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The red corner
Tuesday, January 17 2012 - 03:31 AM Yours in revolution. (Please note that the following type of comment posts will be deleted from this thread: those containing childish or otherwise offensive material; those containing cut-and-pasted material that exceed fifty-percent of their total content; and those containing video clips regardless of whether or not they might be accompanied by any amount of original writings [the embedding of URLs or “hotlinks” within comment posts which serve to direct readers to video clips will be accepted provided that all such posts also contain original writings of no fewer than fifty words].
'Patriot' Act vs democracy
avbornbred: “Can you [Cybertariat] explain your comments about our…liberty being destroyed? How is that happening? Since 911 there have been attacks. But, overall, our government has created policies – some outrageous – that have worked so far … thanks to the Patriot Act.” –posted to the thread entitled “I would have pissed on them, too, Marine”
Though his own words – “some outrageous” – should be enough to convince avbornbred that the added security that the so-called Patriot Act has allegedly provided us with is not worth the accompanying loss of liberty, I will say that three (3) key provisions of the Patriot Act (Section 213, Section 215 and Section 505) are its most outrageous.
Section 213 greatly and unconstitutionally expands the political state’s capacity to perform criminal search warrants – which in no way have to involve so-called terrorism – and seize the property of individuals, including American citizens, without informing the targeted individual for several weeks if not several months. These are know as “sneak and peak” warrants which were granted by the US Congress on a permanent basis without any type of sunset provision.
Section 215 enables the FBI to confiscate a huge panoply of personal belongings and information – embodying library, business and medical records – through the use of stealth intelligence tools which do not require the presence of criminal activity. Although such documentation may only be received through a court order, judges are legally compelled by Section 215 to grant such “requests” thereby reducing the constitutional process known as “judicial review” to nothing more than a rubber-stamping process.
Section 505 lowers – quite substantially – the evidentiary standards for NSLs (national security letters), that are disseminated at the sole discretion of the US Department of Justice, administer an all-encompassing gag order on targeted individuals and are in no way subject to judicial review. These supposed “national security letters” may be utilized in order to confiscate an extremely wide variety of personal financial and business records, and may also be employed by FBI and/or Homeland Security officials to secure membership lists of institutions that allow for so much as limited Internet services (i.e., blogs within, say, Earth First’s website). This section – Section 505 – is also of a permanent nature; without a sunset provision.
Now of course at this point many a political reactionary will state something to the effect of “Well, if it helps to put an end to Islamic terrorism, I’m all for it” and/or “If you’re not involved in terrorist or criminal activities, you haven’t anything to be concerned about.” But, aside from Benjamin Franklin’s admonishment that “Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither,” it must be considered that the alleged “terrorist attacks” that have taken place since America’s 911 have, in actuality, been little if anything more than law enforcement nuisances that have been carried out by utterly inept, Keystone Cops-like characters that have often ended up doing harm to themselves while managing to harm absolutely no one. The “Shoe ‘Bomber,’” the “Underwear ‘Bomber,’” the highly ineptly assembled “Time Square car ‘bomb’ that smoldered like a 4th of July “snake” firework, etc., have not been terrorist attacks, they have been comedies of error. The simple fact of the matter is that this supposititious “terrorist threat” that the political state and its lapdog capitalist media keep to hyping is virtually nonexistent because the Islamic terrorism – actually the Wahhabi terrorism – that Osama bin Laden and a very few others believed would spread like wildfire throughout the world has simply failed to materialize.
But to hear the likes of the Homeland Security agency go on and on with its multicolored alert system and such, one would think that Wahhabi “terrorists” are somehow able to carry out large-scale attacks on American soil at will – and for good reason: the political state – at the behest of the capitalist class – desperately needs for we workers to believe that this “terrorist threat” is much more than the mere annoyance that it actually is in order to further dismantle the Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as to justify constant increases in this society’s already bloated military budget.
So has the Patriot Act, as avbornbred stated, “worked so far”? As a means of countering terrorism? No. After all, the threat of terrorism as it relates to the United States is all but nonexistent. But as exemplified by its Sections 213, 215 and 505, the Patriot Act has worked to all but eliminate our freedom of association, our freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, our right to legal representation, our right to speedy and public trials, and even our freedom of speech and religion. And that, to me, was the very intent of the Patriot Act in the first place. Why? Because just as democracy is incompatible with the workplace, so too is democracy incompatible with the “needs” of capitalism at large, for democracy has forever been a threat to infinitesimally small ruling classes and the present-day American capitalist class is certainly no exception. Its system of industrial/economic production has wrought social problems which it nor its political system can possibly solve. So it – through its political system – necessarily turns to social repression in order to protect itself and to ensure its continued existence.
Its only possible response to the crime, drug abuse and alcoholism that its antisocial system breeds is social repression. Its only possible response to the growing degree of unemployment, poverty, the extreme economic gap between capitalists and workers, unequal educational opportunities, and still other issues driving the Occupy Wall Street movement, for example, is social repression. Its only possible response to opposition to its imperialist wars – its natural resource wars – is social repression.
In order for the capitalist class’ political state to carry out such repression – in direct response to the rapidly disintegrating state of the capitalist system – the civil liberties of workers must be compromised and, if possible, completely eliminated. Ergo, the function of the titular Patriot Act and other Draconian, anti-constitutional measures.
To put it another way, the capitalist class’ plutocracy is enacting repressive legislation in order to protect the capitalist class and its economic system from the working class. Moreover, the capitalist class has long endeavored to prevent workers from being able to organize themselves (read: the Taft-Hartley Act and other anti-trade union legislation.)
The short of it all, is that capitalism always has been and is in fact becoming increasingly incompatible with democratic principles. And the longer that we continue to accept – indeed embrace the continued existence of capitalism, the more its plutocracy will try to do away with the hard-fought-for democratic gains of past generations by way of capitalist class-serving legislation the likes of the “Patriot” Act.
Finally. Although avbornbred and all other political reactionaries will forever fail to comprehend the Patriot Act’s ominous nature (despite its blatantly obvious unconstitutional characteristics), it is my hope that this post will cause less ideologically developed – perhaps younger readers – to understand that, unlike the capitalist class, the working class possesses a vested interest in preserving and expanding democracy. It is also my hope that the less ideologically developed will come to the realization that socialism, which would be firmly grounded in and dependent upon the democratic control of all institutions, including the economy, is fundamentally inseparable from democracy.
Guy R. Marsh
Lancaster
93536
Member at-large (since 1990)
Socialist Labor Party of America (est. 1890)
http://www.slp.org/
Thank you.)
Cybertariat says...
So our Grumpy only skims one-thousand-word posts. My, he is feeling his dotage.
(“Feeling his dotage.” Was that verbose enough for you, Grumpy? ;-)
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Grumpy: “Guy, by some convoluted reasoning that I can’t follow, assigns responsibility for the Patriot Act’s excesses of our legislators to the nominally anti-government ‘capitalist class plutocracy’ which, I presume, is the catchall term for citizens who employ others rather than being employed [sic].”
Actually, what I wrote was “the capitalist class’ plutocracy” and “the capitalist class’ political state [or government].” These are vital distinctions, for they express the fact that, with a very few notable exceptions (e.g., Nelson Rockefeller and Winthrop Rockefeller), the capitalist class is not in and of itself a formal governing body. Rather, the US government is, as it always has been, a plutocracy (a government that functions predominantly in the interest of the dwarfish group of individuals known as the capitalist class).
At this point, Grumpy and others will undoubtedly howl “The US government is not a plutocracy.” To which I would respond with, as but a single exemplum, the fact that the political state – via the Bush and Obama administrations – loaned automobile capitalists, banking capitalists and other capitalists some $750-billion without so much as a single stipulation with respect to, say, the modification of existing home mortgages that would have prevented millions of workers – those who paid for the TARP corporate welfare program – from losing their homes to banking capitalists.
Yes, even in the face of such obtrusive examples as the political state’s “Troubled Assets Relief Program,” the likes of Grumpy will forever deny the obvious fact that the United States government is perhaps the quintessential example of plutocracy. Furthermore and by logical extension, it is also a fact that the same plutocracy that deregulated the banking industry in 1999 (thereby paving the way for this latest and severe crisis in capitalist production) is the very same plutocracy that brought about the “Patriot” Act at the behest of capitalists whose need to suppress public outrage over its behavior, destroy trade unions and see to the waging of imperialist wars is now stronger than ever before.
Grumpy: “This idea strikes me as bizarre in the extreme, since iron-fisted control of the citizenry is actually the major hallmark of the more, shall we say, ‘evolved’ [and so-called] socialist/communist governments.”
(The highly repetitive nature of my participation within this forum)
Finally. Yes, as Grumpy stated quite correctly, there are indeed capitalists whose operations have been negatively effected by provisions set forth by the “Patriot” Act. Airline capitalists, shipping capitalists and a few other industries have been so hampered. Yet, overall and as previously discussed, the protections to its continued power and privilege that have been provided by the Patriot Act have and will continue to serve the narrow self-interests of the capitalist class for as long as said Act remains law.
Too, Grumpy, being an employer does not necessarily gain one entrance to the capitalist class; the members of which include the likes of the Rothschilds, the Carnegies, the Melons, the DuPonts, the Gates, the Waltons, etc. It does not include petty capitalists/”small businesspeople” who, in most cases, are really no better off than most workers.
Persevere.
Guy
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roxi says...
If one just looks at how the OWS protesters were treated, with armies of cops in riot-gear, storming the ‘un-armed mobs’, with their acidic pepper spray in DEFENSE of said unarmed citizens of this country.
Why didn’t they storm the Tea Party ‘gatherings’? Was it because they had their own Militia – or were they consider ‘harmless’, because most of them were old, and voted Republican?
The Patriot Act has allowed a storm-trooper mentality infiltrate our local and state ‘cop system’, training them in ‘anti-terrorist’ techniques, which are basically a front for protecting the Neuvo-Riche and their oppressive VAMPIRE ECONOMIC techniques of stealing everyone’s money and making it their own.
Privatize the Profits, Socialize the Debt – “Corporations are People, My Friend”, Romney boasts. Seek out petitions against “Citizens United”, eliminating this bogus oppression on workers is step one to eventually eliminating The Patriot (for the Rich Only) Act.
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AV Town Crier says...
I agree that the Patriot’s Act is unconstitutional and is grounds for an American revolution for the return of a constitutional govt.
As for the capitalism Vs. communism argument; the tactics of the Patriot’s Act go against democracy (capitalism notwithstanding). The tactic is more reminiscent of communist countries and how they control people (Note to Guy: communist countries that I’m referencing are clearly not a true communist state as per Marx et al, but are in fact capitalistic monopolies)
As for socialism I wold agree with you Guy in theory. But, mankind (at this juncture in time) is incapable of implementing such a governing body as greed and power seem to be in our blood. Our system of democracy (A republic) is the best of all systems, but that too has failed due to greed and power and control by the international bankers.
At this moment the best system on the planet is is the small country of Qatar. 60 Minutes did a story on them. All the citizens are financially well off. The government (monarchy)shares the oil profits with all the people. Unlike other middle eastern countries, the people are free. But they are a small country and it’s easier to accomplish a successful govt. America is probably much too large and too diverse to get everybody to agree to follow any one system and to have a govt. that is honest.
The operative word there was honest. The Patriot’s Act is one of the most dishonest acts ever foisted upon the American people. It’s as bad (if not worse) than the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Those two acts alone should fuel an America revolution with the goal of returning the country back to the Constitution that our founding fathers provided us with (I know I kind of repeated myself. But just woke up so cut me some slack).
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avbornbred says...
Roxi, those were not unarmed mobs. Mobs, yes, unarmed NO. At several of the Occupy sites, weapons were found, specifical bamboo spears. Some spears were thrown at officers. That is why they wear the protective gear. During the Seattle riots, officers were pelted with bags of “shit” and urine. That is why the officers wore ponchos, not because of wet weather, but because of shit thowing shitheads.
As for the Patriot Act, who on this blog was personally affected by anything fromt the Patriot Act?
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AV Town Crier says...
AVB
You don’t have to be directly affected to complain about it. Once you are affected it’s too late. When the US Constitution is compromised—you have to stop it in its tracks. To do nothing until you are affected, by then it’s too late.
Our govt. has been corrupted by special interests none-of-which has the best interest of the American Citizen.
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avbornbred says...
Gee CYBERDUDE, I guess I poked you in the poooooper. Thanks for doing all that research on the Patriot Act.
As for the Patriot Act having worked. Yes it has. The Department of Homeland Security had the misfortune of being created by the Bush Administration after 911. Why is that a misfortune, because if any president from the Democratic party created it, the far left, the moderates, and even most conservatives would be embracing the idea and the policies.
After 911, the left needed a rallying point. When G.W. Bush’s approval rating was at 99.9%, the Dems said “Oh Oh. Bush stole the 2000 election.” The left had been groomed to destroy Bush for the 2000 elections. After 911, anything he did or did not do, would be the rallying battle cry. When DHS and the Patriot Act were created, that was it, the Dems needed to attack it, citing violations of our civil liberties. If Bush had not created the DHS and the Patriot Act, the Dems would be demanding action to make us safer. Bush was in a no win situation with the Dems and the left. No matter what he did, the left would be going in the opposite direction.
If the UN had been pushing for US support of UN 1441, and Bush did not act with the UN, he would have been attacked by the left. The left would have cited Sadaam as being one of the people who helped fund the 911 attacks. When Afghanistan was attacked within months of 911, America loved it, “Pay Back Time, blow up the towel heads and get Bin Ladin.” If Bush had not attacked Afghanistan, the left would have declared Bush was doing nothing to protect us or kill our enemies.
The left is very reactive to issues. Depending on who implements policies, they will either support it or demonize it.
CYBERGUY has already publically declared his hatred for the USA with remarks saying “cowardly war with Afghanistan” and referring to Marines by saying “Oh Please”, critical of a comment supporting the front line troops and sacrifices of our young men and women. A common immediate response by angry liberals.
With my question about the Patriot Act about how it has affected anyone personally still stands. Yes, I have been searched at the airports, but I understand why. Do I need to know why they implement certain policies and change others, no I don’t neeed to know. I only need to see that the government is trying to prevent another 911. Can it happen again, yes it can, but we need to make it harder to attack us, and that is what the Patriot Act has done.
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avbornbred says...
Hooray for section 213. If it enhances criminal search warrants, I am all for that. Only the ACLU, and liberals want to protect criminals. Attorneys love these laws because it is more money for them.
Libs and the ACLU see all citizens and non-citizens as being equal. Even those who have broken our laws our entitled to vote, if libs had their ways. Prisons are filled with victims because of evil police officers stopping and arresting only minorities. It is not fair that prisons hold more minorities than whites, the system is racial and prejudicial.
Making our country safer is bad in the eyes of libs. Gives them less chance to smuggle some weed onto an airplane. Makes them get patted down by people with neatly groomed people with jobs at airports.
The left should love the Patriot Act. It gives them another reason to protest and to live. Just like Occupy groups, they now have a cause, most of whom don’t know what they are “causing” about, but it is fun to throw shit at cops and to live in a tent feeling important.
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Cybertariat says...
AV Town Crier (AVTC): “As for socialism, Guy, I would agree with you in theory. But, at this juncture in time, mankind is incapable of implementing such a governing body as greed and power seem to be in our blood.”
With all respect due you, AVTC, you have stated that very thing to me on several occasions and, each time, I have responded to you at-length but without your ever having responded in turn. (The latest example of which took place on 10.31.11 and 11.01.11 within the thread entitled Capitalism: ‘…the borders remain porous’(Part II)." AVTC had written “In theory, I agree with you: capitalism in and of itself is just greed…On the same token, a totally socialist society can only work on paper…The one stumbling block is human greed [first comment post].” I responded by writing “With all due respect, [AVTC], your point concerning greed will be valid only for as long as we allow ourselves to be conditioned into believing that greed is an intrinsic share of the human condition rather than, like racism, an artificial condition born of the material deprivations created by class rule.” But, as per usual, AVTC did not respond in kind.)
However and in all fairness, AVTC’s failure to discuss such a matter in any sort of depth is, I think, indicative of the fact that capitalist cultures works rather diligently at conditioning workers not to think in such ways. Instead, we are taught that “mankind” is, by nature, greedy, selfish, competitive, warlike, etc., when, in reality, there is an enormous – though largely suppressed – body of evidence which tells us that humankind is actually hardwired to be generous, cooperative and peaceful. To permit ourselves to be trained to believe that our nature is something that it is not is quite advantageous to various ruling classes, but it is anything but advantageous to the social majority whose best interest lies in such things as generosity, cooperation and peacefulness. Think about.
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avbornbred: “Thanks for doing all the research on the Patriot Act.”
Actually, there wasn’t all that much research involved. It is just that I had ordered a copy of the “Patriot” Act shortly after its enactment. I have reviewed it on numerous occasions over the years and have therefore memorized portions of it. Nonetheless, you are of course quite welcome.
avbornbred: “After 911, anything he [George W. Bush] did or did not do would have been the rallying cry. When the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and the Patriot Act were enacted [on a bipartisan basis], that was it, the Dems’ needed to attack it; citing [a threat] to our civil liberties [sic].”
First of all, as noted immediately above, the “Patriot” Act was approved by politicians from both the pro-capitalist Republican Party and the pro-capitalist Democratic Party.
Secondly, there exists no question but that the supposed Patriot Act presents a threat to our civil liberties. In fact, it effectively renders the US Constitution’s First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments null and void. Our political reactionaries may wish to ignore the Patriot Act’s highly unconstitutional nature as they surely do and in exchange for what they perceive to be added security, but the USA “Patriot” Act of 2001 is just exactly that – highly unconstitutional.
avbornbred: “If the UN had been pushing for US support of UN 1441, and had Bush not acted with the UN, he – Bush – would have been attacked by the left. The left would have cited Saddam as being one of the people who helped fund the 911 attacks [sic].”
What? Of course the UN did not push for US support of Security Council Resolution 1441 simply because 1441 won unanimous approval within the UN’s Security Council which is and always has been heavily dominated by the United States. Too, George W. Bush did not act with the UN with respect to Iraq, the UN acted with George W. Bush in response to Bush’s then Secretary of State Colin Powell having presented the UN’s Security Council with false and misleading information regarding Iraq’s reputed WMD capabilities.*
Therefore, aside from whether or not certain elements within the Democratic faction of the “Capitalist Party” wished to detract from the idiot president – George W. Bush – with respect to the invasion of Iraq, the invasion and subsequent creation of both the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act were predicated upon lies and supported by both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
As for 911 itself, either the Bush administration allowed the events of that day to unfold as they did, or that administration was by far the most inept presidential administration in American history. If not, then why, for example, were four, lumbering, hijacked, commercial airliners able to fly off course for more than an hour within the world’s most sensitive air corridor (that which lies between Washington, D.C., Langley, Virginia, and New York City) without any of those airliners ever having been at least intercepted by fighter jets? Indeed, to believe much of the official version of America’s 911 is to believe most anything. * *
Ergo, there exists a strong possibility that the Bush administration permitted 911 to happen by way of intentionally failing to respond to the hijacked airliners and for the dual purpose of gaining public support for an invasion of Iraq; and to further assault the US Constitution with “Patriot” Act-like legislation.
