Why Is Socialism Doing So Darn Well in Deep-Red North Dakota?

Can somebody explain to be how to get an image to show in a post rather then as an "external image"??

I see it done all the time, have tried everything I know to do and still can't figure it out.

Or maybe just direct me to instructions on how different functions actually work....

Thanks in advance.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Your post with the definition of socialism sent me to the dictionary (two dictionaries, actually) to check the meaning of the word and I was surprised to learn that you are absolutely correct. That was a jolt because living in Canada, a country that I am accustomed to think of as "socialist", I had a far different idea of what socialism is.

I think the reality is that socialism as practiced in numerous countries in Europe and in Canada is actually a hybrid system with workable aspects of centralization and government control grafted onto capitalism.

None of these European countries, or Canada, are, in my judgement, going to become significantly more socialist than they already are. Most people are just too practical to become ideologues on this subject. Much of the politics of these nominally socialist or "social democratic" style countries consists of a tug of war between exploitative capitalists and people who should really be called populists.

The "occupy" movement, in essence and purpose, is actually a reasonable facsimile of the day to day reality of politics in so-called socialist countries in Western Europe and in Canada. As a Canadian, who has lived his life in that milieu, I can tell you that there is nothing inherently wrong with that state of affairs.

I think the US as a society suffers to some extent from what amounts to a doctrinaire dismissal of so-called "socialist" ideas, ideas that only amount to saying, "We know that the capitalists are an important and necessary part of the society, but we don't think they should be allowed to completely dominate all economic activity to fit their own exclusive interests."

It is not that socialist ideas are not applied in the US, but that socialism completely lacks any legitimate status in the public debate, based on the dictionary definition of socialism and the history of twentieth century communism, rather than on the merits of successful hybrid socialist/capitalist configurations operating in the world now.

reply to post by FyreByrd


Try this link.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The ATS search function is excellent as well. It is an impressive site.

Personally I like links.

Originally posted by Bluesma
...
Now, your doom predictions for the future do not distract from the correct assertion I made-
There are many nations, at this moment, in which capitalism and socialism are both present and cooperating. This invalidates your assertion that this is impossible.

You have further confirmed that you are actually refering, in this thread, to "pure Socialism". Just about no systems exist that are "pure" anything- ideals are fairly unrealistic.
...

When I say "people like you" I am talking about people who think socialism can work, and is great. You want to take it as an insult and to me you are trying to play the victim to deflect the fact that you don't have a real argument.

As for your claim that socialism is working in capitalist countries like I said, and it is true, many people such as yourself seem to think that social programs means "socialism". While some might be, not all are, and certainly not all that leftwingers claim are part of socialism.

In order for a country to be socialist one of the main premises is that there is no private property. If you live in a country where you can have private property, such as land, and or a house with a small piece of land, then you are not living in a socialist country.

Oh and btw, I have already mentioned that there is no real capitalist nations anymore. Yes, countries are TURNING socialist but they are still in a stage in between. A capitalist/free market system would mean that no one has any sort of monopoly over infrastructures and resources.

When a market has regulations through government it is not a free market system anymore. It is a corpocracy.

reply to post by FyreByrd

Democratic Socialism is not Authoritarian.

As long as you tell me I have to give up portions of my paycheck for some arbitrary reason the State has that redistributes my income to someone who does not work, then it is authoritarian and Socialism enforces this stuff regardless if they call it Democratic or not.

reply to post by poet1b



Well ND does have the lowest unemployment rate, they must be doing something right.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse

When a market has regulations through government it is not a free market system anymore. It is a corpocracy.

Just the opposite, when the government does not regulate business activity in the market, allows businesses to ignore societies rules, the big businesses in the form of corporations take over the country and destroy the economy by establishing monopolies.

Without a governing body enforcing the rules, competition is eliminated, and so is the market system itself.

The nation is no longer ruled by representative government, but by corporations. More specifically, the nation is ruled by the banks.

This is how deregulation has put us in the current mess that we are in.

Originally posted by poet1b

Just the opposite, when the government does not regulate business activity in the market, allows businesses to ignore societies rules, the big businesses in the form of corporations take over the country and destroy the economy by establishing monopolies.

Without a governing body enforcing the rules, competition is eliminated, and so is the market system itself.

The nation is no longer ruled by representative government, but by corporations. More specifically, the nation is ruled by the banks.

This is how deregulation has put us in the current mess that we are in.

There have been several regulatory groups for the markets for a long time, including in the United States, and this only gave more power to some companies, because the government would play favorites. It happened in the United States when the government gave contracts to the railroad, and in turn the government favored the railroad over the people to the point that the government would even send the military to stop people who would confront the railroad abuses.

