to Spain to help the worker revolution, including nurses and doctors from the USA. It led directly to WWII. Unfortunately the establishment, Franco, took power and with his military the revolution was stopped.

If it wasn't for Franco, and Hitler, then the revolution would have continued and there is no reason, other than outside authorities, that it would fail. It was succeeding very well in less than two years.

In fact, the opposite can be pointed out over and over regardless of how educated the stooges try to sound!

No it can't. Socialism is down to the people, not governments, or other authority. It fails because people like you fail to realize the truth. Since WWII you have been lied to by your state system. Intellectual people realise this.
Russia, China etc., are nothing to do with the socialism that people want, the socialism that Europe was fighting for, that fascism unfortunately won over. Ever since then any alternative to capitalism, [Anarchism, socialism communism etc.,] have been demonized by your state system, and you blindly believe it. Such is state conditioning and your blind patriotism.

It's the biggest conspiracy there is! You will always be a slave to the system unless you realise the truth of your history. If it wasn't for socialists, and the labour movement, you would still be working in sweat shops for no pay, like they do in China.

reply to post by Rob37n


Because first of all millions of Americans, mostly naturalized like myself, were born and experienced socialism/communism...

Even Karl Marx stated that socialism is but a stage to transform a capitalist country into the final goal of communism...

socialim/communism is/are not the utopia claimed by their defenders who have never truly experienced what happens when a country fully embraces socialism or communism.

I was born and experienced communism in Cuba. I still have family in Cuba who would all love to be able to come to the U.S. I was able to visit them back in 2000/2001 and I saw again the fruits of socialism/communism, not to mention that i spoke with my family about it.

People in Cuba will not talk to strangers, or even amongst neighboors about the politics of Cuba because there are government spies in every neighborhood (what Janet Napolitano and the DHS among others are doing/trying to do in the U.S.), but to a family member from the U.S., like me, they will tell you in private what they think about socialism/communism.

It is true that there are Cubans who have been so brainwashed that they beleive the lies told by the socialist/communist dictators, but the mayority are well aware that socialism/communism is nothing more than a failure. Even castro even recently stated, and i quote:... "The Cuban model doesnt even work for us anymore," he said.

reply to post by Wally Hope


... Nice try... How about talking about how many people they murdered in Spain mostly for being "religious" which a majority of Spaniards were?...

I love how leftists continuosly love to tell lies or don't tell certain facts that show what socialism/communism really does to a country and it's people...

socialism/communism CLAIMS to represent the people and that all means of production are owned by the people, but this is not true... In fact it is the PARTY/GOVERNMENT that owns all means of production in socialist/communist countries.

Not to mention that socialism/communism is more materialistic than capitalism because under socialism/communism all religions and spiritual paths are shunned and banned. Individuality itself is frowned upon which means all individual freedom is lost.

socialism/communism goes against the natural spiritual answers and paths that mankind has been seeking since time immemorial.

It should be the decision of every individual if they want to follow any spiritual path or not, socialism and communism seek to take this choice, among others, away.

Even ancient tribes used to trade with other tribes, not to mention that people would seek to band with others who had different skills to survive and live better lives, and they would trade their different skills for money or for other services some other person was able to provide, this is capitalism.

Originally posted by Wally Hope

Originally posted by MGriff
Communism and socialism have failed historically, and is not in conjunction with the liberties America was founded on.

Failed because it has never been given a chance. The capitalists have the power, always have.

You are completely wrong "wally hope"... The fact that more than 110 million people have been murdered by socialists/communists and millions more have been imprisoned around the world for not conforming to the socialists/communists who "were trying to implement the failure that is socialism/communism" shows that these policy failures (socialism/communism) have been tried more than enough times, thank you very much but no thanks...

Originally posted by Wally Hope
Read about the Spanish revolution. The fascists were supported by capitalist all over the world, including the US, in their attempt to stop the power the workers were gaining all over Europe.

For crying out loud... read how the socialists/communists in Spain were going after and even murdering religious people, which was part of the cause why most Spaniards fought against the socialists/communists... But of course socialists/communists like to hide the truth of their history...

Originally posted by Wally Hope

If you're talking about the USSR they were never socialist or communist to start with.

That was all just propaganda by the US after the end of WWII.

That is nothing more than the BS excuse from those socialists/communists who want their failed policies to be embraced once again by those who are ignorant of history...