Respecting Saddam Hussein’s putative and illogical role in the planning of the 911 attacks, it was the CIA and still other intelligence agencies that quickly exposed that bit of nonsense to the world. And so it simply wouldn’t have mattered whether or not certain liberals “would have cited Saddam as being one of the people who helped fund the 911 attacks” [avbornbred] because the entire assertion was utterly ridiculous from the beginning. * * *
avbornbred: “When Afghanistan was attacked within months of 911, [much of] America loved it: ‘Payback time’; blow up the towel heads and get ‘bin Laden.’ If Bush had not attacked Afghanistan, the left would have declared Bush was doing nothing to protect us or kill our enemies [sic].”
With respect to mainstream, rather conservative liberals, that very well may have been the case. After all, nearly all anti-war activities did cease upon the election of Barack Obama. Yet, more radicalized liberals and certainly we Marxists know that the subtext of the Bush administration’s invasion of Afghanistan was its desire for American oil capitalists to gain control of the Caspian Sea’s vast deposits of oil and natural gas. The administration wanted to see to the building of a pipeline that would have transported the Caspian Sea’s natural gas through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and then on to Pakistan where it would have been loaded onto ships within ports to the Arabian Sea.
You see, the reality of the situation was that the Bush administration had absolutely no problem with Afghanistan’s Taliban until it – the Taliban – refused to allow for the construction of such a pipeline within Afghanistan. In fact, the administration had negotiated with the Taliban concerning the building of said pipeline up until August of 2001 when the Taliban ultimately decided not to allow for the pipeline’s construction on Afghan soil. That month (August 2001), Bush administration officials told the Taliban “You will accept a pot of gold [in exchange for allowing for the pipeline’s construction], or you will be given a carpet of bombs.” * * * *
Consequently, it is doubtful in the extreme that any leftists other than pseudo leftists the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and, say, Christopher Dodd would have complained about Bush “doing nothing to protect us or kill our enemies.”
avbornbred: “Cybertariat has already publically declared his hatred for the USA by writing ‘cowardly war against Afghanistan’…”
Yes, I attempt to defend the Constitution while avbornbred obediently acquiesces to its systematic dismantlement, and that portends my “hatred” of America. I, in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, question US foreign and domestic policy all the while avbornbred writes the likes of “Do I need to know why they implement certain policies and change others? No, I don’t need to know [sic]” (as if the Bill of Rights were a policy), but somehow it is “I” who “hates America.” Will our political reactionaries’ ignorance and disordered hubris ever cease? No. No it will not.”
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marino: “Cybertariat chose to leave out a few details concerning the Patriot Act’s Sections 213, 215 and 505, which I had included in a post here before he deleted it, which is typical of commies and socialists, i.e., leaving out facts and details that refute their BS.
“So, yes, Cybertariat, my cut-and-paste was in fact over 50% of the content of my post. My bad. [sic].”
So which it, marino? Did I delete your post because of my – what? – “fear” of your “refuting” my “BS”? Or did I do so simply as a result of your having blatantly ignored my very longstanding and public policy having to do with comment posts “containing cut-and-pasted material that exceed fifty-percent of their total content”?
Beyond that, marino, I did not “leave out” any portions of Sections 213, 215 or 505 due to the fact that I did not quote any portion of Sections 213, 215 or 505. Rather, I merely offered summations of those sections as well as the “Patriot” Act itself. All right?
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Notes:
* It should be pointed out that Colin Powell is no stranger to the rendering of false and misleading information, for, as a young, Army captain, he was in fact the very individual charged with covering up the US Army’s Mai Lai massacre.
* * Keep in mind that I am not claiming that US fighter jets should have “downed” those hijacked, commercial airliners; only that said airliners could easily have been intercepted and subsequently “flanked” by fighter jets which is a part of official US policy as well as a routine occurrence (i.e., the late Paine Stewart’s Lear Jet which flew off course in 1999 after experiencing “decompression” somewhere over northern Alabama. His rented aircraft was nowhere close to what could be considered to have been extremely sensitive airspace, yet it came to be intercepted and flanked by two F-16s within fifteen minutes of its having flown off course.
* * * Part of that which makes the now thoroughly discredited assertion that Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning of America’s 911 the lie that it was is the fact that, though he was in fact a Muslim, Saddam Hussein was very much a secular head of state. Contrary to widespread ignorance, Saddam Hussein oversaw the development of one the Middle East’s most advanced societies. Under his watch, prior to 1990’s Operation Desert Storm, and next to Qatar and Israel, Iraq’s economy was the Middle East’s most developed. Next to Qatar and Israel, Iraq enjoyed the Middle East’s finest health care system – better, in fact, than that of our own. And, perhaps most telling, next to Israeli women, Iraqi women held more advanced degrees than any other group of women in the Middle East. In fact, prior to Operation Desert Storm/Slaughter, a higher percentage of Iraqi women held advanced degrees than did American women.
What all of this means, of course, is that, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was anything but the Islamic state that it is now quickly becoming … thanks to the US and its habit of importing “democracy.”
* * * * Quoted from “bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth; Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden” by Jean-Charles Brisard, and Guillaume Dasquie, Nation Books, 2002, page 174. The listed quote is from John O’Neill the former Deputy Director of the FBI who resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the Bush administration’s order to “Layoff [to stop searching for Osama] bin Laden.”
Related reading: “Crossing the Ribicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil,” by Michael Ruppert, New Society Publishers, 2004, 283 pages
Persevere.
Guy
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Cybertariat says...
“…importing ‘democracy’” should have read “exporting ‘democracy.’” :-)
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avbornbred says...
CYBERDUDE: It sounds as if you have a certain level of admiration for Saddam. I agree, There were freedoms in Iraq that other Islamic countries did not have, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. But don’t forget, Saddam ruled with the triangle of death, with three separate arms watching eachother and suspected traitors and their families removed from this world on a just a suspicion. The security around Saddam was viscious and his sons ran the country with an iron fist. Beating of soccer players who lost, young girls and women being picked up off the streets by their security details and taken to palaces where they were sexually abused, all in the name of their power to do what they wanted.
Trying to paint a silver lining on Saddam’s regime is like saying Hitler was a kind man.
As for the Desert Storm Slaughter, what was wrong with that. Saddam attacked and was committing atrocities in Kuwait, an ally. When we went to Kuwait’s aid, we did it with support of the world, again. When it came time to shove, Iraq wanted a fight and they got their asses kicked, even with Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, which did exist, SCUD Missles, a form of a WMD.
Again, watching the USA win a war must have hurt the libs. I remember the small protesting libs back in 1991, that did not even get much media because the media was behing the war effort.
I am sorry for posting the short video clip, I know it was against your rules. I am closing in on the 500 word limit, so I do not want to have and more postings deleted by the 1st amendment abiding CYBERYGUY.
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avbornbred says...
Is there anything the United States has done that CYBERGUY approved of?
I can name dozens of events where the USA came to the aid of the world, either is wartime or times of need. Your mention of Desert Storm/Slaughter has overtones of a liberal who was anguished by the fact we killed a lot more of them then they killed of us. That is what war is about, not fighting fair. The same with cops, try to punch a cop, you get hit with a night stick, pepper spray, or a taser. Attack a cop with a knife, get shot. Pick a fight with the USA and we gonna take out your radar and air force. We command the skies and bomb the shit out of your forces. That is the way we do things in our country. We fight to win.
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avbornbred says...
CAGY, I know. I was impressed with CYBERDUDES 5 million word response. But I am mad he deleted my Jeopardy thinking music video.
I can’t resist talking history with libs. They have a warped version of how things happen. They highlight on issues that substantiate their points, but ignore viewing the whole picture. In any world event, there are truths and non-truths. There is plenty of evidence that can be argued supporting a view point. Being able to look at the entire pitcher and being able to decipher the information is important when forming an opinion.
It is CYBERGUY relies on information that only substantiates what he wants to use to argue his point. I am impressed with his determination to argue his views and he puts forth a lot of effort to back it up. His problem, tunnel vision. He can’t see past his socialistic views towards religion, conservatism, or successes and the efforts our country takes to make the world a better place for us and others.
Again, asking a liberal to help others warrants excuses as to why we should not be there, Bush lied and people died, and the glorification of Occupy people.
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AV Town Crier says...
Guy
I thought I did address your question. I will try again:
You might look up Jacques Fresco. Not for his architecture but his philosophy. It’s very interesting and you might agree with him.
As I have stated, I do not believe that man (at this juncture) can form a true socialistic democracy because greed is inherent in us from birth (as we are born into a greedy society). I would imagine that you could start a new socialistic society somewhere and try an overcome the short-comings. But where would you do it where you weren’t influenced by this country’s government (or any other)?
let’s not forget the failed experiment of Walden II. The philosophy of socialism is fine. I think if society had to start over due to some massive destruction (Struck by asteroid, nuclear war, etc) then the survivors might be able to start over.
I do not feel that it would be possible to set up a society like you project in our current word structure.First off, you would need to create your own country. Where and how would you do it? Another possibility is to form a cult-like quasi-religious/political organization. But you would still be influenced by government. I just don’t know how to get by these road blocks.
Like I stated, I think in theory a socialistic democracy as illustrated by Jacques Fresco would be fantastic.
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AV Town Crier says...
AVB
Not a real good example. Plus, I only claim socialism is good in theory only. Plus there are different models. I referenced Jacques Fresco as the one that could actually work. You will have to check his web site and read up on it as it’s too complex to try and explain. But it’s not the Marxist communist version.
In the early days of this country we had a form of socialism at work. It was called community. People in the local community worked to help each other out. if you needed a new barn, everybody joined in to help you build it. Everybody helped with the harvest. Socialism has been given a bad rap by the failed communist (which was nothing more than a capitalist monopoly).
Socialism is just living without greed. Nobody is saying you can’t do what you want. You just contribute what you do best. Let’s say you had a talent for being a artist. Then that’s what you do. Everybody is good at something and that’s your contribution. If somebody needs a hand with something, you help out.
AVB, I’m not saying that we should just switch over from our current system because, as I stated it won’t work. I think the biggest problem with mankind is greed and hatred. If we could eliminate those two traits, even our current system would work out just fine.
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Grumpy says...
In the debate about which flavor of government is best I’m with everyone who has taken note that the basic problem all of them run aground on is not necessarily the social concept itself but the execution of it that results from the dictates of human nature.
Speaking of human nature, I read a very interesting article a while back that involved a (semi-)scientific scoring scheme that tried to measure differences between those who lean liberal versus leaning conservative, and I wish I still had it because I can’t recall the exact details. Here, though, is the general story:
It was based on a university group that had set up & run a study in which they first broadly defined significant “human nature” characteristics that we all possess, such as our empathy with the feelings of others, the urge to promote our own personal welfare, the urge to belong to and promote our own “tribe” or identity group, and other characteristics such as the weight we personally give to using logical thought in reaching conclusions & decisions. There were more, but I don’t recall them all.
They noted that while everyone possesses all of these characteristics, individually we all have more of some and less of others, with the balance accurately determining where we stand on the liberal-conservative spectrum. Predictably, liberals were stronger in empathy, but weaker in applying logical thought to decision making, in other words were “nicer” but less practical. In conservatives the balance tipped the other way, causing them to come off in the liberal view as “hard hearted”. Differences in self-promotion and “tribal” attachment were not as prominent but liberals were a bit more “tribal” and conservatives more personally ambitious. This was, BTW, published in a magazine with an editorial bent that very noticeably tilts liberal.
What you make of all this of course depends on your own personal mix of characteristics but in my opinion neither leaning is inherently wrong, it’s just another example of the balance of forces you see everywhere in nature.
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Cybertariat says...
avbornbred: “It sounds like you have a certain level of admiration for Saddam Hussein.”
What thoughtlessness. I do not admire the late Saddam Hussein any more that what I loath him. My having listed the improvements to Iraqi society under his administration – most particularly those having to do with the lives of Iraqi women – was done solely as a means of denoting the fact that Saddam Hussein molded Iraq into being the secular society that it was. As such, though his religious identification was that of a Muslim, he was not well-liked by Wahhabists such as Osama bin Laden precisely because he – Saddam Hussein – worked against “the Islamic grain,” if you will.
avbornbred: “I agree, there were freedoms in Iraq that other Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia do not have [sic].”
That is the sort of rubbish I refer to whenever I note the arrogance and disordered hubris of political reactionaries; irrespective of the amount of evidence that I or anyone else tenders with respect to the fact that Saddam Hussein-era Iraq was not an Islamic country, our barely literate yet typically “know-it-all” reactionaries continue to obsequiously adhere to the idiocy that Saddam Hussein presided over a Muslim society. Why? Because Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and their ignorance-peddling preachers tell them so. That’s why.
avbornbred: “…Saddam ruled with the triangle of death; with three separate arms watching each other. And suspected traitors and their families were removed from this world on just a suspicion [sic].”
Indeed. However, what avbornbred conveniently ignores or simply has no understanding of (most likely the latter) is that Iraq’s now defunct Ba’ath Party (from which Saddam Hussein arose) was put in power by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in 1963 after it engineered a military coup d’etat which overthrew the secular Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qassim. Following the lead of two other CIA-approved Ba’ath Party dictators, Saddam Hussein assumed Iraq’s presidency in 1979 and, until falling out of the CIA’s favor during the 1980s, he proved himself to be quite useful to the agency.
avbornbred: “As for Operation Desert Storm[/Slaughter], what was wrong with that? Saddam attacked a US ally – Kuwait – and was committing atrocities there. When we went to Kuwait’s aid, we – again – did it with the support of the world. When it became time to shove, Iraq wanted a fight and its ass kicked even with Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD], which did exist (Scud missiles are a form of WMD) [sic].”
What I find to have wrong about it is that it was indeed a cowardly slaughter of thousands of human beings for the benefit of oil capitalists, armaments capitalists and US global hegemony.
As I have stated on previous occasions within this forum and although they are maters that are utterly lost upon virtually all Americans, the reason for invading Kuwait was four-fold: 1) Kuwait had been selling its crude oil at a price that was well-below the price set by OPEC (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) of which Kuwait was a member. This served to drive down the price of crude oil obtained by all OPEC members – including Iraq – thereby greatly jeopardizing Iraq’s ability to make good on the enormous debt it had incurred through its eight-year war with Iran (1980-1988. A war in which the US, to say the very least, sided with the Iraqis); 2) The Kuwaitis – with the invaluable assistance of the US-based Santa Fe Drilling Corporation (Alhambra, California) – were stealing oil from Iraq by way of “slant drilling” into the Rumana and Bubanna oil fields located in the now extreme southern portion of Iraq and; 3) I stated that “the Rumana and Bubanna oil fields are “located in the now extreme southern portion of Iraq” because Kuwait had been a part of Iraq for more than four-thousand years. (Although like much of Middle Eastern history, the history of Iraq and thus Kuwait is quite convoluted, the short of it is that; control over Kuwait was taken from the Iraqis by the French and the British following the First World War and the subsequent destruction of the Ottoman Empire. ( A somewhat more complete explanation ) and; 4) On July 25, 1990, the then US Ambassador to Iraq – April Glaspie – told Saddam Hussein that “The US has no position on the Iraq-Kuwait border dispute.” A very few days later, the then US Secretary of State James Baker – told Hussein virtually the same thing as did April Glaspie whereby both Baker and Glaspie effectively gave Hussein the “go ahead” to invade Kuwait, which he did on August 2, 1990. Moreover, why would have Saddam Hussein not invaded Kuwait after being told what it was that the US Ambassador to Iraq and the US Secretary of State had told him? After all, up until that time, the brutal dictator – Saddam Hussein – had been a US State Department “darling” cut from the same cloth as Anastasio Somoza Debyle, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, Francios “Papa DOC” Duvalier, Francios “Baby DOC” Duvalier, Mobuto Sese Seko, Hosni Mobarak, Pieter Willem Botha, Francisco Franco, Agusto Penochet, Mohammed Reza Pohlavi (aka “The Shah/King” of Iran), and literally several dozen other brutal dictators. And to believe that Saddam Hussein fell out of favor with the US political state because of the mass murder of Kurdish people or anything of the like, is to reveal oneself to be quite ignorant of US-Iraqi relations.
Hence, not only do the Iraqis possess an historical claim to Kuwait ( the type of thing that we Americans would be even less forgiving of ), so too did they have every right to defend their property – their oil – from the Kuwaitis. Unless, of course, we are to believe, for example, that the US would not the US military would not be ordered to invade Mexico were it to refuse to stop stealing US oil by way of slant drilling into south Texas oil fields.
Respecting avbornbred’s predication that Iraq’s Scud missiles constituted Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), that simply was not the case. Although popular definitions of what it is that constitute WMD are oftentimes more politically-based than they are technically-based, international law does not prohibit a nation state from possessing ballistic missiles – provided that their warheads do not contain chemical, biological or nuclear payloads. Yes, the Iraqis may have at least attempted to fit their Soviet-built Scud missiles with chemical and biological payloads during their US-supported war against Iran, but the international team of inspectors – led by Hans Blix – were able to secure no such evidence. Furthermore and perhaps most telling was the fact that no number of Scud missiles fired into Kuwait were found to have either chemical or biological payloads.
avornbred: “Again, watching the US win a war must have hurt the liberals. I remember only a small number of libs’ protesting back in 1991. It did not even get much media attention because the media was behind the war effort [sic].”
Yes, to rely on the capitalist media for information having to do with the protest movement related to any given war is to believe that very few people publicly protest any given war. Yet, my ex-wife, her two children and approximately 350,000 other people – including myself – marched in protest over Operation Desert “Storm” for more than three miles to the steps of Los Angeles City Hall in January of 1991. Protest marches of similar size were also held in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and other cities that same day. But to have availed oneself solely to mass media outlets that night was to be of the belief that those protests were but small, localized events.
For its part, Los Angeles network affiliates reported the march that I participated in only in passing, with very little film footage and without ever mentioning any of the many individuals who addressed the gigantic crowd upon the steps to Los Angeles City Hall – including Casey Kasem, Ron Kovic, Mike Farrell, Ed Begley Jr., Martin Sheen and others. But why would anyone expect the capitalist media to report anti-war movements accurately and honestly when it is not only closely aligned with the capitalists whose economic interests are served by war – capitalist media firms are often those very capitalists. NBC, as but a single example, is owned by General Electric which just happens to also be the largest manufacturer of “first strike” nuclear weapons components. CBS is owned by Westinghouse; yet another military contractor. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Corporation. CNN is owned by the gigantic and anything-but-left-leaning Time Warner Corporation. The Fox network – including its Fox News/”Republican Central” division – is owned by the all-but-goose-stepping right-winger Rubert Murdoch. And a belief that radio media such as Clear Channel do not tow a strict right-wing agenda is a belief similar to a belief in the “tooth fairy” or, still more absurd, “the virgin birth.”
avbornbred: “I can name dozens of events where the USA came to the aid of the world, either in wartime or times of need.”