Look at Wall Street itself. In case you didn't know, which you obviously don't, in the United States two government agencies have been "regulating" the financial markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In addition to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that created it, the SEC enforces the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and other statutes. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (now codified as 15 U.S.C. § 78d and commonly referred to as the 1934 Act).
...
The SEC was established by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 as an independent, quasi-judicial regulatory agency, during the Great Depression that followed the Crash of 1929. The main reason for the creation of the SEC was to regulate the stock market and prevent corporate abuses relating to the offering and sale of securities and corporate reporting. The SEC was given the power to license and regulate stock exchanges, the companies whose securities traded on them, and the brokers and dealers who conducted the trading.
...

en.wikipedia.org...

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates futures and option markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-463) created the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to replace the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Exchange Authority, as the independent federal agency responsible for regulating the futures trading industry. The Act made extensive changes in the basic authority of Commodity Exchange Act of 1936, which itself had made extensive changes in the original Grain Futures Act of 1923. (7 U.S.C. 1 et seq.).[3][4]

The Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., prohibits fraudulent conduct in the trading of futures contracts. The stated mission of the CFTC is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices related to the sale of commodity and financial futures and options, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound futures and option markets.[5]
...

en.wikipedia.org...

But hey, they have been working great huh?...

Government regulations leads to governments choosing favorites, limiting the market and transforming it into a corpocracy, that's what your regulations really do.

Heck, if you think having the government regulate even more will solve the problems with the markets why did the government gave billions to Wall Street , and the CEOs?...

The facts are staring you in the face and many of you still fall for the lies that "we need more regulations"...

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


You are blaming government for the actions of corporations.

The corporations committed the abuse.

The failure of the government was in failing to prevent the abuse.

The reason government failed to protect people from corporate abuse is because people like you want to eliminate governments ability to police business activity.

You are pointing out situations where deregulation allowed corporations to violate the rights of the people.

Thereby proving your claims about regulations to be wrong.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by FyreByrd

 

Yes, or in other words, a credit union is owned by all the members, not by an individual or controlling group, but by all the members, and is not for profit.

The goal is not to make a profit, but to provide a public service.

On a further note, the whole purpose of trying to define something as capitalist or socialist is merely a technique for creating division. Everything is socialism. Nothing is socialism. Everything is capitalism. Nothing is capitalism.

I am for whatever increases our liberty, and I don't care what you call it.

The difference between a socialist cooperative and a capitalist corporation lies in the purpose of the entities. The socialist cooperative exist to provide a good or service at its true cost, the capitalist corporation seeks to extract more than the actual cost of providing that service, the more excess.. the better. Thus the whole ideal gets swapped from doing what is best in providing that service to what makes the most money by providing that service. Not saying it needs to be that way for everything, but it should be for the necessities of life in the modern age.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by ElectricUniverse

 

You are blaming government for the actions of corporations.

The corporations committed the abuse.

The failure of the government was in failing to prevent the abuse.

The reason government failed to protect people from corporate abuse is because people like you want to eliminate governments ability to police business activity.

You are pointing out situations where deregulation allowed corporations to violate the rights of the people.

Thereby proving your claims about regulations to be wrong.

Did you become blind to the facts I just posted before your post?... There have been regulatory bodies for the markets ALREADY since the 1930s...

Not to mention that the government should have allowed these corporations to fail instead of giving them billions of U.S. dollars. So yes, the government is to blame also for what the corporations did because by paying them for failing it is encouraging these same corporations to take worst risks, since if they "fail again" Obama will come to their rescue...

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical

The socialist cooperative exist to provide a good or service at its true cost, the capitalist corporation seeks to extract more than the actual cost of providing that service, the more excess..

It's always the same nonsense from socialists. You expect people to produce without getting paid, and pay up to people who don't produce. You just have it all bass ackwards.

Originally posted by poet1b

Credit unions are as socialistic as unions. That is a good scale to place things on

To hear the conservatives label things, anything they don't like iis socialism, and anything that they do like is capitalism.

Take the fed reserve system. This is pure capitalism, through and through, private owned banks all. There is nothing socialistic about the fed res, but are people calling the fed res socialistic.

Credit unions are not "socialist"... Credit unions are owned by the members who control them, and they DO MAKE A PROFIT... They just COMPETE better by providing better competitive prices...

This would be similar to claiming that a family who own a piece of land and make some money from it is socialist because more than one person owns it and just those who own it make a profit...

You got it backwards buddy. The Feds/Federal Reserve IS socialist... It is a CENTRAL BANK in charge of the economy of a NATION...

Also, btw, in case you didn't know it was Democrat Bill Clinton, as President, who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. But you got the same Bill Clinton claiming that it is because of Republicans that the crisis happened... I could not believe my eyes when I saw him making ads for Obama and lying through his teeth, and the worse part is that leftwingers (people who lean to the left in politics) actually believed him, and they themselves forgot who repealed that regulation...