I’m certain of that. I’m also certain that, with very few exceptions, the USA coming “to the ‘aid’ of the world” is just about the last thing that the rest of the world needs. With very few exceptions, each time that we learn of American troops being sent to a foreign country in order to “remove a brutal dictator” and/or “to export ‘democracy,’” we can be assured that the dictator was once one that was approved by the US State Department, but has recently fell of the department’s favor for whatever reason and, most importantly, that the US will actually be exporting anything but democracy to that nation. Rather, the truth virtually always lies in the political state’s need to protect and/or to promote the economic interest(s) of group of American capitalists. Be it Southeast Asian rubber or titanium; African oil, cobalt, coltan or diamonds; Central American farmlands or cheap, horribly exploited sources of labor for the likes of Texas/El Salvador Instruments; or, but of course, Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, the story is virtually always the same: the American working-class is lied to and trained – like chimpanzees – to know of and to hate the dictator of the year.
Once again, I offer the US Department of State’s “Public policy Directive #23,” which was written by the late and liberal George Kennan in 1949 and classified as “Top Secret” until 1979:
George Kennan: “…We [the United States] have about 50-percent of the world’s wealth [and use roughly 25% of non-renewable resources] but only 6.3-percent of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships [read: dictatorships] which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to concentrated everywhere on our immediate national [actually, capitalist class] objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans the better…” (Emphasis not in original.)
Those “idealistic slogans” are, however, of vital importance to the capitalist class – with respect to both global dominance and domestic class rule, for it is the likes of our avbornbred who, while honestly believing the rubbish having to do with “the USA [coming] to the aid of the world, either at wartime or in times of need,” pay “the freight” of empire whilst enjoying little if any of its benefits.
avbornbred: “Your mention of Operation Desert Storm/”Slaughter” has overtones of a liberal who was anguished by the fact that we killed a lot more of them than they killed of us. That is what it is about; not fighting fair.”
Yes! Yes, emphatically yes, avbornbred! You have smashed it straight to the head! I am actually a liberal – not a Marxist! And if only those Iraqi workers – in their incarnations as soldiers – would have killed many, many more American workers – in their incarnations as soldiers – I would have been much happier for it all!
You truly are just that base, aren’t you, avbornbred?
avbornbred: “Cybertariat relies on information that only substantiates what he wants to use to argue his point.”
Yes, such as declassified government documents, information gleaned from the Library of Congress, State Department “cables,” statements made by former high-ranking military, intelligence, and government officials such as Richard Clark, Ramsey Clark, John Stockdale, Phillip Agee, General Smedley Butler, General David Schoop, etc., etc., etc.
avbornbred: “His [Cybertariat’s] problem; tunnel vision. He can’t see past his socialist views towards religion, conservatism [reactionaryism], successes and the efforts our country takes to make the world a better place for us and others.”
Nonsense. I was in fact born to “believing” parents; having spent the first three years of my formal education within a Christian “school” and having attended its “Sunday ‘school’” all the while. And I was in fact a “conservative” member of not only the Republican Party but also a member of the California Republican Party from the age of 18 until the age of 24 (1976-1982).
Success? Unless you are referring to the “successful” members of the capitalist class who were born to “their” wealth (laying inside of a crib is hard work, no?), I haven’t a problem with success. Unless you are referring to anyone whose “success” came by way of the labor power and/or the intellectual power of other human beings, I haven’t a problem with success.
As for the forever laughable contention concerning the US’s efforts “to make the world a better place for us and others,” I am, as we have already seen, far too informed to be believe it any longer just as surely as you, avbornbred, are still ignorant enough to believe it and promote it.
So the assertion that I cannot “see past my socialist views towards religion, ‘conservatism,’ and success” is equally absurd in view of my sociopolitical metamorphosis having sprung from those very things. In other words, avbornbred, I understand religion, so-called conservatism and success (having been born to a petty capitalist family and all), all too well.
Accordingly, avbornbred, it is actually you and your ilk – those who remain mired in a sort of conservatism-induced state of non-questioning conformity and docility their entire lives. I know that to be the case, avbornbred, because, again, I was, at one time, a lot like you are now and as you have been your entire “white bread,” myopic life.
avbornbred: “Again, asking a liberal…”
Again, to so much as suggest that I am a liberal is to show the world just how unstudied – in fact barely literate, you are, avbornbred. Were you to ever develop but a small measure of sophistication about yourself (you will not), you would then be embarrassed to admit that you once failed to comprehend the multitude of enormous differences between liberalism and Marxism.
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AVTC: “As I have stated, I do not believe that man (at this juncture) can form a…socialist democracy because greed is inherent in us from birth…”
Yes, you have stated that over and over again. But you have yet to address any of the
specifics of my argument as to humankind not being greedy, selfish and uncooperative by nature. In fact, like nearly all of this forum’s participants, you have ignored my writings on the subject quite completely; choosing, instead, to “respond” to my writings in a manner consistent with your having responded to someone else all together. You and hundreds of millions of others may well be correct about what you have been conditioned to believe about humankind, James. But unless and until at least one of you actually become a part of a dialectical discussion of this issue, you will forever appear to be running from it and thus completely mistaken about it, no?
AVTC: “…as we are born into a greedy society.”
Yes, sir, we are! And therein lies the possibility of your gaining an understanding of human nature and how the class conflict born of capitalism has “merely” perverted human nature. Think about it.
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Finally, the University study of which wrote about, Grumpy, seems to be that of Dr. Richard Shweder (professor of sociology, University of Chicago) in which he examined the causation of the different ways that human behavior manifests itself in different “types” of people – including their sociopolitical beliefs – as well as that of groups of the same “type” of people. If not, then perhaps the similarities in what could be two separate studies may be “close enough.”
In my Marxian-based opinion, these studies are fundamentally flawed in that they fail to recognize that these “‘types’ of people” were not born as certain “types” of people. Instead, it is the external stimuli that surrounds us that influences our behavior to the point where mainstream sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists view these differing behaviors as those which constitute different “types’ of people; that they/we are born this way or that way.
Does the name Shweder ring any bells, Grumpy?
Good evening.
Persevere.
Guy
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avbornbred says...
I never heard of Shweder.
Great work CYBERDUDE: You pointed out a couple of facts I was not aware of. Even though I have heard about “slant drilling,” I was not aware Kuwait was doing that. I can understand Saddam’s anger at finding out a neighboring country was stealing oil.
But as for the rest of the 99% of what you wrote, I will have to disagree with almost all of it.
During the Gulf War, our troops and the citizens of Saudi Arabia and Israel, were outfitted with gas masks because they feared chemical weapons attacks from SCUD Missles. During the war, our troops wore protective equipment because Saddam boasted he had WMD’s, specifically chemical weapons. SCUDS were fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia. One of our bases was hit by a deflected SCUD which killed numerous US soldiers. Only a liberal would argue that these SCUDS were not capable of being classified as WMD’s. Reason being, to justify the liberal criticism of GW Bush. Giving any credibility to GW Bush and WMD’s would hurt the campaign against Bush and the war.
The SCUDs were a credible threat to all the countries in the Middle East.
After reading you lost thread, it confirms that you really do hate the USA. I liked you comment on the Capitalist run media. I would re-define that as the Liberal Capitalist run media.
As for Shweder, he is from Acadamia. He probably lived his life going to work at a college or university rather than working in the real world. His studies could be true, and they could also be driven to justify a lifestyle CHOICE. I know this, CYBERDUDE and Matt are not stupid people. You are both intelligent human beings, who are very capable of making the lifestyle CHOICES you have made. Maybe you think you suffer from having a biological defect, but I don’t think that is the case.
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avbornbred says...
CYBERDUDE; Just to let you know, I feel honored you created a blog just about me and the things I wrote. I like reading the things that I have written.
I am sincere when I do say I learn some things from your postings. You do a lot of research and, yes, some things you write about I did not know. However, we stand at different ends of the spectrum when it comes to political, social, and patriotic issues.
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Cybertariat says...
avbornbred, your apparent fascination with homosexuality is showing yet again. Richard Shweder’s study has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality or even human sexuality per se. Nonetheless and entirely characteristically, you obviously acted upon the compulsion to write that Dr. Shweder’s findings “could also be driven to justify a [gay] ‘lifestyle’ choice.” (Emphasis in original.) Have you an understanding of how very odd that is?
In any event, although you are entirely free to guide this thread toward the discussion of human sexuality as it would, I suppose, relate to evolutionary biology and the like, I will not tolerate the further discussion of Matt’s and/or my sexuality.
Too, yes of course you had never before heard of Dr. Richard Shweder. Nor did I expect that you would be so aware.
Thank you so much.
Persevere.
Guy
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Ray Cunneff says...
Our relations with Iran are very near the “red line” at which military action will become necessary to prevent their acquiring a nuclear weapon. At that point, the only question will be whether Israel acts unilaterally or will it become a joint operation with the United States?
In an under-reported January 8th conversation with Bloomberg News, the president’s and Secretary od State Hillary Clinton’s former special assistant on Iran, Dennis Ross, said Obama has “made it very clear” that he regards a nuclear-armed Iran as so great a threat to international security that “the Iranians should never think that there’s a reluctance to use the force” to stop them.
He said that those who favor “containment” over military action don’t understand the situation and that comparisions to Cold War nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union are misguided.
Ross said the analogy doesn’t translate to the situation in the Mideast. Countries in the region, he said, lack equivalent Cold War-era “ground-rules,” lines of communication, and a protected second-strike nuclear capability, which deterred a surprise attack during U.S.-Soviet tensions.
He said a nuclear-armed Iran would set off a nuclear arms race among neighbors, pose a risk of proliferation to other states or terrorist groups, and increase the chances of a nuclear strike resulting from miscalculation.
“You don’t have any communication between the Israelis and the Iranians. You have all sorts of local triggers for conflict. Having countries act on a hair trigger — where they can’t afford to be second to strike, the potential for a miscalculation or a nuclear war through inadvertence is simply too high,” he said.
Ross acknowledged that a military strike would have serious consequences as well, including Iranian retaliation, either directly or through terrorist proxies around the world, a possible effort to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and a spike in oil prices.
Understanding those risks, “nobody uses military force lightly,” he said, and “nobody commits to using military force one minute before they have to.”
Ross underscored that U.S. willingness to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons affects decision-making in other countries that fear Iran, including Israel and Gulf states. If the White House abandoned a pledge to stop Iran made by Obama and President George W. Bush before him, the U.S. would lose all credibility, he said.
“I wouldn’t discount the possibility that the Israelis would act if they came to the conclusion that basically the world was prepared to live with Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said. “They certainly have the capability by themselves to set back the Iranian nuclear program.”
Ross stressed he believes there is still time for diplomacy to work, as the financial pain of sanctions may yet persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.
“Force is not inevitable,” he said. “Diplomacy is still the desired means. Pressure is an element of the means.”
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AV Town Crier says...
I agree with Guy on Iraq. While he may have ruled with an iron hand, when you have three factions that will slaughter each other at the drop of a hat, you need an iron hand to control the situation. But under Sadam (yes, he’s an asshole) the people were doing just fine. They had a higher standard of living and they lived in peace. And YES, women were able to go to school, teach, etc. We ruined that. We had Sadam under control with the ‘no fly’ zone deal. Cheney and Rumsfeld fucked that up. There was NO justification for bombing Iraq. If anything, we should have nuked the shit out of Iran.
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avbornbred says...
I agree with CYBERDUDE also about Iraq. Internally, the three factions were not killing each other because he ran the country with an iron fist. His triangle security system protected him and fed him information about any possible traitors from any of the three sects. The problem was many innocent people and families were disposed off on mere suspicion without any form of due process. Saddam had a brutal regime, but I guess the libs see nothing wrong with that type of leadership.
As for Kuwait selling oil at their own price, Saddam acting on his own behalf was without support of the OPEC countries, as even OPEC sided against Iraq over the Kuwait invasion.
The Gulf War was a victory for the coalition forces as much as it was for Kuwait and the USA. Libs say it was a victory for the oil companies. I guess, economically it was, but the Kuwaitee people were given their country back. By the way, Kuwait was able to rebuild itself using it’s own oil money. Unlike Haiti, they are stilll sitting on piles of rubble.
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Cybertariat says...
In this month’s issue of Rolling Stone magazine, an article written by Rick Perlstein discusses the ways in which Mitt Romney became so extremely inauthentic that it has earned him the nickname “Mittbot.” In the article, Rick Perlstein recounts the fact that in 1966 pollster Lou Harris stated that George Romney (Mitt Romney’s father and the then governor of the state of Michigan) stood “a better chance of winning the White House than any Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower.” However, according to Rick Perlstein, it all unraveled well-before he – George Romney – lost the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon by seventy-nine percent of the vote due to the fact that George Romney was a “shockingly authentic” politician who spoke just exactly what it was that was on his mind.
He was in fact so authentic that, in a 1967 television interview, Romney stated that his then recent comment concerning US military involvement in Vietnam – that he “no longer believe[d] it was necessary for us to become involved” – was based on his having previously been brainwashed with respect to America’s intervention in Vietnam. The interviewer noted that, in 1965, Romney had stated “our involvement was necessary and morally right.” In response, George Romney said “When I came back from Vietnam [after visiting Vietnam through a congressional junket], I just had the greatest brainwashing anyone could get.” He also said, that the US State Department’s diplomatic core in Vietnam did a “very thorough job” of brainwashing him with respect to Vietnam and US involvement therein. He then said, “Since returning from Vietnam, I’ve gone into the history of Vietnam…and no longer believe that we should have become involved…[and that] our involvement is tragic.”
This type of brutal honesty was viewed at the time as being that which led to George Romney’s fall from political grace. Therefore, as Rick Perlstein postulated, the then teenaged Mitt Romney learned that being honest and consistent was the kiss of death for any politician.
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I elected to create this post for this seemingly unrelated thread because I find the parallels between George Romney’s statement concerning America v Vietnam and avbornbred’s statement concerning Iraq v Kuwait to be so significant – so potentially educational and even lifesaving – that bringing the two of them together became an imperative. [A]vbornbred wrote: “Even though I had heard about ‘slant drilling,’ I was not aware that Kuwait was doing that. I can [now] understand Saddam’s anger over finding out that a neighboring country was stealing [Iraqi] oil.” –avbornbred, “‘Patriot’ Act v democracy,” “1/20/12 – 06:41 AM.”
To me, the respective statements by these two men – so far removed from one another by time, yet so similar in denotation – suggest that, were all Americans willing to [to paraphrase George Romney] “go into the histories of “ the relationships which lie between the United States and the nations its military invades from time to time, never again would the capitalist state be able to attract the number of military recruits required to carry out its wars of imperialism. Never again would we know or otherwise hear or read about this eighteen-year-old or that eighteen-year-old who was killed or gravely wounded in the service to the capitalist class.
This sort of thing speaks to the essence – the very essence of what I meant when I wrote that “I am” far too informed to believe [capitalist culture’s lies having to do with US military] any longer.”
I am all but ceratin that what George Romney learned through his having “gone into the history of Vietman” (subsequent to his having been “brainwashed” by the US State Department) was that, not only have the Vietnamese people been engaged in the practice of expelling foreign invaders/exploiters for some five-thousand years, but also that Ho Chi Minh had written a series of letters (six in all) to then President Harry S. Truman in which he – Ho Chi Minh – asked for Truman’s assistance toward the expulsion of French military forces from Vietnamese soil. Ho Chi Minh wrote, in part:
DEAR MR.PRESIDENT:
Our VIETNAM people, as early as 1941, stood by the Allies’side and fought against the Japanese and their associates, the French colonists.
From 1941 to 1945 we fought bitterly, sustained by patriotism, of our fellow-countrymen and by the promises made by the Allies at YALTA, SAN FRANCISCO and POTSDAM.
When the Japanese were defeated in August 1945, the whole Vietnam territory was united under a Provisional Republican Government, which immediately set out to work. In five months, peace and order were restored, a democratic republic was established on legal bases, and adequate help was given to the Allies in the carrying out of their disarmament mission.
But the French Colonists, who betrayed in wartime both the Allies and the Vietnamese, have come back, and are waging on us a murderous and pitiless war in order reestablish, their domination. Their invasion has extended to South Vietnam and is menacing us in North Vietnam. It would take volumes to give enan an abbreviated report of the crisis and assassinations they are committing everyday in this fighting area.
This aggression is contraty to all principles of international law and the pledge made3 by the Allies during World War II. It is a challenge to the noble attitude shown before, during, and after the war by the United States Government and People. It violently contrasts with the firm stand you have taken in your twelve point declaration, and with the idealistic loftiness and generously expressed by your delegates to the United Nations Assembly, MM. BYRNES, STETTINIUS, AND J.F. DULLES.
The French aggression on a peace-loving people is a direct menace to world security. It implies the complicity, or at least the connivance of the Great Democracies. The United Nations ought to keep their words. They ought to interfere to stop this unjust war, and to show that they mean to carry out in peacetime the principles for which they fought in wartime.
Our Vietmamese people, after so many years of spoliation and devastation, is just beginning its building-up work. It needs security and freedom, first to achieve internal prosperity and welfare and later to bring its small contribution to world-reconstruction.
These security and freedom can only be guaranteed by our independence from any colonial power, and our free cooperation with all other powers. It is with this firm conviction that we request of the United States as guardians and champions of World Justice to take a decisive step in support of our independence.
What we ask has been graciously granted to the Philippines. Like the Philippines our goal is full independence and full cooperation with the UNITED STATES. We will do our best to make this independence and cooperation profitable to the whole world.
I am Dear, Mr. PRESIDENT,
Respectfully Yours,
(Signed) Ho Chi Minh (Emphasis in original.)
President Truman, however, never responded to any of Ho Chi Minh’s letters. And, although no could ever know what was in Harry Truman’s mind, it only stands to reason that Truman’s refusal to help the Vietnamese served to meet the needs of the American empire. As many of us know, the Vietnamese ultimately drove the French military out of Vietnam following the drawn out and extremely bloody battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and that the US simply assumed France’s military role as the US, France and other western capitalists continued to extract oil, rubber and titanium from Vietnam without benefit to the Vietnamese people.
So perhaps if a majority of Americans were to have “gone into the history of Vietnam” shortly after the so-called Tonkin Gulf incident – thereby learning what George Romney learned after 1965 – and then demanded that US combat troops not be deployed to Vietnam, perhaps many of the 58,000 Americans and the three-million Indochinese who were killed as a result of American military involvement in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia would be alive to this very day,
Perhaps if a majority of Americans would have “gone into the history of ” Iraq and Kuwait and availed themselves to non-commercial sources of news and information before the US government baited Saddam Hussein into invading Iraq, perhaps most of the148 American military personnel and the 3.6 million Iraqis (mostly civilians) who were killed during Operation Desert Slaughter would be alive to this very day.
Perhaps if a majority of Americans would have stated something to the effect of “I can understand Saddam’s anger at finding out that a neighboring country was stealing [Iraqi] oil” (avbornbred) before the US government baited Saddam into invading Kuwait, perhaps an additional 1.5 million Iraqis (mostly children) would not have died as a result of nearly twenty-three years of US-dominated-UN sanctions and the Clinton administration’s bombing program. Perhaps even the second US war against Iraq – Operation Iraqi “Liberation” – would not have taken place.
In an effort to bring this post full circle by returning the discussion toward Mitt Romney, Rick Perlstein went on to write: “He [Mitt Romney] is still inauthentic – but with, I think, an exception. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject of capitalism, he says what he sincerely believes, which happens to fit neatly with present-day Republican ideology: that rich people [capitalists] deserve every penny they have; and if people [workers] complain about anything rich people do, it’s only because they’re envious.
“That’s another rebellion against his late dad. Not only was George Romney, that loser, ironclad in his ideological commitments; his vision of how capitalism should work was in every particular the exact opposite of the one pushed by the ‘vulture capitalist’ he sired….[A]sked about the idea that ‘rugged individualism’ was the key to America’s success, he [George Romney] snapped back; ‘It’s nothing but a political banner to cover up greed.’ He was the poster child for the antiquated notion that corporations have multiple stakeholders: the workers that breathe then life, the communities in which they are situated, and the nation to whom they owe a patriotic obligation – most definitely and emphatically not just stockholders, as Mitt and his defenders say.” (Emphasis mine.)
Yes, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage, Michael Medved, Larry Elder and this society’s many other ruling-class thought regulators have done an outstanding job of (to paraphrase George Romney again) “giving the greatest brainwashing anyone could give.” They have turned greed and selfishness into virtues. They have managed to convince tens of millions of workers to consistently vote against their own class interests and, therefore, to illogically and slavishly support the narrow self-interests of the infinitesimally small capitalist class. In brief, they have transformed day into night and night into day to the point to where even enthusiastic capitalist cheerleaders such as the late George Romney and the late Barry Goldwater would be shocked and appalled.
Persevere.
Guy
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avbornbred says...
I don’t see where the brainwashing has occurred that you cite. People today still have mixed feelings about the Vietnam War. If the brainwashing you say happened, all Americans, except you of course, would agree Vietnam was the right thing to do. Instead, there are those who don’t care, those who cared, and those who chose to oppose the war effort.
As for the brainwashing of people to believe by the small Capitalist class, you are way off. Everyone in this country, who earns a pay check, wants more of their OWN money. People do not want to work and not get any rewards for their hard labor. People expect that when they work hard, they should be able to have things including financial security, a home, a nice car, and nice material things. People want the Iphones and the Ipads because that is where technology has gone. Would you rather watch a 55 LED TV or a 19" black and white. Would you rather research a subject on the internet or have to go the library, look through the index card drawers, search the shelves for books that are already checked out. Working hard leads to being able to live life at the 21st century pace. That is what people want and that is how our economy drives forward.
Taking more of what people earn is wrong. Hard work should be rewarded. Those who have chosen to be unemployed have done so because they can collect a check for sitting at home. They will never get ahead, but they will always remain where they are. You should look at the brainwashing of the Democratic party who has insured that people remain under the care of the state because that is how they are controlled.
I would say the conservative people you have named in your thread are some of the “free” most thinkers in our country. Just like some of the liberal talk show host, they have the right to speak what they believe. Millions listen to the conservatives because millions agree with them. Those are not brain washed people, those are hardworking types who believe there is too much government in our lives and that Capitalism allows them to grow in many more ways than stifled by Socialism.
As for Romney’s dad, I don’t know any thing about him. I know more about Romney than his father. I am glad you did all that research, I guess you a saying that everyone in the GOP has been brainwashed by Capitalism.
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Martel says...
Marino I am referring to the part about Romneys father in the second post,it was very truthful and insightful.As to being brainwashed I am not a sheep like some on this blogsite,I think for myself and I am not tied to any party.
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Cybertariat says...
avbornbred: “I am sorry I violated Cybertariat’s rules. And censorship is alive and well on this blog [sic].”
So which is it, avbornbred, did my having deleted the video clips that you posted to this thread – “my” thread – have to do with your having knowingly violated my now years-old rule regarding the posting of video clips to “my threads, or did it have to do with my being some sort of “censor”?
Look, as the fact that I have not and will not delete the post in which you later summarized said video clips attests, not only do I not practice censorship, I both welcome and encourage participants to develop and present their own thoughts. Moreover, as demonstrated by a portion of the disclaimer that is listed at the bottom of all of my parent posts or “New Blogs,” I do allow for the embedding of HTML code that ultimately leads readers to video clips. That portion of said disclaimer reads as follows: “…[the embedding of URLs or “hotlinks” within comment posts which serve to direct readers to video clips will be accepted provided that all such posts also contain original writings of no fewer than fifty words]…” *
Therefore, avbornbred’s “Wow, my video evidence of this topic was deleted very quickly” – his childish effort to manipulate readers into believing that I was somehow threatened by his videotaped “evidence” – is no less obvious than what it is laughable.
So, since you obviously know enough about HTML code to post video clips, avbornbred, might you also be able to embed hotlink-related HTML code? Surely your grasp of the English language is sufficient enough for you to be able to accompany those “hotlinks” with “original [yet poorly structured, spelled and punctuated] writings of no fewer that fifty words,” no, avbornbred?
* The reason for my very longstanding policy of prohibiting the posting of video clips to “my” threads is two-fold: 1) I much prefer that participants present their own thoughts thereby making for a much more interesting and compelling thread and blog site (read: any half-witted individual can throw up a video clip … and they do; and 2) I simply do not want for “my” threads to become burdened with mindless video clips which take up an inordinate amount of space whereby readers are then forced to scroll through such mindlessness in order to arrive at actual writings.
avbornbred: “I don’t see where the brainwashing that you cited has occurred [sic].”
Why do I believe that?
A very good example of such brainwashing or, rather, conditioning is, I believe, marino’s “…if you don’t believe ‘Barry’ [Barack Obama is] a socialist, then perhaps you’ve been washed.” –“‘Patriot’ Act v democracy, “01/22/12
For several years now and within this forum marino has been attempting to tar and feather this Democratic/pro-capitalist politician as being a “socialist” and that Democratic/pro-capitalist politician as being a “socialist” (as if being a socialist were somehow a “bad thing”) while I, a studied Marxian socialist of more than a quarter of a century have often painstakingly and at-length debunked the benighted claims of marino and still others. Yet, true to form, never but never has our marino so much as begun to refute the posts in which I have eviscerated his ignorant assertions. After all, even if he were intellectually equipped to do so, he couldn’t possibly do so simply because Democratic politicians are in no way, shape, manner nor form socialists. Oh but, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Reagan, Ann Coulter, Dr. Walter Williams and the seemingly endless cavalcade of other anti-intellectual, self-aggrandizing, capitalist-class thought regulators tell him that the capitalist class political servant – indeed the Wall Street whore – Barack Obama – is a “socialist” and the obviously simpleminded marino believes it.
That is the type of conditioned “thinking” or brainwashing of which I wrote: no breadth or depth of knowledge of socialism nor much of anything else under the political sun; just “Rush said it. I want to believe it. And that settles it.”
Additional reading
( It is my hope to be able to address the balance of avbornbred’s response either late this afternoon, early this evening or early tomorrow morning.)
Persevere.
Guy
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AV Town Crier says...
The ‘brain washing’ that Cyber referred to was a political issue back in 1968 when Romney (George, Mitt’s dad) was running for Prez. It’s what cost him the election and Nixon became the GOP candidate.
As for the issue of the Patriot’s Act. read the damn thing! It’s an out and out violation of all the US Constitution and our founding fathers fought for. AVB it doesn’t matter if it affects you today or not. It can. By then it’s too late. You can’t allow these criminals in congress and the White House to tamper with the Constitution or its Bill of Rights.
it’s time for the revolution to start. I will lead the attack on Washington. I’ll meet you on the BLVD and we’ll start from there. Right now! I’ll meet you there just as soon as I can find my musket (damn, now where did I put it? Where’s my plunger and black powder. it was here a minute it ago. damn I hate getting old.) Anyways, you guys start without me, I’ll catch up when I find my stuff.
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ocn8tv says...
what changed george romney’s electoral status wasn’t because of his viewpoint of the viet nam war, it was because he was born in mexico, and was not native born. he seems to have been a very honorable man. to not be disqualified from this blog, he may have also been searched by the patriot act laws, and ruled as a traitor for not believing in the war at that time.
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Cybertariat says...
avbornbred: “I don’t see where the brainwashing that you cited has occurred. People today still have mixed feelings about the Vietnam War. If the brainwashing you say happened, then all Americans, except you of course, would agree [that American involvement in] Vietnam was the right thing to do. Instead, there are those who don’t care, those who cared [those who supported US involvement?] and those who chose to oppose the war effort [sic].”
But the brainwashing that I wrote about did take place, which is why I wrote “…perhaps if a majority of Americans were to have ‘gone into the history of Vietnam’ shortly after the so-called Tonkin Gulf incident…and then demanded that US combat troops not be deployed to Vietnam, perhaps many of the 58,000 Americans [killed in Vietnam]…would be alive to this day.” Yes, as US involvement drug on, an ever dwindling percentage of the American public supported the war in Vietnam. But, in 1964, an estimated eighty-five percent of Americans were supportive of the introduction of combat troops. After all, in 1964 most Americans had never heard of Vietnam, let alone of the fact that in 1956, for example, the US political state unilaterally and ever-so arrogantly cancelled a democratic, nationwide election in Vietnam because it would have unquestionably led to the election of the Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh.
avborndred: “As for the brainwashing of people to believe by the small capitalist class, you are way off [sic].”
What? “…brainwashing of people to believe by the small capitalist class…”? Do you have any idea as to what it is that you’re doing here, avbornbred?
The ever so tangential avbornbred: “Everyone in this country who earns a paycheck wants [to keep] more of their own money.
Well, all right, since we’re now discussing the issue of taxation, I will say that, in my opinion, taxation is a distraction from the much more significant issue of surplus value . With that said, it is also the case that American workers pay a smaller percentage of their income in the form of taxes than do virtually all other workers within the First or Industrialized world. Of course it may also be argued that, compared to workers in other industrialized countries who enjoy higher pay and much better retirement benefits, excellent health care systems, largely free secondary education, marvelous public transportation systems, mandatory, on-job-site daycare, etc., we American workers receive – in return for our tax dollars – mainly; militarization, wars on drugs/constitutional rights, an ever-burgeoning prison industrial complex, a deplorable system of public education, plenty of corporate welfare and a crumbling infrastructure.
For his part, I would imagine that our avbornbred’s point is that he would much prefer to pay absolutely no amount of income tax. He’ll likely deny it, but that likely is the case.
avbornbred: “People do not want to work and not get any rewards for their hard labor. People expect that, when they work hard, they should be able to have nice things – including a home, a nice car, other material things and financial security [sic].”
To be sure. Yet such a statement stands antithetical to avbornbred’s oft-stated opposition to the expansion of trade unionism and to a substantial increase in the federal minimum wage; that which would allow for a somewhat revitalized “middle-class” and thus its member’s somewhat improved ability to acquire “nice things.” * So perhaps avbornbred’s statement pertains only to the taxes paid by white, higher-paid members of the working class such as himself rather than to, say, the incomes of lower paid workers of color who are often compelled to work at two and sometimes even three jobs, simultaneously, in order to simply survive, let alone to own “a home, a nice car, other material things” and to enjoy “financial security.” Perhaps avbornbred would care to clarify.
avbornbred: “Those who have chosen to be unemployed have done so because they can collect a [social welfare] check for sitting at home. They will never get ahead. They will always remain where they are [sic].”
That, however, ignores the fact that not only is the capitalist system inherently incapable of providing full employment, so too are the improvements to the means of industrial production (e.g., computerization and robotization), which are now accelerating at a rate not seen during any other epoch, rendering an ever-increasing percentage of workers permanently superfluous. So too are the foreign “outsourcing” of jobs, corporate bankruptcies, corporate mergers and other manifestations of modern-day, monolithic capitalism “serving” to swell the ranks of the permanently unemployed. “Those who have chosen to be unemployed.” What ignorance.
As for the classic and thinly-veiled racist “…because they [“welfare kings and queens”] can collect a [social welfare] check for sitting at home,” the simple and undeniable fact of the matter is that, since the cost of social welfare programs now constitute less than one-percent of the federal government’s yearly budget, and since there is now a five year limit on social welfare benefits, the right-wing’s constant, hypocritical, simpleminded and greatly exaggerated complaints about “all of the lazy welfare recipients” is perhaps the quintessential example of the way in which tens of millions of workers have allowed themselves to be brainwashed. And that that brainwashing ultimately divides workers against themselves for the benefit of capitalists. **
avbornbred: “You should look at the brainwashing of the Democratic Party which has ensured that people remain under the care of the state because that is how they are controlled.”
Yes, along with “Obama is promoting a welfare mentality,” we hear that sort of thing – nearly verbatim – from the likes of Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Buchanan, Liddy, Drudge, Hamblin, Reagan, Savage, Boortz, North, Dorman, Elder, Medved, Grant, Gallagher and many others just about all of the time. But where is the evidence that would support those claims? Nowhere! No such evidence exists, for as we have just seen, social welfare programs are in fact quickly becoming nonexistent. And, if anything, the only welfare mentality being promoted by the Obama administration is the corporate welfare mentality, as per usual. With hundreds of billions of dollars having been unconditionally loaned and in some cases simply given to various capitalists by the Bush and Obama administrations in the form of “TARP” monies all the while social welfare programs are being axed, Barack Obama is promoting anything but a social welfare mentality. And the only “state care” that his administration is helping to ensure is that which has long been administered through the, in effect, Aid For Dependent Corporations program (AFDC).
To hear the daily drumbeat of individuals such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, though, one would think that the Obama administration has seen to the creation of perhaps dozens of new, social welfare programs when, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth – when, in reality the political state keeps to the slashing of social welfare programs!
So why is it that political conservatives/reactionaries believe these obvious lies? It is, I believe, a paired reasoning: a) They want to believe it. The rhetoric of right-wing demagogues complete with its racist, sexist, xenophobic and classist subtexts dovetails with and fuels the average reactionaries’ preexisting racism, sexism, xenophobia and class biases; and b) Their artless message is pervasive, incessant and delivered by people with whom the average white, male reactionary is able to identify with (namely: white males). Ergo, since Limbaugh, O’Rielly and most of the balance of their ilk “sound like me, look like me, and have tens of millions of listeners and viewers, they must be right.”
Beyond that, right-wing demagoguery appeals to not only just about every bigotry under the sun, it also tempts the fears, frustrations and desires of those who are attracted to it. Feeling as though they have been left behind politically, culturally and economically because women, racial and ethnic minorities, gay people and others no longer “know their place,” reactionaries find comfort in the “We’re going to take back America” message of America’s thought regulators.
But America has not been lost to women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement, the labor movement, undocumented immigration or any combination or the totality thereof. Rather, America has been lost to capitalism; to an economic system whose intrinsic and many socioeconomic contradictions cannot possibly be fixed. So it is the job of this society’s seemingly endless procession of right-wing media personalities to help assure that an appreciable number of workers never come to the understanding that it is actually capitalism itself that is quickly destroying “the American dream” not women, people of color, LGBT peoples, environmentalists, trade unionists and the like. In short, their job is to, yes, “keep ‘em brainwashed.”
avbornbred: “I would say that the conservative people [right-wing media personalities] you have named in your thread are some of the [most free thinkers?] in our country. Just like some of the liberal talk show hosts, they have the right to speak what they believe [sic?].”
Yes of course they have such a right. I’ve not claimed otherwise. But while substituting the word “progressive” for the word “liberal,” I’ll ask – what progressive media personalities? Because, aside from those within MSNBC, there aren’t any progressive personalities within the commercial media. And although part of that may have to do with the large number of workers who have allowed themselves to be, yes, brainwashed by the ostensibly omnipresent nature of right-wing media, it also has quite a bit to do with the fact that many if not most advertisers (read: capitalists) simply do not wish to sponsor progressively-oriented programming. Why? Because politically-progressive programming is, to one degree or the other, anti-capitalist in nature. ( MSNBC being on the low end of the anti-capitalist spectrum and, say, the non-commercial, non-corporate-underwritten Pacifica Radio network holding down the high end of said spectrum).
avbornbred: “[Tens of] [m]illions listen to the conservatives because [tens of] millions agree with them.” [Uh huh.] Those are not brainwashed people. Those are hardworking types who believe there is too much government in our lives and that capitalism allows them to grow in many more ways than does stifling socialism [sic].”
Yes of course the likes of “dittoheads” believe there to be too much government in our lives. After all, Limbaugh and the others “forget” to tell their audiences about such things as the fact that British Petroleum is riding roughshod over the “recovery” process in the Gulf of Mexico just as it rode roughshod over the “response” to its highly predictable oil catastrophe. No, never will the capitalist system’s high-profile media cheerleaders tell of the ways in which many agencies within the federal government now play very subservient roles vis-a-vis the capitalists they are supposed to regulate. And since virtually all reactionaries are intellectually lazy ( seldom if ever reading much of anything), it all works out quite perfectly … for the capitalist class.
As for avbornbred’s summations of the video clips that he is apparently not bright enough to create links to, is it odd that all of the video clips that avbornbred posted depicted stereotypes of black people? No, it isn’t odd at all? Is it odd that avbornbred does not understand that it only stood to reason that at least some of the millions of human beings who have been systematically denied their own identities and even their humanity for dozens of generations were going to go overboard with enthusiasm in the wake of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency? No, it isn’t odd at all. Is it odd that avbornbred does not understand that at least a few of the many black people who have been denied access to so much as decent schooling and who have been relegated to squalid lives within inner-cities and thus isolated from society at-large would be given to voicing that which is illogical in the face of such exuberance? No, it isn’t odd at all. Is it odd that avbornbred does not understand that a majority of black people allowed themselves to be fooled into believing that the capitalist class’ latest highest-ranking political henchman was going to be different from his predecessors based on nothing more than the color of his skin? No, it is not at all odd because, like virtually all other reactionaries, avbornbred still believes that the color of Barack Obama causes him to be different (you know, “not as patriotic as ‘real’ Americans.”)
avbornbred: “So, Cybertariat, can you explain to me how your life has been impacted or changed because of the Patriot Act?”
As AV Town Crier stated so very well, “it doesn’t matter if it [the “Patriot” Act] effects you today or not. It can. By then it’s too late.”
Yes, the so-called Patriot Act has negatively affected my life. As an outspoken Marxist, an avowed atheist and a person who is openly bisexual, I know that the “Patriot” Act has placed my liberty and perhaps even my very life in danger. Now, all that would be required to arrest and imprison me would be something like the election of someone like Newt Gingrich to the presidency of the United States who, upon taking power, could, under provisions set forth by the “Patriot” Act, order the arrests of all Marxists as enemies of the state or, to put it another way, “enemies of Ze Fatherland.”
Should you be of the belief that my use of terminology associated with Nazi-era Germany is inured to hyperbole it is only because you, avbornbred, have absolutely no understanding of the “Patriot” Act and, moreover, because you likely do not care that it effectively neutralizes the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Being a straight, white, Christian “conservative” male who, accordingly, has never and will never question any aspect of this empire’s foreign or domestic abuses, the content of the alleged Patriot Act would not likely bother you even if you were to actually read it. In fact, in light of your well-known negative attitude toward LGBT peoples, a Gingrich-like head of state who would use the “Patriot” Act to quarantine HIV-AIDS patients and/or to imprison LGBT people in general would probably be something that you would support. Even if you would not be supportive of such things, you apparently would not lift a finger in opposition, which would of course be tantamount to standing in support of such madness.