IMO, this was part of the plan, Clinton, a Democrat, had to repeal the "Glass-Steagall Act", this would in turn do two things.

One, it would make people believe that we need more regulations, and 2 it goes with the plans of the elites to cause a crisis. After all, Rahm Emmanuel himself stated "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste...



This made up crisis is giving more and more power to the leftwinger powerhungry elite, and it puts us closer to their One World socialist/fascist Government...

Remember...

“The governments of Europe, the United States, and Japan are unlikely to negotiate a social-democratic pattern of globalization – unless their hands are forced by a popular movement or a catastrophe, such as another Great Depression or ecological disaster“

Originally posted by poet1b

Credit unions are as socialistic as unions. That is a good scale to place things on
...

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Credit unions are as different from unions as days are different from nights...

If you are a member in an union you must vote Democrat, they force you to be a Democrat/Leftwinger if you want to join them, you also must do, and vote for what they tell you to do when votes are needed, otherwise they kick you out...

On the other hand ANYONE can join a credit union, whether you are Republican, Democrat, Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian, etc, you don't have to do what they tell you to do in a credit union, decisions are made as a group, and each person can decide for himself/herself what and how he/she wants to vote on...

Unions are socialist, credit unions are NOT socialist...

reply to post by Realtruth


North Dakota is currently in the process of raping the ground around them.

The abuse and destruction of nature has always been profitable. DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


What nonsense, the events you point to are not a result of government action, but of corporate action.

Just because corporations succeed at committing crimes doesn't mean the government should stop trying to prevent the commission of crimes. Under your logic, we should get rid of all law enforcement. Sometimes the police and the courts actually aid the criminals in committing crimes.

Should we get rid all law enforcement because there are dirty cops and criminals get by with crimes.

The market system is not a law enforcement system. Basically all third world countries are as they are because criminal business enterprises have taken over.

What you advocate is allowing criminals to control the US economy because sometimes the criminal succeed in get law enforcement to support their criminal enterprises.

That is insanity.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


The biggest mistake Clinton made was compromising with the repubs in repealing Glass Steagall, but that was the repubs baby all the way.

What you advocate is more of what ails us.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse


When I say "people like you" I am talking about people who think socialism can work, and is great. You want to take it as an insult and to me you are trying to play the victim to deflect the fact that you don't have a real argument.

You made many claims of what I am, what I think, what I feel, none correct nor having any basis in what I posted.
Why don't you just leave behind all the characterizations of my personality and just refer to the subject of discussion.

In order for a country to be socialist one of the main premises is that there is no private property.

I did not claim that this country was a socialist one. I will repeat my argument once again - There is virtually no nations with a pure form of any system. There are, however, countries which mix aspects of capitalism and socialism together.

That was my original assertion, in response to yours, that it is "impossible" to do that. I say it is possible and that it is exists.

Oh and btw, I have already mentioned that there is no real capitalist nations anymore.

Not that it has anythign to do with my assertion that socialism and capitalism are mixed in some countries, but I will repeat-

There are virtually NO nations which has a pure form of any system. (whether we're talking Capitalism, Socialism, Communism....) And there never HAS been. The reason is that these are ideologies- they are not realistic.

Ideologies are not compatible with reality, and suffer mutations between theory and practice.

You always have to have some sort of competition or options which kind of product you want to buy.

A pure socialist system only works in an ideal world, where everybody only works or thinks for the greater good like in Star Trek.
In reality most people look out for themselves, which natural. You care for yourself, your family, your country, your culture.

If the public doesn't control or punish certain individual actions, people performing those action will go on. If these people already have great power and money, they will do whatever they want to achieve their goals.

I think that a government option to some buisiness models is a good thing. They also have to compete, but they play by the same rules and have to be effective.

Taxes and Regulations are good, as long as they are helping people live easier. Taxes can be used to build and maintain the infrastructure and help people out, who have a bad time.
Regulations are there to limit the power of individuals for the well beeing of the majority.

Even someone who pays no income taxes pays taxes, if he buys gas or groceries. The 1% wants to have the middle class fight against the poor or/ and the government while they double their wealth within 10 years.

If the top 1% would have payed 30% income tax over the last 30 years, no country would have problems with dept. There are ~10000 out of 7.100.000.000 people, who could change the world to a place where everyone could live in better conditions, but they do the exact opposite, even if they were extremely rich after they gave half their money to help other out.
We live in a free world and we can't just take all their money by force, but we as the vast majority can make them pay an equal percentage of the burden.



If you think "small government" and "lower taxes" are the answer ask yourself who is behind deregulation. ->
www.sourcewatch.org...