Too, in view of the fact that it has traditionally been so-called conservatives who have done their level best to deny voting rights by way of disenfranchising as many potential Democratic voters as possible, and since it is “conservatives” who oppose abortion rights, labor organizing rights, gay marriage, the decriminalization of cannabis, etc., etc., the “Patriot” Act is right up your proverbial alley, avbornbred.
But let us speculate for a moment that our hypothetical Newt Gingrich-like or Pat Buchanan-like president were to also use the “Patriot” Act as a means of disbanding all trade unions, including the one that has made your high salary the reality that it is, avbornbred. And let us speculate that, as a result of your union having been declared illegal, your salary and medical benefits or your pension and its medical benefits were reduced substantially. Let us further speculate that you and any number of your coworkers and/or fellow retirees would then join together toward an effort to regain your respective salaries and pensions. At that point you, avbornbred, would be a progressively-oriented political activist; one who endeavors against the grain of the capitalist class and its economic system.
It would be at that point, avbornbred, that you and your comrades would be, under certain provisions set forth by the “Patriot” Act, subject to arrest and indefinite detention without formal charges ever having to be leveled against you; without the benefit of counsel; and without the right of habeas corpus (those “old things”).
If you think that “That couldn’t happen here … this is America,” you would be mistaken. That sort of thing has always been a remote possibility here in America, and now the erroneously named Patriot Act has made it a very real possibility. The trade union scenario described above is precisely the sort of thing that unfolded in Germany following the election of Adolph Hitler. It is the very sort of thing that is unfolding within Egypt at this very moment (namely, the arrests and indefinite detention of bloggers who act in opposition to Egypt’s “new” government).
Indeed, Martin Niemoller’s:
“First they came for the communists[/the Marxists],
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist[/ a Marxist].
“Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
“Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak out because I was Protestant.
“Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me” is not just some idle aphorism. It is a clarion call – a clear warning to those who would sit passively – like “‘good’ Germans” – whilst those they have no use for are led away with themselves soon to follow.
Finally. To believe that Germany’s Nazi Party did not serve the interests of Germany’s capitalist class over and above all else – that the Nazis were about little more than the nihilism and anti-Jewry that capitalist culture understandably focuses on to the near total exclusion of all else is to understand next to nothing about Nazi Germany. One can read any number of books having to do with Nazi Germany and/or Fascist Italy without ever reading anything about their respective capitalist class supporters and capitalist-class-serving economic policies. The late German author Wolf Schwarzweller, for example, once wrote that “Hitler knew that as long as German industry [Germany’s capitalist class] was making money, his private money sources would be inexhaustible. Thus he would see to it that German industry was never better off than under his rule by launching, for one thing, gigantic armaments projects” (you know, “‘defense’ contracts”).
Beyond that and in response Germany’s severe crisis in capitalist production of the 1920s and 1930s, the Nazi Party slashed the wages and benefits of all German workers and brought about what can only be viewed as having been obscene tax breaks and corporate welfare programs for German capitalists. (Sound familiar?).
In brief, Germany’s Nazi Party – Germany’s fascism was the “iron hoop” which held Germany’s capitalist system together during its depression of the 1920s and 1930s. German workers who opposed such measures were quickly disposed of through Patriot Act-like laws, and the same may well take place here. Who would then stand for you, avbornbred?
*
Notes:
* I wrote “…a somewhat revitalized ‘middle class’” because it is not the lack of trade union organizing or a high-enough minimum wage that is destroying “the American dream.” It is the anti-democratic system known as capitalism that is destroying “the American dream.”
** It should be noted that, as of 1996 and according to the right-wing CATO Institute, social welfare programs constituted less than one-percent of the federal government’s yearly budget while corporate welfare or “wealthfare” made up more than eight-percent of said budget. But with the creation of the federal government’s $750 billion TARP program, it should stand to reason that American society’s corporate welfare expenditures are now much higher than eight-percent of the federal budget all the while social welfare expenditures continue to dwindle. (For more information concerning corporate welfare simply conduct an Internet search using the words “CATO institute corporate welfare.”)
Persevere.
Guy
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avbornbred says...
What the hell is "nihilism?
CYBERDUDE: Your life is not in danger because you are a liberal, marxist, bi-sexual, and an atheist. You are protected in this country. You have the right to be any of those things you claim to be. The Patriot Act has not had an impact on your life. You over emphasize your importance. Nobody in the country really cares that CYBERGUY is any of the things you claim to be. What the Patriot Act is concerned with is whether or not you are part of some network that plans to jeopardize our country. I don’t think you plan to knock down towers and kill Americans. Get off your liberal soap box. Libs love creating causes to protest and that is exactly what you are doing. Like I have said before, if Bush had not created DHS and the Patriot Act, you libs would be calling for his head because he was doing nothing to protect gay people, atheist, marxist, and liberals from the evil Muslims who want to kill all of the above plus all the Christians.
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avbornbred says...
CYBERDUDE: You are way off on what you contribute the failings in our country. Capitalism works just fine. Just look at North Dakota. Roxi and I debated on that last night. It looks like a snowball effect is taking place there. With the oil comes jobs, comes housing, comes business, schools, tax dollars, and everything else that goes along with a booming economy, including new churches.
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Cybertariat says...
avbornbred: “Cybertariat, your life is not in danger because you are a…Marxist, a bisexual and an atheist. You are protected in this country.”
Section 412 of the USA “Patriot” Act allows for the indefinite detention of immigrants without criminal charges ever having to be filed against them and without their being permitted to consult or retain an attorney, and without the right of Habeas Corpus. With Barack Obama’s recent signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), however, the political state now has the authority to not only arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens (without formal charges ever having to be leveled against them; without the benefit of legal counsel; and without the right of Habeas Corpus), so too does it allow for American citizens to be transported to foreign prisons the likes of the Guantanamo Bay detention/torture camp.
Ergo and in actuality, American citizens used to be protected by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights but, to all but the supremely ignorant amongst us, that, for all intents and purposes, is no longer the case.
Upon signing what he did not have to sign to begin with, Barack Obama added a “signing statement” in which he stated that, although he now has the power to do so, his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of an American citizen.” Yet this is the same Barack Obama who has refused to act upon his now four-year-old promise to close the Guantanamo Bay torture facility and who has already ordered the execution of an American citizen (Anwar al Awlaki) without so much as arresting that American citizen, let alone allowing him any amount of due process. So, to me, the words of the capitalist class’ current highest-ranking political handmaiden ring quite hollow, as per usual.
Furthermore, even if Barack Obama were to never utilize such ominous powers, this new law contains no “sunset” provisions. As such, it could be used and likely will be used by future presidents, most especially in the event of the election of a Newt Gingrich-like or Pat Buchanan-like POTUS. Then again and as we have just seen, it was the so-called progressive president Barack Obama who ordered the summary and thus extremely unconstitutional execution of the American citizen Anwar al Awlaki.
avbornbred: “Nobody in this country really cares that Cybertariat is [bisexual, an atheist and a Marxist]…What the ‘Patriot’ Act is concerned with is whether or not you are a part of some network that plans to jeopardize our country.”
Looking beyond the “Patriot” Act’s and now the NDAA’s obvious parallels with certain laws within Nazi Germany in which Marxists and LGBT peoples were systematically murdered alongside Jews, gypsies and others, avbornbred’s statement is absent of the fact that both the “Patriot” Act and the NDAA allow the political state extremely broad interpretations of who it is and what it is that “jeopardize our country.” It also ignores the certainty that various federal laws are often used in ways that they were never intended to be used. For example:
In, I believe, 2002, the then New York State Attorney General Eloit Spitzer led all of the other forty-nine state attorneys general in an investigation of mortgage capitalists who were involved in the very sort of predatory lending practices that created this latest and severe crisis in capitalist production. Their investigation was initiated when several “state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory practices by mortgage lenders.” * But their investigation – the end results of which could well have prevented this latest crisis in capitalist accumulation – was halted by then President George W. Bush’s administration following its having evoked the powers of a little-known federal agency known as “the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or “OCC.” In 2003, at the behest of the Bush administration and for the first time, the OCC enforced an obscure clause from the “National Bank Act” of 1863 which then enabled the Bush administration – by way of the OCC – to render the predatory banking laws of all fifty states completely null and void.
Therefore, the precedence for the use the “Patriot” Act and the NDAA by future presidential administrations for, say, the neutralization of certain socioeconomic dissidents has already been set. In fact, to all but the sublimely ignorant, precedence-setting law is set on an all but daily basis. Of course avbornbred is likely to assert that he does understand such a concept and perhaps he does. But never will blind patriots the likes of he understand how very easily the “terrorist-centered” Patriot Act and the NDAA could be and likely will be used to quell domestic dissent as the capitalist system continues to disintegrate and as concomitant protest movements like the Occupy Wall Street movement continue to proliferate.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Chris Hedges recently wrote: “I suspect the real purpose of this bill [now law] is to thwart internal, domestic movements that threaten the corporate [the capitalist] state. The definition of a terrorist is already so amorphous under the Patriot Act that there are probably a few million Americans who qualify to be investigated if not locked up.
“I suspect it passed because the corporations [the capitalist class], seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call the Army. And now they can.”
avbornbred: “Like I said before, if Bush had not created DHS and the Patriot Act, [the left] would have been calling for his head; claiming that he was doing nothing to protect gay people, atheists, Marxists and liberals from the evil Muslims who want to kill all of the above plus all of the Christians [sic].”
Yes, avbornbred, you keep repeating that same refrain. But repeating it doesn’t make it true. Too, I addressed that inanity at length and within this thread’s post of “1/19/12 – 04:13 AM,” yet, as is the case with virtually all of my writings, you did not respond. Imagine that. Then again, to actually defend such an asinine position as that would be next to impossible even for the precious few intelligent reactionaries amongst us. If nothing else, the fact that it is political reactionaries not political progressives who deem Muslims to be “evil” is more than enough of the sort of evidence required to reveal avbornbred’s assertion as being the nonsense that it is. As it concerns myself, I simply find that, just like Christians, Muslims are, accordingly, superstitionists. The two really do have so very much in common.
Oh and, another thing for you too ignore, avbornbred, did the reason for Barack Obama’s signing of the National “Defense” Authorization Act have to do with progressives having complained that the president wasn’t doing anything “to protect gay people, atheists, Marxists and liberals from the ‘evil’ Muslims…”?
avbornbred: “You are way off with respect to what you attribute to the failings of our country. Capitalism works just fine. Just look at North Dakota…It looks like a snowball effect is taking place there: With the oil comes jobs; comes housing; comes business, schools, tax dollars and everything else that goes along with a booming economy – including new churches [sic].”
Yes, the state of North Dakota is currently in an economic “boom” cycle that has everything to do with oil – specifically oil derived from what is known as “oil sands” or “tar sands.” Oil sands are made up of sand, clay, water and a thick, liquid hydrocarbon called bitumen. Instead of drilling for oil, gigantic backhoe-like buckets are used to create enormous open pits from which the oil sands are transported to oil-sands processing plants where the sands are combined with tremendous amounts of fresh water that, when mixed together, create a kind of slurry. The sand then sinks to the bottom of this “stew” as the bitumen makes its way to the top. The bitumen is then siphoned off as the remaining mixture of bitumen residues are pumped into large tailing pools similar to uranium tailing pools.
The problem with this process (as if what I have just described is not problematic in and of itself), is that, not only does it use and thus contaminate huge amounts of fresh water, so too does the process of removing the tar sands, separating the bitumen and eventually processing it into liquid oil and then gasoline create three times the amount of carbon dioxide than does conventional oil production and refinement. The fact that all of this quite obviously requires a great deal of energy – that large amounts of fossil fuels are being expended toward the creation of other fossil fuels – should be axiomatic.
It is also the case that the older, more established Canadian tar-sands operations are beginning to experience ground water contamination resulting from the runoff of the various toxins that collect within said tailing pools. This is a fate that will eventually befall North Dakotan water aquifers that lie within close proximity of tar sand operations and regardless of the efforts of state and local officials to prevent such runoff-created contamination.
So does “capitalism work just fine”? For approximately one-percent of the US population – the capitalist class, yes. For the other ninety-nine percent of us? No. No it does not. It is simply that, as we have already seen within this thread, a majority of American workers have allowed themselves to be conditioned into believing that capitalism does indeed work for them.
But consider the fact that the reason that the state of North Dakota is now considered to be “booming” is precisely because the rest of this society is still very much in the grips of this latest crisis in capitalist production. The economic “boom” that many North Dakotans are currently experiencing is occurring only in direct proportion to the economic “bust” that most of the residents of the other forty nine states are experiencing. To put it still another way, North Dakota’s “boom” is a relative thing born of capitalism’s immanent economic contradictions.
Moreover, according to Lynn Helms, a North Dakota state official responsible for the monitoring of the gas and oil capitalists who operate within North Dakota, “For us [the worst possible environmental catastrophe that could be brought on by the processing of oil sands] it’s obviously a Bakken well blowout on the shore of Lake Sakakawea.” Lynn Helms went to say that a “few dozen wells” are located within the edge of the lake which serves as a reservoir fed by the Missouri River. (The implications of which should be abundantly obvious to all who read this.) **
At this point it must be asked: Is it worth it? Is the horrific scaring of the earth’s surface, the expenditure of the inordinate amount of energy required to exploit oil sands as well as the grave danger to that part of our life support system known as water really worth it? Is this all worth what truly amounts to a minuscule net gain in world oil supplies? And, in view of the fact that the production of the oil derived from oil sands is an extremely expensive process that is therefore highly dependent upon continually high, global oil prices, is the enormous investment by the state of North Dakota (relative to added infrastructure and alleged safety precautions) really worth it?
Finally. Regardless of one’s opinion of the global warming controversy, can we not all agree that the air and water pollution caused by the extraction, refinement and use of fossil fuels is hazardous to human health? If so, are we able to further agree that we need to put pressure on “our” elected representatives to greatly bolster – indeed to restore the research and development programs that could and should serve to transition humankind beyond “our” present carbon-based economy? Should your response to that latter question be “Yes, but we have already done that,” you are correct. Yes, many workers have for decades now demanded that oil capitalists and their political state develop new technologies that would remove the dangerous shackles of “our” carbon-based society. And, from time to time, oil capitalists and their political representatives respond, or at least they appear to, for in fact alternative fuels research and development projects have, despite oil industry disinformation, been all but abandoned over the past twenty years and were never conducted in earnest in the first place.
So again, does capitalism work? Yes. Yes, for a relatively tiny group of individuals known collectively as the capitalist class, capitalism certainly does work.
Notes:
* Quoted from an article entitled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime” by Eliot Spitzer, New York Post, February 14, 2008
** Quoted from an Internet article entitled “State takes precautions for worst-case scenario,” by Patrick Springer, Forum Communications
Persevere.
Guy
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avbornbred says...
Socialism is flawed and never works. Capitalism is not perfect, but works. Look at 200+ years of the USA and our current life styles. CYBERGUY would never be able to own a computer, own a car, own a TV, and all the other perks that we have here because of Capitalism.
Capitalism ROCKS!!
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Cybertariat says...
Wow! I mean, never have you produced anything that would begin to approximate serious political commentary, avbornbred, but it appears that you have now reached the end of your exceedingly short rope.
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avbornbred says...
I don’t think so. Explain the success of our country over the last 200+ years. Capitalism and drive have produced the greatest country on earth. Can you name another that has met the challenges of the world as many time as the USA and influenced the world as much? I don’t think so. You may be able to name countries that shaped world events like Germany and the USSR, but they failed.
Freedom in our country is the driving force with Capitalism allowing people to have success and rewards of hard work. You can have Cuba and the old USSR. You can move in with Hugo Chavez or any of the other socialistic countries in the world, and I guarantee you will pick the USA and our system over anyone elses.
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Cybertariat says...
In “response” to my “…never have you produced anything that would begin to approximate serious political commentary, avbornbred, but it now appears as though you have reached the end of your exceedingly short [intellectual] rope” avbornbred wrote: “I don’t think so.” Really?
Look, avbornbred, were this a public debate you would have already been repeatedly admonished for your nonparticipation, subsequently disqualified by its judges and then laughed from the debate’s venue by its audience. Your summate failure to address so much as a single one of my points and questions, all the while I have addressed each and every one of your points and questions – in detail and as per usual, is evincive of your being the ignoramus that your grisly grasp of the English language shows you to be. Oh, but not to worry, avbornbred, for neither are the world’s few intelligent reactionaries able to tow your greed-centered and thus intellectually and morally bankrupt ideology.
The phrase “poverty of content” delimits your participation within intheav just as it delimits your worldview as being the result of conditioned “thinking” – of, yes, your having been brainwashed. You throw up little more than the childish and robotic “Capitalism rocks” and expect it to pass as some sort of intelligent response to my socialist perspectives because your “thoughts” are not your own. Rather, “your” thoughts are but sound bites that you mindlessly regurgitate in the true spirit of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs. You are, at the very least, of the subconscious belief that your being a middle-aged to older white, male Christian causes you to know-it-all when, in reality, you couldn’t perform a thirty second monologue on any sociopolitical issue without beginning to repeat yourself after the first five seconds. In short, you are a boorish individual who would be much better off were you to simply ignore my writings.
avbornbred: “Explain the success of our country over the last 200-plus years. Capitalism and drive have produced the greatest country on earth.”
Yes, as exemplified by the fact that capitalism once served an invaluable role in humankind’s social evolution (to wit, the working class’ development of the tool and the coactive organization of society which has largely insulated humankind from the whims of nature), it – capitalism – has, proportionately, allowed for great successes toward that social evolution. The fact that the United States has traditionally been the most successful example of a capitalist society is, of course, chiefly attributable to North America’s vast deposits of natural resources as well as to the fact that its people and infrastructure have been, thanks to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, all but completely unaffected by the catastrophic events that have so negatively affected much of the rest of this world (e.g., the First and Second World Wars). So “the success of our country over the last 200-plus years” has much less to do with capitalism itself than it has to do with a type of “luck of the draw” respecting natural resources and geography. To put it another way, most Western European societies are as industrially developed as is the US despite many of them having been ravaged by two extremely brutal wars over the past one-hundred years.
At this point, we might also ask “What sort of things serve to define a successful country?”
As I have noted on countless occasions throughout the years (without comment from any of our reactionaries), the wages and salaries as well as the healthcare and retirement benefits that are enjoyed by most Western European workers are vastly superior to that of most American workers. Much of the economic wealth that is created through the labor power and the intellectual power of Western European workers is also used to provide those workers with free secondary education, free onsite daycare for the children of all workers as well as with six weeks of paid vacation time each and every year; those things that nearly all American workers can only dream of.*
Now, of course, when it comes to industrial output and thus the creation of economic wealth, the US is still very successful. In fact, thanks to the world’s most productive workforce, the US remains the world’s most successful industrialized nation. But, largely speaking, it is a success that that world’s most productive workforce does not share in, for American workers are amongst the world’s most poorly compensated workers. In truth, of the world’s twenty most industrialized nations, America’s so-called blue-collar workers currently rank fourteenth in “Pay for Time Worked” and “Total Hourly Compensation.” **
So when it comes to the standard of living of the American working class (as it relates to wages and all that flows therefrom), America is at best second rate if not “fourteenth rate.” Conversely, America’s typically diminutive capitalist class is by far the world’s most successful capitalist class vis-a-vis its ability to amass economic wealth by way of the labor power and/or the intellectual power of other human beings – of workers.
avbornbred: “Can you name another country that has met the challenges of the world as many times as has the USA, and one that has influenced the world as much [sic]?”
As alluded to within this comment post’s second paragraph, to me, one of the most amazingly frustrating behaviors of political reactionaries is their ignorance-based need to ignore the statements written by progressives and then carry on in a way that suggests that the responding progressive never responded – even when such statements are written in direct response to the neglecting reactionary. For example:
Within this thread’s comment post of “01/19/12 – 05:10 AM,” avbornbred wrote: “I can name dozens of events in which the USA came to the aid of the world, either in wartime or in time of need [sic].” I then wrote an approximately 350-word response (within this thread’s comment post of “01/20/12 – 06:33 AM,” the fifteenth through the eighteenth paragraph) to which avbornbred did not respond. Now, roughly nine days later, he – avbornbred – has simply reworded that same statement in the form of the above-listed “Can you name another country that has met the challenges of the world as many times as has the USA…[sic]?”
avbornbred: “You are so caught up in some fantasy world where you think socialism works. It does not work. Look at your own life. You are successful because of capitalism. You have a job with benefits in a capitalist country. [sic]”
Once again, socialism – Marxian socialism has yet to exist in any form, at anytime anywhere on earth. Once again, to actually “bother” oneself with an in-depth study of original sources of Marxist literature (the collected life works of Dr. Karl Heinrich Marx, Frederick and, to a lesser though no less important degree, Daniel De Leon) is to know that that is indeed the case. On the other hand, to gain one’s “understanding” of Marxian socialism from Rush, Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Rielly, Glenn Beck, and the many other base, anti-intellectual and thus laughable capitalist cheerleaders is to show oneself to be not only a typically intellectually lazy, misinformed reactionary, but also an individual who is either unwilling or simply unable to think independently.
As for my own life being successful, and as for my having “a job with benefits in a capitalist country,” I, in actuality and once again, have a fairly good job with good benefits despite capitalism not because of capitalism. Think about it. With the most important objective of capitalists being the driving down of costs (read: “overhead”) in order to maximize net profits, common sense should dictate that my relatively high wages and benefits stand antithetical to the material “needs” of my capitalist master. Hell, not only does that stand to reason, it is simply an objective fact. It is the very reason why those who own the industry in which I work (meat/grocery capitalists) have always resented their being signed to a union contract and why they have – for the past twenty-seven years – been earnestly attempting to bust the trade union of which I am a member. It is the very reason why capitalist culture’s thought regulators (i.e., the oft-mentioned Rush Limbo) keep to successfully convincing their working class audiences that trade unionism somehow stands antithetical to “their” material interests rather than simply to that of their capitalist masters – their employers. It is testimonial to the immense ideological power of all but omnipresent right-wing media. And it is all so fucking bizarre.
Moreover and once again, although I have been working since my early childhood, a huge part of my life’s relative success is firmly rooted in the fact that, like avbornbred, marino, Randy Hall, R. Rex Paris and many others, I was “born on first base” if not, perhaps, “half way between first base and second base.” In other words, I am a white male who was born to a petty capitalist/small business family whereby I was all but handed my station within capitalist society. And, though they will surely deny it until that day on which they draw their final breaths, so were all of the aforementioned white males all but handed their respective stations within capitalist society. Yes, the lot of us and still other white men are and always have been given to a willingness to work hard. But neither have any of us ever been beset by true adversity. Never have any of us been summarily disqualified as job applicants or, say, apartment seekers based on nothing other than our “respective” pigmentations. Never we have any of us been surreptitiously yet spontaneously assumed to be lazy, dishonest, irresponsible and even prone to criminality based upon nothing more than pigmentation. And never have any of us been turned down for a job or a promotion because another man thought us to be “too emotional,” “not physically strong enough,” “too committed to the needs of our children” nor because of any of the many other bigotries that the capitalist system thrives upon and therefore necessarily promotes.
*
marino: “‘Capitalism is bad. Capitalism is bad. Capitalism is bad.’ Repeat that a few thousand times and someone will start believing it [sic].”
Were that descriptive of my participation within this forum you, marino, would have happened upon an excellent point. But it is not so descriptive … not even close and you know it. In fact, your wholly false and thus fatuous summation of my writings is nearly exactly descriptive of your “writings” as well as that of avbornbred and the totality of this blog’s other well-nigh illiterate reactionaries. Yes, scribbling “Capitalism rocks” and very little else in “response” to my, as a matter of fact, comparatively lengthy, social science-based and well-thought-out socialist perspectives does not so much as begin to approximate serious political commentary. I’m terribly sorry, but is just doesn’t.
True, I may well be mistaken in my belief that a futuristic socialist commonwealth would finally spell the end of class rule and its many antisocial manifestations. But the fact that nary a one of you have ever come close to scaring up a social science-based, articulate, accredited and thus meaningful refutation of a single one of my many Marxian-socialist-viewpoints strongly suggests that it is you and the balance of your brethren that are mistaken. Devoid of intellectual prowess – of a depth of knowledge of much of anything – yet steeled in the baseless belief that “white is right,” that “might makes right” and that “Duh, capitalism rocks,” you and yours, marino, make extreme asses of yourselves all the while believing yourselves to be “wise,” “judicious” and, most of all, ever “entitled.” Indeed, white-male privilege is so intertwined with and so inseparable from capitalist society that its alleged benefactors fail to recognize it even when their proverbial noses come to be rubbed into it.
marino: “[To Cybertariat it] [d]oesn’t matter what avbornbred believes-in but the way he says it. In other words, if you don’t believe in socialism, or if you aren’t at least hard left, you are a ‘mo-ron.’ How boring and repetitive [sic].”
Nonsense. Though I have in fact, within this thread and for good reason pointed out avbornbred’s dreadful understanding of the English language, never have I stated anything that even resembles “You’re a moron if you don’t believe in socialism.” My only point is that, although everyone is certainly entitled to their opinions, if one is unable to support his or her opinions with substantive arguments, then one’s opinions are rendered mistaken and thereby meaningless. And the simple and objective fact of the matter is that never has avbornbred presented anything close to a substantive argument and neither have you, marino. (The fact that that point coincides with the fact that avbornbred often “writes” as if he were developmentally disabled is part and parcel of his being a typically simpleminded political reactionary. I’m sorry, but it simply does.)
*
Notes:
* It should be pointed out that the word “free” – with respect to “free secondary education,” free onsite daycare for the children of all workers,” etc., – does not suggest that such services are simply handed to Western European workers by their respective governments; only that they pay no amount of “out of pocket” expenses, for it is a portion of the economic wealth derived from their labor and their intellectual power that pay for those services just as the economic wealth derived from the labor power and/or the intellectual power of all workers pays for everything in this world.
** Global blue-collar-pay rankings: “1) Norway; 2) Switzerland; 3) Belgium; 4) Denmark; 5) Sweden; 6) Germany 7) Finland; 8) Austria; 9) Netherlands; 10) Austria; 11) France; 12) Ireland; 13) Canada; 14) United States; 15) Italy; 16) Japan; 17; United Kingdom; 18) Spain; 19) Greece; 20) New Zealand.” –excerpted from an article entitled “Which Countries Pay Blue Collar Workers the Most,” the Atlantic Cities
Persevere.
Guy
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roxi says...
Cybertariat:
“…The phrase “poverty of content” delimits your participation within intheav just as it delimits your worldview as being the result of conditioned “thinking” – of, yes, your having been brainwashed. You throw up little more than the childish and robotic “Capitalism rocks” and expect it to pass as some sort of intelligent response to my socialist perspectives because your “thoughts” are not your own.”
______________________
It seems unfortunate that Cybertariat has to continuously inform some people of the benefits of EQUALITY in pay and social services, when we all know that most reading these exchanges BENEFIT from said ‘social’ services.
It’s like their short-term memories have been erased, and filled with nonsense, that they are the only one’s who every worked, worked hard, saved their money and bought ‘nice things’. This effort to divide workers by pay-scales is just the lazy-man’s way to transfer wealth and keep it for what they assume are ‘like-minded’ people like themselves, but couldn’t be further from the truth.
The entire world is dealing with this ‘debt crisis’, as the IMF has found at their most recent meeting in Davos, Switzerland that “…there were were no answers to the widening inequality gap, but a mounting realization that economic growth must include the poor, that job creation is crucial and that affordable food, housing, healthcare and education need to be part of any solution.” **
Call it what you may, but the current BRAND of Capitalism DID NOT WORK, and does not work.
The Capitalistic society we had, say 30 years ago with social access for all Americans, worked — as there was an equal sharing of wealth thru taxes, wages and opportunity.
How soon many forget, and how soon they are to accuse those ‘without’ as LAZY, and unwilling to work, yet deny investment into this country so all WILL WORK.
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Martel says...
Cyber the Countrys paying high taxes and receiving the benefits you mention are not complaining,Family and friends of mine live in some of the places in your post and YES they have what all Americans dream of.Retirement, Education, Healthcare,Long Term care for seniors,Paid vacation six weeks a year,Housing,Beautiful safe Parks and recreation,excellent public transporation.If you talk to any of these people the stress eliminated from removing these issues in life is well worth the high taxes that are payed for the benefit of all.Good Post
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Cybertariat says...
I had never before thought of it that way, Martel, but, yes, it stands to reason that, given a much higher standard of living, the lives of Western European workers would be much less stressful than are the lives of American workers. But, yes, the simple fact that, overall and as an example, Western European workers enjoy infinitely more leisure time than do their American counterparts and are therefore better able to develop themselves as human beings with respect to cultural pursuits and the like, suggests that they – Western European – are much better adjusted psychologically. It is only too unfortunate that so many Americans are not only completely ignorant of Western Europe’s much higher standard of living, but also that they have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by capitalist culture into believing that a higher degree of government provided services would be “a bad thing.” The fact that capitalist “culture” is dominated by people like Rush Limbaugh and that he and the many other “thought regulators” ultimately work for people who have a vested interest in not only cutting working-class-oriented government services but also in the complete elimination of said services should be obvious to all.
A perfect example of such conditioned “thinking” is avbornbred’s belief that the European debt crisis is the fault of workers who were, yes, “getting too many benefits.” Yes, just as America’s latest crisis in capitalist accumulation is the fault of poorer members of the working class who acquired “subprime” mortgages in pursuit of “the American dream,” rather than the fault of banking capitalists who created highly predatory yet highly profitable “mortgage-backed securities” that they then sold in the casino known as “investment banking,” it is always the fault of workers, eh, avbornbred? I mean, scapegoating is such a many splendid thing, no, avbornbred?
Indeed, just as American banking capitalists developed “toxic mortgages” and then set out to systematically prey upon poorer Americans, German and French banking capitalists set out to sell similar loans to the governments of Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain. The magazine “Financial Times” has equated these latter loans to a type of Ponzi scheme the consequences of which have been blamed on yes, you guessed it, greedy workers – “greedy” workers who produce all economic wealth in the first place.
Yours was an excellent point, Martel. Thank you.
Persevere.
Guy
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Martel says...
As usual we have it ass backwards,The greedy pigs wind up on top. The peoples money they operate with remember they cant lose gambling with others peoples money,then find a vocal group of bought and paid for politicians then add the tea party and the very victims become the bad guys.What a world,no what a dumb world.
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avbornbred says...
CYBERDUDE: You have are a conditioned liberal. The workers may not be getting all of the benefits, but the sedate behavior of the European countries with early retirement ages, high unemployment with great benefits for the non workers, and great benefits for those who do work, generate less money than is being given out by the government. The system can only survive so long. The liberal way is to keep taking more from the people who make money and work hard, take more from the rich who employ people, and create an environment where it is no longer profitable to own a company here.
SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK!!
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mattkeltner says...
Cybertariat:"Moreover and once again, although I have been working since my early childhood, a huge part of my life’s relative success is firmly rooted in the fact that, like avbornbred, marino, Randy Hall, R. Rex Paris and many others, I was “born on first base” if not, perhaps, “half way between first base and second base.”
I don’t know about Randy Hall, Guy, but I am sure that Rex Parris and marino would disagree with you if you stated that they were “born on first base”.
Marino’s family is from an impoverished Eastern European nation and I have heard that Rex spent a large portion of his childhood on social programs with a single mother.
If my understanding of both of these men is incorrect, then I expect someone to address this and correct me.
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Martel says...
avbornnbred,As a matter of fact Scandinavian Countrys need workers and are now allowing blue collar workers to migrate at a far faster rate than ever before.
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Cybertariat says...
Within capitalist society, to be born a white male is to be born on “first base” irrespective of who that white male may be. To be born both a white male and to a petty capitalist family is to be born somewhere between “first base” and “second base.” To deny the existence of these things is to also deny the existence of, say, gravity.
Back to it.
Persevere.
Guy
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Cybertariat says...
In response to avbornbred’s post of “02/02/12 – 06:54 AM,” Yes, as I recall having written just a very weeks ago and within a non-related thread “As for how much longer that system [Western Europe’s social democratic system] will last, is a subject for another thread,” the world’s social democracies will eventually collapse. And as I wrote within the parent post “Bourgeois ‘socialism’”, the alleged socialist US Senator from Vermont – Bernard (Bernie) Sanders – “often cites Sweden [as well as Scandinavia’s and Western Europe’s other social democracies] as the model for the sort of so-called socialism that he advocates. Sweden, where the Swedish capitalist class owns nearly all of that nation’s means of industrial production, the Swedish state owns a small portion while Swedish society owns absolutely no amount of said means of industrial production. [To reiterate, socialist society would be emblematic of the social ownership and democratic administration of the means of industrial production and thus completely devoid of private ownership and control of the means of industrial production..]
“Sweden, where the working class enjoys no more control over the content and conduct of industrial production, or over the distribution of its products and services, than does the American working class. Sweden, where the working class is still exploited under a wages system.”
I went on to write “…the ‘socialism’ that Vermonters [the residents of Sander’s home state] have learned not to be afraid of is a ‘socialism’ that workers would soon become disappointed and disgusted with were it ever implemented, for it would be nothing more than liberalism – worthless liberalism.” (See the seventeenth and eighteenth paragraphs.)
So you see, as avbornbred confirmed by his having written “The system [social democracy]…create[s] an environment where it is no longer profitable to own a company…” the means of production within Western European and Scandinavian social democracies are still very much owned and controlled by their respective capitalist classes. It – social democracy – simply has nothing to do with socialism, or at least not Marxian socialism which, although they understand next to nothing about it, is what virtually all people think of upon hearing or reading the word “socialism.” And yes, “The system [social democracy/liberalism] can only survive so long” (avbornbred). But the fact that they will eventually collapse has absolutely nothing to do with the working-class-generated and government-provided benefits and services enjoyed by workers in Western Europe and Scandinavia while it has everything to do with capitalism having reached its global stage.
With Western European and Scandinavian-based capitalists facing the ever-rising specter of having to compete against emerging Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, and Pakistani capitalists (amongst others) complete with their infinitely less expensive labor and environmental and other costs, the aforementioned capitalists will be increasingly compelled to cut costs themselves or, in the words of avbornbred, go out of business because it would “no longer be profitable to own a company…” Such cost-cutting would obviously include reductions in workers’ wages and benefits as well as reductions in the amount of tax monies paid to their respective political states by which the present level of social services would be reduced accordingly. But, again, as evidenced by the fact that contemporary social democracies have been “taking money from [capitalists] who employ people” (avbornbred) for nearly seventy years all the while maintaining an extremely high standard of living for their respective citizenries speaks to the fact that it is not “workers taking too many benefits” that will ultimately destroy the world’s social democratic societies, it will be capitalism itself that destroys social democracies.(The fact that social democracy/liberalism was developed as a means of protecting capitalism – as a “gatekeeper” – has been discussed within previous threads.)
And you may keep to childishly asserting that capitalists “make money and work hard” to the contentment of your heart just as you keep to ignoring each and every one of my many points, avbornbred, but it will not make it so. You have never attempted to counter the fact that it is workers who produce all economic wealth because it is a perfectly obvious fact. Yet you stubbornly cling to the stupefying predication that capitalists create wealth when, in reality, they do no such thing due to your being enamored by money and with those who have it during which you claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Too funny.
Fianlly, avbornbred, I am nearing the end of my patience with respect to: A) your neverending and utterly childish contention that I am a liberal; B) your equally childish and neverending lack of respect for my username; and C) your little game – born of ignorance and vacuousness – of ignoring everything that I write – much if not most of which is written in direct response to the comments made and questioned posed by none other than you.
Never will I expect you nor anyone else to agree with Marxism, but it would be nice were you to somehow reach an understanding of the very basics, i.e., that Marxism and liberalism are diametrically opposed to one another. At times, I believe you to understand that fact but that you continue to hold fast to the reactionary media-induced idiocy that Marxism and liberalism are synonymous because of your clear lack of an ability to present an articulate, analytical and thus cogent argument. Desperate to discredit, you ignorantly associate liberalism with Marxism (the quick tar and feather) because you know that, like your self, most people have been trained – like circus animals – to believe that Marxism is “a bad thing.”
Therefore, since you will not stop referring to me as a liberal because you are far too childish and desperate to discredit, it won’t be long before I begin to delete the posts in which I am referred to as a liberal. All right?
Respecting my username – “Cybertariat.” I have asked you repeatedly to please respect my username just as I respect yours but, no, you are far too immature and disrespectful to honor such a request as that. So, again, continue to behave as you like. But it won’t be long until I begin to delete the posts in which I am referred to as anything other than “Cybertariat” or Guy. All right?
Lastly and most importantly, throughout the nineteen years in which I have been engaged in Internet-centered political debate, I have longed to engage at least a single political reactionary who has taken the time to read a meaningful amount of original sources of Marxist literature and who is also intelligent enough, articulate enough and thus accredited enough to engage me in a substantive fashion. In short, someone who would make me have to think rather than to sleepwalk my way through post after post as I do now and as I have always done.
Clearly, avbornbred, that political reactionary is not you. However, I am certain that you have what it takes to involve yourself in at least a small measure of what could be regarded as political discourse; a political to-and-fro during which each of us would address the very comments and questions presented by the other. As it now stands, I am weary of seeing virtually everything that I write being completely ignored by you and the lot of this forum’s other reactionaries – of having to rehash “Marxism 101" over and over again, for it is both tedious and a waste of my precious time.
So, again, do just exactly as you wish. But, short of someone stepping up and intriguing me with tangible discourse (Hell, I’m not expecting dialectics), it won’t be long before I adopt a Jim Rome-like policy (you know, “Have a take and do not suck.”). All right?
Persevere.
Guy
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AV Town Crier says...
Cyberguy
In your post you mentioned Sweden. I think that some form of social demacracy could work in smaller countries. I don’t think it could work in the USA, were jut too big and diversified to the point that we couldn’t agree on anything.
Just look at congress. We’re in a real mess in this country. I would welcome a change to a form of social democracy. But, it’s just a philosophy, not something that will happen (at least not in the USA).
By all accounts it does work in Sweden. If I were a much younger person with the knowledge I have today, I would seriously consider moving there.
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Cybertariat says...
Yes, AV Town Crier, I mentioned both Sweden and social democracy. But I did not tout social democracy as something that should be adopted here in the US. I simply used Sweden, its privately owned means of production as well as its social democratic form of government as a way of countering the ignorant and widespread belief that social democracy is representative of socialism which would be the social ownership of the means of production. Get it … socialist society?
Moreover, I more than simply alluded to my belief that, although they are still sound systems that meet the needs of their respective citizenries quite well, all of the world’s social democracies will eventually fall victim to many of the capitalist system’s inherent economic and social contradiction – most particularly globalization and the aforementioned consequences of First World-based capitalists ever-increasing need to compete against their “Emerging World-based” counterparts.
Finally. Why do you suppose it is that so many people are of the belief that an equitable socioeconomic system would not work here in the US because “we’re just too big and diversified” while also believing that the hideously inequitable capitalist system is somehow sustainable? How can anyone be of the belief that this society, in which an infinitesimally small percentage of its population controls virtually all of its socially produced wealth, will be able to hold together much longer?
(Note: If you are immature enough to have to refer to me as anything other than “Cybertariat” or Guy, please do not bother to reply to this post. If you are ignorant enough to have to refer to me as a “liberal” – as being anything other than a “socialist,” a “communist,” a “Marxist,” a “Marxian socialist” or a “Marxist-DeLeonist, then please do not bother to reply to this post. And if you are so wanting of an intellect that you cannot see your way to addressing the specifics of this post, then please do not bother “responding” to this post. Thank you.)
Persevere.
Guy
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roxi says...
02/05/12 – 07:34 PM
roxi says…
Cybertariat:
“…Yes, AV Town Crier, I mentioned both Sweden and social democracy. But I did not tout social democracy as something that should be adopted here in the US. I simply used Sweden, its privately owned means of production as well as its social democratic form of government as a way of countering the ignorant and widespread belief that social democracy is representative of socialism which would be the social ownership of the means of production. Get it *social*ist society?
_______________________________
A few months ago in the news IKEA of Sweden’s pay-scales and benefits were published, showing the huge difference between their hourly-pay and benefit scales to Swedish citizens in comparison to what they offer American workers in western Va. The discrepancies are huge: $19/hr in Sweden+ benefits vs $8.00/hr – NO Benefits:: US.
So how do countries like Sweden – and Germany survive by paying their workers living wages, excellent educational opportunities and extended benefits and still remain #1 in manufacturing and secure wealth?
Easy. They copied the once-envied #1 Nation in the world – the USA.
Cyber:
“Finally. Why do you suppose it is that so many people are of the belief that an equitable socioeconomic system would not work here in the US because “we’re just too big and diversified” while also believing that the hideously inequitable capitalist system is somehow sustainable?
“How can anyone be of the belief that this society, in which an infinitesimally small percentage of its population controls virtually all of its socially produced wealth, will be able to hold together much longer?
_____________________
It is NOT sustainable, as they have found out, because without an equal share of wealth, NOBODY will, or can buy their crap.
American’s have been smart. They’ve refused to buy into the cheap crap ploy from the neuvo-riche and instead have paid-down their own personal debt, and put the rest in savings.
The USA hasn’t “expanded” in size and acreage in the past 30 years – rather our ENTIRE ECONOMY and technological base SHRUNK, to benefit a few.
Is the mantra now: USA’s TOO BIG TO SUCCEED?
Considering the how cheerfully the welcome mats’ are being laid-out for Foreign Investment in this country, it’s only a matter of time until we lose the Louisiana Purchase, et al.
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AV Town Crier says...
You are correct,Guy in that ultimately it will fail. Any system based on inflatable paper money (worthless) will eventually fail. This is what’s happening world-wide due to most nations having central banking. (The evil international banking cabal, sticks its ugly head out.)
The same scenario will play out in Sweden as they are in the European Social Democracies, as (they too) are on a central banking system that is ultimately connected to the World Bank and the IMF. The big evils of the capitalistic world.
So you are right, Guy in that respect. But that snowball has been rolling down hill and gaining speed for an awfully long time. You cannot stop it now. Let’s say there’s a total collapse of the financial system (world-wide, what will emerge? The same shit! The same power elitist group will still emerge on top and the same corrupt system of capitalism will again take over.
It’s the same way people allow depot’s to take over, time after-time. It’s human nature and right now it’s embedded in our psyche. The only way that anybody could switch over to the system you propose, would only be possible if mankind (humankind-to be PC)was to be wiped off the face of the Earth and a new human race was to emerge perhaps they would evolve into a pure Marxist type system. I do feel that some sort of barter system would be more effective and honest.
The big question would still be; how long until corruption of they system would occur? Sooner or later, greed will raise its ugly head. Sorry Guy, unlike you, I just don’t have faith in my fellow man to live greed free for long. I think you’re born with it. Perhaps it’s a genetic failure of some sort. I don’t know how to explain it—but we are just born with greed.
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Cybertariat says...
Although I will allow your post of “02/05/12 – 07:48 PM” to stand, marino, are you not familiar with the HTML code which would enable you to create hotlinks that would direct readers to the video clips you wish for them to view? If not, I would be more than willing to send you the applicable code via a private message sometime before I am able to respond to your post at length. In the interim, though, you might want to reexamine my post of “02/02/12 – 08:35 PM” and then rethink and perhaps even rewrite your response to it, for, not surprisingly, you overlooked the pivotal word “petty.” * Were you to do so you might find that what I wrote was “To be born both a white male and to a petty capitalist family [a small business-owning family] is to be born somewhere between ‘first base’ and ‘second base’” rather than, as you “reproduced” it, “…to be born of a white capitalist family…” (Emphasis not in original. And the distinction “petty capitalist family” pertained to white males such as myself rather than to, say, marino.)
So you see, marino, the designation “petty” changes everything relative to what it was that you responded to. Therefore, were you to reread my comments and then rethink and rewrite your response to them, it could well make for better discourse.
Too, never have I stated that poverty is a phenomenon given solely to a particular pigmentation or combination thereof. Rather, I have forever referred to poverty as being just exactly what it is; a class phenomenon – a working class phenomenon that, proportionately, affects peoples of all pigmentations. Therefore, the content of the video clip that you posted has absolutely no bearing on my comments to which you “responded” to. Moreover, according to the 2010 Census, “white” people constitute 72.4% of the US population. So of course poverty and its many corollaries affect greater numbers of “white” people than it does people of color. Have you an example of my having stated or suggested otherwise, marino?
* I wrote “…not surprisingly…” due to my belief that capitalist culture is so understandably bereft of anything of a Marxian nature that virtually all workers subconsciously fail to recognize phrases the likes of “petty capitalists” because they have been conditioned accordingly. This means that, in my opinion, marino likely did read the phrase “petty capitalist” but by the time he penned his response, his mind had omitted that terminology.
Persevere.
Guy
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AV Town Crier says...
The sole goal of the ruling elite has always been to enslave the working class (the 99%). No unions, no rights, just enslavement and be 100% under their control.
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Cybertariat says...
With all due respect, AVTC, the sole goal of the “rule elite” – the capitalist class (the Carnegies, the Du Ponts, the Rothchilds, the Melons, the Rockefellers, etc.,) is to transform things of nature into commodities and commodities into surplus value/economic profit. That the capitalist class – in the process of deriving surplus value – necessarily expropriates the vast majority of the economic wealth that workers and workers alone produce is an incident rather than end. The fact that, over time and by way of never-ceasing improvements to the means of production (e.g., computerization and robotization), capitalists are able to accumulate more profit while employing fewer workers should be more than enough to prove that point. In fact, were capitalists able to employ no amount of workers while still being able to continuously increase production and thus profits/surplus value, then that is just exactly what they would do and someday they will.
Anecdotally, one need look no further than, as but a single such example, the Ralphs grocery company’s new regional warehouse in Riverside, California where the only time in which a human being is needed to load a delivery truck’s trailer is when larger bags of dog food and/or potatoes are to be loaded. And even that fact is one given to time.
So it’s nothing personal. It’s only capitalism. That this situation will eventually lead to a state of utter barbarism, short of our transitioning to socialist society, is a subject for another day.
Back to it… :-)
Persevere.
Guy
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Ray Cunneff says...
We’ve seen it in any number of fields, automation, computerization and ‘robotization’ (assuming there is such a word) replacing large workforces with small numbers of IT geeks and engineers to repair and maintain the equipment. People are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the bottom line. Middle management is as dead as the middle class.
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Cybertariat says...
Yes, “robotization” is a word. Coined during the late-1920s, it was initially used to describe “the process of turning a human being into a robot.” –Webster’s New World Dictionary. Nowadays, it most often describes the process of “convert[ing] (a system, for example) to automation by the application of advanced scientific technology [i.e., the introduction of machines which possess human-like features that are employed in the production of automobiles and the like.].” –The Free Online Dictionary
Should memory serve, my initial exposure to the modern usage of the word “robotization” was in or around 1995 while reading Jeremy Rifkin’s book “The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era,” (Putman Publishing, 1995, 400 pages).
Although limited in its analysis and quite wanting with respect to a solution, The End of Work describes not only the process of replacing workers with computers and robots but also of the fact that certain computer experts told Jeremy Rifkin of their expectation that computers and robots will eventually be able to both repair and replace themselves. This would, of course, eliminate the need for even highly educated workers thereby making the need to begin the transition to socialist society even more pressing. Such a society would of course carry on with the process of eliminating the need for work, but its social ownership and democratic control of computers, robots and other implements of industrial processes would see to the meeting of the needs and desires of society rather than to that of a tiny minority now known as the capitalist class.
“Socialism or barbarism” to be sure.
Persevere.
Guy
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Grumpy says...
In hunter-gatherer societies virtually everyone is involved in simply keeping food on the table, and the population is strictly limited by the food supply. Settlements were small, basic and generally portable, and warfare was limited to establishing & maintaining control of territory.
Development of agriculture and husbandry made the feeding process much more efficient and launched a major transformation. Societies found themselves with a surplus of labor which had to be directed by the ruling groups into something else, which at first meant mostly building temples and other civic accoutrements, not to mention fighting more elaborate wars. In earlier societies the decision on this excess labor was to be applied to always came via socialist-style top-down control, usually involving religion.
Gradually commerce between individual citizens grew to absorb this labor surplus, and it was like magic, operating in automatic fashion without need of the top-down directives to build pyramids or such. America is arguably the culmination of this automatic labor-absorbing process, but nothing lasts forever and now we see the early stages of what may be a new transformation. Once again we have a society where there is surplus labor due to the combination of production efficiency and uncontrolled population expansion. What to do? Will it be necessary to abandon our “automated” consumer/capitalist social model simply to keep the mass population occupied? As population bumps against the maximum carrying capacity of the planet, how do we cope with the transformation from a society based on endless growth and endless deficits to one which must remain static with all books balanced?
Guy touts at length a human society that he seems to think will function like a colony of coral polyps, happily living and growing under a vaguely envisioned ideal socialism that apparently will have no central power clique to make individuals do all those things they don’t want to do. I respectfully submit that the combination of human nature and human needs makes such a thing only an intellectual fantasy.
In every human society there must be, always has been and always will be a central power clique that makes the decisions and imposes its will on the populace. The only differences relate to how those people come to power and how they hold on to that power. Always, even in the most iron-fisted socialistic / communistic / totalitarian governments, there is at least some degree of “consent of the governed”. The best societies not only maximize the size of the consenting group but accommodate the major objections raised by the non-consenting minority. Let’s hope whatever evolves is one of those.
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Cybertariat says...
Though, like everyone else here, Grumpy has yet to address the fact that, according to Marxism itself, socialist society has yet to exist, I nonetheless thank him(?) for his, intelligently written, respectful and thus thoughtful post.* I’m not certain that I will be able to respond all too soon (as I am still awaiting marino’s clarification, and never is time with which to blog at a premium for me), but Grumpy’s latest is somewhat in keeping with the type of interaction that I desire.
Too and with all respect due Grumpy, is it not odd that, regardless of how often my posts link to web pages which depict a futuristic socialist commonwealth or regardless of how often I otherwise describe such a society, our anti-socialists keep to slavishly repeating the likes of “…a vaguely envisioned ideal socialism that apparently will have no central ‘power’…” (Grumpy)?
Notes:
* Choosing, instead, to simply carry on with the same, old “Always, even in the most iron-fisted socialistic/communistic totalitarian governments…” etc., etc., etc.
But again, Grumpy, I thank you for your measured response.
Back to it… :-)
Persevere.
Guy
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mattkeltner says...
Cybertariat:“Marxism itself, socialist society has yet to exist, I nonetheless.”
This is why so many academics bristle at the notion of putting Marxian socialism under the category of “science”. For something to be scientific, it has to be verifiable and the outcome must be proven by observation. Even sociology,considered a “soft science”, allows for observation of behavior and predictability in groups and individuals. I will grant that Marxist socialism is theoretical, but definitely not provable because of the fact that it has failed materialize from its theoretical state.
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Cybertariat says...
Actually, Matt, the reason that “many academics bristle at the notion of” recognizing Marxian science as being the social science that it clearly is, is because, like America’s system of education in general, many academics are hostile toward Marxian science (dutifully so, in fact). So they have attached this “For something to be scientific, it has to be verifiable and the outcomes must be proven by observation” disclaimer to Marxian science when it actually has no basis in reality, for Webster’s New World Dictionary’s definition of a social science reads as follows:
“1 the study of people living together in groups, families, etc., and their customs, activities, etc.
“2 any of several fields of study, as economics, political science, or anthropology, dealing with the structure of society and the activity of its members.”
To study Marxian science is to also study economics, political science, anthropology as well as history – working class history. And no definition of the phrase “social science” includes any type of waiver having to do with any type of social science having to be “verifiable and outcome-based.” One may well disagree with the findings of any given social science – including those given to Marxian science – but they are all social sciences nonetheless. Any and all suggestions to the contrary are both silly and telling reminders of the indoctrinating ways of capitalist culture.
(Note: From this point forward, any and all posts that treat participants of this forum in a disrespectful manner will be deleted without comment. Thank you.)
Persevere.
Guy
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AV Town Crier says...
AVB
Marxism as Guy proposes has never been tried. No society has ever been able to pull it off. in defense of Guy, the evil bankers have always fought against it.
The closest experiment was Walden II (I’ sire there have been other small communes that have attempted it). The real question is could it work in a large nation like America. No. because people would be unwilling to try something new, especially when you have to give up what you know.
Governments like the old Soviet Union have been falsely called Marxists (or even communist). It wasn’t. It was capitalistic. But it was a capitalistic monopoly.
I think in the early days of America, middle America practiced a form of socialism. They worked together as a community. All pitched in to help each other. Everybody worked the harvest, etc. (I’m not saying this was true Marxism as Guy has been discussing)but it’s as close as I can see as a workable example.
Certainly several South American countries were taken over via Marxist revolutionaries. But, I’m not sure that it ended up as a Marxist society in the long run (as the evil bankers sunk their fangs into the govt.)
Plus for a country to survive on an international basis, you will be forced (perhaps kicking and screaming) into the central banking system.
Make no mistake about it, central banking is evil greed at its worst and that’s the system that we are all part of.
Guy, can you show an example of a country (in recent history) that is a truly Marxist system?
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mattkeltner says...
AV Town Crier: “I think in the early days of America, middle America practiced a form of socialism. They worked together as a community. All pitched in to help each other. Everybody worked the harvest, etc. (I’m not saying this was true Marxism as Guy has been discussing)but it’s as close as I can see as a workable example. ”
All one need to do today in order to find this sort of “socialism” is find an area where there are active Amish communities – rural areas of Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa.
The “kibbutz” concept in Israel is pretty much dead, as it was largely a failure. The reason the kibbutz failed was because it wasn’t ideologically, religiously or culturally cohesive enough. They had no ideological uniformity. On the kibbutz, there were – at once – conservative Orthodox Jews and Secular atheist Jews and everything in between. The only thing that bound them together was the cause of Zionism to varying degrees. The most fatal flaw for the kibbutz concept was when they allowed people to bring material possessions with them and purchase material possessions, while living there, as well. This created strife.
The Amish do not believe in material possessions, for the most part. Many of them only possess heirloom items such as a gown passed down from grandmother to grand daughter or a Bible from father to son to grandson. There is little-to-no jewelry and nothing of much monetary wealth. This prevents coveting.
Additionally, the Amish are unified by a common cultural heritage, a common language and a common religious belief. The more commonality that exists, the more likely people are to be unified and cohesive.
That is a sociological observation and one that seems to have escaped many Marxists, for whatever reason?
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Cybertariat says...
With all due respect, Matt, what has escaped anti-Marxists is the fact that socialist society would not be dependent upon commonality of cultural heritage and religious belief. Rather and for what could well be the five-hundredth time within these virtual pages, a capitalist/industrialized society’s transition to an industrialized socialist commonwealth would be dependent upon nothing other than the social ownership and democratic administration of its means of industrial/economic production. Beyond that, what its individual citizens would choose to do relative to their cultural heritages and religious beliefs (if any) would be entirely of their own making. In fact, with their economic security being assured through their workweeks being but a fraction of what they are under capitalism, all human beings would finally enjoy the time with which to fully develop themselves culturally, religiously, educationally, philosophically, politically, physically or in any other way they would so choose. For the first time in human history, all human beings would be able to develop themselves as human beings rather than having to constantly do whatever it takes to be able to sell themselves and the lion’s share of their waking hours to this capitalist master or that capitalist master so that they may be used as mere appendages to the means of production. No longer would human beings have to suffer the indignities of having to devote sixty-plus hours per week toward their forty-hour-per-week jobs; of having to work at two and even three jobs, simultaneously; of having to leave their children with strangers or with no one at all while they work because, under capitalism, the rearing of children is an economic question that an ever-increasing number of workers are unable to answer; and of having to work until one is either dead or too old and/or too debilitated because of a lifetime of wage slavery to enjoy a decent number of retirement years.
Yes, it would be these type of things that socialist society would concern itself with – not with the possession or further acquisition of material possessions. Given that all human beings would finally come to enjoy the full economic benefit of their labor power and/or their intellectual power all the while having to work significantly fewer hours each week, not only would no one be left wanting of material possessions and thus left to the strife mentioned by Matt, so too would they actually have the time with which to enjoy their material possessions.
Additionally. As I demonstrated a couple of years ago by way of pointing out that the fact that people of all pigmentations as well as cultural and religious backdrops live together quite harmoniously in such places as Newport Beach, California and Greenwich, Connecticut, virtually all tensions between human beings are material in nature rather than anything related to pigmentation, culture, religion or other ideological varieties. Indeed, it is self-evident and abundantly obvious that, once their material well-being has been well-assured, the color, cultural and religious differences between human beings become all but completely meaningless.
Finally. It must be kept in mind that a modern-day kibbutz, a commune and whatever else of the like exist within the much larger framework of modern-day, monolithic capitalist society. As such, they are more than simply susceptible to the economic and social influences of capitalist society. Therefore, it is that as well as the fact that there exists no meaningful representations of what could be considered means of industrial/economic production within these “dead on arrival” and thus so-called socialist enclaves that negates their socialist credentials in the first place.
“An island of socialism cannot survive within a sea of capitalism.” –Daniel De Leon. Then again, communes and the such are not manifestations of socialism to begin with.
Persevere.
Guy
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Cybertariat says...
Too, AVTC, do you truly need to ask me again whether or not there exists an example of a socialist society?
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AV Town Crier says...
Guy
Those are NOT examples. Those cities are still part of our system. They are located in Counties, states, and the USA. They may live with values that lean toward Marxism and that is fine. But they are not a true country who’s economics (trade, etc) is tied to the rest of the world.
You also (rather wordy) point out that all it takes is the will of the people to change (Excuse me, if I am simplifying what you said—I admit, I’m a simpleton). Yes, all it would take would be a revolution. I’ve stated that before. I’d like to see that. I’d like to see the greedy bankers and their minions (the so called 1%) being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail (whatever that means).
But, even if we succeeded, and formed a true Marxist socialist democracy, the pressure from the international banking cabal via the World Bank and the IMF would sink their teeth into us (by hook or by crook) and we’d get sucked into central banking system. And we’d be right back here moaning and groaning about what are beloved King and his regents have done and we’d all go along (perhaps some of us kicking and screaming) but we’d be right back here again in a real short time.
I guess, Guy, you could form your own commune somewhere. But if it’s in the USA, you WILL pay taxes or the IRS via some gun-toting law enforcement agency would show up with guns blazing, and blow your asses away like they did David Keresh (my spelling there, I don’t remember how to spell his name).
Again, we’re right back at the beginning Guy, while Marxism (in it’s truest form) is still nothing more than an ideal. it looks good on paper and that’s as far as it will go.
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roxi says...
In the land of spell-check and instant ‘google’ word association/Thesaurus, I guess some just don’na care. The gripe with Cybertariat is that personal affronts and made up names for his handle are offensive to him – and it IS his blog. He doesn’t find these nicknames cute, like George Shrub was known for….but this might be a regional disability, not shur. (sarcasm)
Btw, tried the commune & modern-day kibbutz arrangements in this country, and it doesn’t work, as there’s always someone who wants to be King, and not all are willing to give up everything for the group, including their trust funds. Some would secretly go out and eat hotdogs (the vegans) and others would always find excuses why they didn’t do their chores. Thus, the worker-ants did all the work in the end.
But, it was a good pre-nup educaton in raising children, that’s for sure.
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Grumpy says...
Hypothetically speaking, if you could somehow magically transform a large (as in nation-sized) group of people into a mentally homogenized mass where everyone was willing to put forth equal effort for the good of the group and agreed on the solution to every problem then yes, the “pure socialism” espoused by Cybertariat could function. But that’s something of a problem, isn’t it?
No matter how hard you try, you’ll end up with the style of socialism exhibited by today’s unions. Even in small groups deeply committed to some common belief, tensions inevitably create splits and factions that result in a strong group gaining power over the others. Or it simply falls apart, with the local Palmenthal socialist community being a typical example. This is something that has been demonstrated over and over ad nauseam, making it as close to proven fact as it can be.
This unbroken string of failures is why I have to conclude pure socialism is merely a pleasant intellectual fantasy and the “power elite” model of human society that has been universal since we first formed tribes will continue. This being the case the thing to do is make the best we can of it. There’s nothing wrong with “I wish” hypothetical dreaming, but you can’t build a life, or a society, on dreams that simply don’t work in real life.
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AV Town Crier says...
Grumpy, very good. That was what I have been struggling with trying to say. It’s a good theory and nothing more. To work it would take buy-in from everybody in the country. I don’t see it.
The only way that could happen is it to be forced down our throats. After all, that’s how the Soviet Union came about. This happens in the banana republics all the time. But it fails for reasons that Grumpy pointed out.
Again, just look at the experiment of Walden II.
But, again, it looks good on paper but has no chance in reality.
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roxi says...
Considering the generations of Independent thinkers that comprise the population of this country, short of forcing Austerity measures upon the populace, we know it will never work.
Freedom OF Religious persecution, being one of the primary freedoms established from the beginning, has prevented (for example: ) the Religious Right to get the strangle-hold on the majority of the population that they wish for — for just this reason.
Calling a truce between Tribes, and agreeing to a status-quo among the masses is what we call: “elections”.
When this exercise in EQUAL representation becomes corrupt, as it is now with Citizens United – it should be very clear to those who pay attention that perhaps this faux-solidarity, and financial class-division isn’t that far off.
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mattkeltner says...
Grumpy,
An additional concern that has crossed my mind is how do you get chronically unproductive people to work under a Marxist system like Guy proposes?
What if able-bodied, healthy people refuse to work and contribute at all? Do we round them up at gunpoint and put them in Gulags?
I know many people who wish we could do that now, to be truthful!
Say, does anyone know when those FEMA camps hidden in the national parks, that the conspiracy theorists mention all of the time, are supposed to be available? LOL! (just kidding!)
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Cybertariat says...
Grumpy: “In hunter-gatherer societies virtually everyone is involved in simply keeping food on the ‘table,’ and the population is strictly limited by its food supply. Settlements were [and are] small [twenty to fifty people], basic and generally portable, and warfare was/is limited to establishing and maintaining control of territory.”
Yes, it is all but unanimous amongst anthropologists who have studied hunter-gather societies that, save for present-day hunter-gatherers who are at times compelled to defend themselves against non-hunter-gatherers, hunter-gatherers were and remain given to both peacefulness and egalitarianism. In fact, scores of anthropologists, from all sociopolitical backgrounds, who have lived with and studied present-day hunter-gatherer societies have reported an incredibly high level of equality, cooperation and sharing within these cultures. This, then, is the type of information that could, amongst the intellectually openminded, begin the process of understanding that human nature truly is grounded in egalitarianism, cooperativeness and peacefulness – that human behavior has merely been negatively influenced by the social depravities created by later stages of human social evolution; feudalism, mercantilism and now capitalism.
Grumpy: “Development of agriculture and animal husbandry made the feeding process much more efficient and launched a major transformation. Societies found themselves with a surplus of labor which had to be directed which had to be directed by the ruling groups into something else – which, at first, meant building temples and other civic accoutrements, not to mention fighting more elaborate wars.”
Although the building of the world’s first temples did in fact precede the demise of nearly all hunter-gatherer cultures, it is, I believe, inaccurate to state that the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry led to a surplus of labor. If anything, the obvious labor intensive nature of work during that epoch combined with comparatively high rates of morbidity and mortality would have often saw to the creation of labor deficits (though that is clearly given to conjecture on my part). Rather, part of what the development of farming and the domestication of livestock eventually led to was a surplus of livestock and agricultural products (mostly grains). Gradually, “ruling groups” came to control these surpluses and to lay the groundwork for the establishment of feudalism and, correspondingly, to the beginning of artificial scarcities made possible by these ruling group’s control of surplus agricultural products and the like. This led to the initial albeit crude form of economic profit or surplus value which created greed, the “fighting [of] more elaborate wars” (Grumpy) as well as to the beginnings of our present-day and completely spurious dog-eat-dog social environment complete with greed, selfishness, violence and other artificial constructs.
Also, if indeed human nature is fixed in greed, selfishness and violence, then why is it that cooperation, selflessness and a high degree of peacefulness still abounds within the world’s remaining hunter-gather societies? Could it be because these societies also remain relatively untouched by capitalism and the social depravities that its artificial scarcities create?
Grumpy: “In earlier societies the decision on [where?] this excess labor was to be applied to always came via socialist-style top-down control, usually involving…”
With all due respect, in view of Grumpy’s failure to respond to either of the two posts in which I addressed his capitalist culture-induced “understanding” of Marxism (this thread’s posts of “01/17/12 – 05:13 PM” and “02/07/12/ – 07:21 PM”), I must say that, irrespective of the number of times in which the average American has been told something to the effect of “The Soviet Union was an outgrowth of Marxism” it does not make it so … not even “a little bit.”
I’m curious, Grumpy, which part of “socialism – the social ownership and democratic administration of the means of industrial/economic production do you find as being vague? Which portion of the following chart do you deem to be exemplary of “top-down control”? Socialist Industrial Unionism.
Grumpy: “Gradually, commerce between individual citizens grew to absorb this labor surplus, and it was like magic; operating in automatic fashion without need of top-down directives to build pyramids or such. America is arguably the culmination of this automatic labor-absorbing process. But nothing lasts forever, and now we see the early stages of what may be a new transformation.”
First of all, should our Grumpy ever choose to actually engage me, I’m interested in learning more about his or her assertion that ancient “[s]ocieties found themselves with a surplus of labor…” I know of no amount of archeologists, anthropologists or other social scientists who have ever made such a claim. But one never knows for sure.
With that understood, because of the enormous gap in time between ancient societies and the founding of the United States, I have no understanding of the timeline relative to this “…commerce between individual citizens grew to absorb this [reputed] labor surplus.” However, the suggestion that the later development of capitalism and the United States were the result of an absence of “top-down directives” is grossly inaccurate because not only is the nondemocratic capitalist system operated in a top-down manner, so too does it owe its very derivation to its equally top-down predecessor – mercantilism.
Having existed in Europe between the sixteenth century and the onset of capitalism during the latter portion of the eighteenth century, mercantilism served as that very necessary transitional stage of human social evolution between feudalism and capitalism. Chiefly characterized by top-down governmental control of commerce – most especially of foreign exchange, mercantilism rode roughshod over all but the most basic of “commerce between individual citizens” (Grumpy). Capitalism’s forerunner – mercantilism – was also the etiology of what Grumpy referred to as “more elaborate wars” which helped toward the development of dominant nation states and their respective capitalist classes.
Grumpy: “…we have a society where there is surplus labor due to a combination of production efficiency [constant improvements to the means of production] and uncontrolled population expansion. What to do? Will it be necessary to abandon our ‘automated’ consumer/capitalist [socioeconomic] model simply to keep the mass population occupied?” *
Absolutely not. Even if we as a society wanted to do away with “our” increasingly automated means of production – either in part or in toto – in order to keep the working class occupied, it would not be society’s decision to do so in the first place simply because the means of production does not belong to society; it belongs to the infinitesimally small capitalist class. Were the means of production owned and therefore controlled by society, then labor-saving technologies would be geared toward meeting the needs of society – to, eventually, completely eliminate the need for human beings to work all the while assuring their material well-being. As it now stands, labor-saving technologies are geared toward meeting the capitalist class’ “need” to accumulate ever greater amounts of surplus value/profit and only toward the “need” of the capitalist class to accumulate ever greater amounts of surplus value/profit. In other words, within the context of the capitalist system, labor-saving technologies simply serve to render an ever-increasing number of workers superfluous thereby destabilizing entire communities and destroying this society’s social fabric bit by bit. Within the context of a futuristic socialist commonwealth, however, such technologies would eventually and finally free humankind from that which is most often repetitive, monotonous, strictly channeled and very often dehumanizing.
In any event, abandoning “‘our’ automated consumer/capitalist [socioeconomic] model” would not be a choice even if it were our choice. Automation, robotization and the like are going to continue on whether we workers like it or not. So why not endeavor toward the social ownership and control of the means of production and all that accompanies it? The choice is ours, really.
Grumpy: “As population bumps against the maximum carrying capacity of the planet, how do we cope with the transformation from a society based on endless growth and endless deficits to one which must remain static with all books balanced?”
I have no way of knowing the nature of the fated “static” society to which Grumpy referred, but we are bumping “against the maximum carrying capacity of the planet” precisely because of the mass poverty that the capitalist system produces, for, contrary to popular belief, overpopulation does not create poverty. Rather, it is poverty that creates overpopulation. I mention this fact because, yes, capitalism is firmly predicated and dependent upon endless growth – “Grow or die,” as the saying goes. Capitalism is, of course, quite efficient in doing so, but the problem is that virtually all of the working class-generated economic wealth that springs from that endless growth ends up in the coffers of capitalists thereby condemning billions of human beings to lives of abject poverty. This leads to a situation in which those billions of impoverished human beings are compelled to have even more children so that at least a few of them will survive long enough to care for their parents in their old age.
So, in my opinion, the way in which we could “cope with the transformation from a society based on endless growth and endless deficits” would be to begin to lay the pre-political foundations for the eventual establishment of a global society based on sustainability and on the meeting of the material needs of humankind rather than the narrow self-interests of the world’s very few capitalists and their hangers-on. Doing so, would, I believe, naturally prevent humankind from destroying itself through overpopulation, nuclear annihilation and/or human activity-induced climate change.
Grumpy: “Guy touts…a human society that he seems to think will function like a colony of coral polyps; happily living and growing under a vaguely envisioned ideal socialism that apparently will have no central power clique to make individuals do all those things they don’t want to do. I respectfully submit that the combination of human nature and human needs makes such a thing only an intellectual fantasy.”
As I wrote within this thread’s post of “02/07/12 – 07:21 PM” (yet another post to which Grumpy has yet to respond) “…is it not odd that, regardless of how often my posts link to web pages which depict a a futuristic socialist commonwealth, our anti-socialists keep to slavishly repeating the likes of “…a vaguely envisioned ideal socialism that apparently will have no central ‘power’…” (Grumpy)? To me, it is nearly as if capitalist culture has brought forth a type of mass hypnosis in which the mass of people have been trained to tune out and thus totally ignore anything and everything having to do with Marxian social science. I mean, never in the six years in which I have been participating in this forum has anyone ever so much as acknowledged the existence of, let alone discussed, the chart which describes the very structure of socialist industrial government. (Look! There it is again! Or is it?)
Grumpy: “In every human society, there must be, always has been and always will be a central power clique that makes the decisions and imposes its will on the populace. The only differences relate to power and how they hold on to that power.”
Yes of course human society is dependent upon a central body in order to facilitate the productive processes within. As I have acknowledged on dozens of occasions within this forum over the years, even the central and highly dictatorial cliques of mercantilism and capitalism were once very necessary ingredients in humankind’s social evolution. Having allowed for the organization of society and the development of the means of production at a time when it would have been impossible for workers to organize themselves in a meaningful fashion, the authoritarian, centralized powers of mercantilism and capitalism (both private and governmental) paved the way for the next and most logical stage of human social evolution; socialism.
Again, in outliving its usefulness to humankind, capitalism has, amongst other such things, bumped human population “against the maximum carrying capacity of the planet” and is therefore pushing humankind to the brink of ecological catastrophe.
It is also the case that, once mercantilism gave way to capitalism the latter took hold in America and what we now know as the political state facilitated the process of industrialization through “the top-down directives” known as the Monroe Doctrine, the “‘taming’ of the west” and the public financing of America’s railroad system. So to suggest that America developed “in automatic fashion without need of top-down directives” is at best terribly naive.
As for my seeming to think that socialist society “will function like a colony of coral polyps, happily living and growing together…” that is yet another example of the way in which capitalist culture has conditioned the working class to “think” about both socialism and socialists; that socialism is unrealistic and that socialists are utopian dreamers. But that is nonsense because we socialists understand perfectly well that there will always be differences between human beings. (We’ve never stated otherwise. It is always stated ‘for us.”) In fact, not only do we know that there will always be differences between people, we also know that there should be differences between people, for differences help to propel human social evolution. Moreover, settling differences by way the democratic process provided by industrial government toward the governance of economic production and society in general should be all that is needed to know that socialists are not of the belief that socialist society “will function like a colony of coral polyps, happily living and growing together” or any other such capitalist culture-induced idiocy.
Too, in light of the fact that, under socialism, no amount of the means of production would be owned by any individual or groups of individuals (nor would any amount of it be for sale to any individual or groups of individuals), and since industrial government posts would be of set spans in order to avoid alienation and intrenchment, socialist society would elude the iron-fisted control exhibited by capitalism and its various political states, not to mention the bureaucratic state despotism that was the Soviet Union.
Concerning Grumpy’s comment that “…the combination of human nature [already addressed at relative length] and human needs makes such thing [socialism] an intellectual fantasy,” perhaps Grumpy would care to be the first of this forum’s participants to address the specifics of my now three-year-old post entitled ”Is socialist thought realistic? (and workers’ motivation).”
Within this thread’s post of “02/09/12 – 05:27 PM,” Grumpy wrote: “Hypothetically speaking, if you could somehow magically transform a large (as in nation-sized) group of people into a mentally homogenized mass where everyone was willing to put forth equal effort for the good of the group and [unanimously?] agreed on the solution to every problem then, yes, the ‘’pure’ socialism’ espoused by Cybertariat could function. But that’s something of a problem, isn’t it?”
Were it the case that socialist society would be dependent upon mental homogeneity, unanimous agreement, equal effort, this “for the good of the group” nonsense and everything else that capitalist culture so desperately needs for workers to believe about socialism, then, yes, it would be a problem. But, as described above, socialist society would not be dependent upon unanimous agreement, mental homogeneity nor of “equal effort for the good of the group.”
With the three other aspects of conditioned “thinking” already addressed, “equal effort” would not be required in that, with their material needs being met with just a very few hours of work each week, each worker would be able to choose the number of hours he or she wished to work. Were a worker to be content with, say, a small home and a few possessions so that he or she would be able to devote time and energy toward, say, the arts and humanities (as many surely would), then he or she would be free to do so. If, on the other hand, a worker found himself or herself wanting of a larger home in which to, say, raise children and store a larger number of personal possessions then, conversely, he or she would be free to spend more hours throughout the week working (as many surely would). This would all be made possible by the fact that, under socialism and once again, workers would keep the lion’s share of the economic wealth that their labor power and/or their intellectual power would produce rather than to have the lion’s share of said economic wealth expropriated from them by capitalists.
Grumpy: “No matter how hard you try, you’ll end up with the style of socialism exhibited by today’s unions.”
Hm. Well, Grumpy, as both a studied Marxist of more than twenty-five-years and a member of a trade union for some twenty-eight years, I can assure you that socialism is not “exhibited by today’s unions. Nonetheless, Grumpy, I am interested in learning why it is that you believe such a thing as that.
Grumpy: “Even in small groups deeply committed to some common belief, tensions inevitably create splits and factions that result in a strong group gaining power over the others. Or it simply falls apart, with the local ‘Palmenthal’ [so-called] socialist community being a typical example. This is something that has been demonstrated over and over ad nauseam; making it as close to proven fact as it can be.”
In actuality, the only thing that has been demonstrated over and over again ad nauseam is the fact that the American public has allowed itself to be completely brainwashed – by capitalist culture – into believing that Marxian socialism is something that it is not.
With the likes of the former commune known as Llano Del Rio already having been discussed within this thread and, but of course, with its having been obediently ignored by our Grumpy, I will say again that socialist society would not be dependent upon “some common belief,” and tensions within such a society would be settled democratically within the context of socialist industrial government. Even if such tensions were to create “splits” (as they would at times), they would not be enough to permit “a strong group [to gain] power over the others” due the fact that, once again, no amount of socialist society’s means of industrial production would be owned by any individual or groups of individuals. Nor would its means of industrial production ever be put up for sale to any individual or group of individuals.
So too would it be the case that, since no one would be permitted to own – individually – any amount of the means of production, socialist industrialist government’s “All Industrial Congress – its central body – would be no more oppressive than is an orchestra conductor. With all eyes on “the conductor,” the “wand would be raised” and industrial production, the distribution of its content and disposition thereof would then commence.
Grumpy: “This unbroken string of failures is why I have to conclude pure socialism is merely a pleasant intellectual fantasy and the ‘power elite’ model of human society that has been universal since we first formed tribes [which is not true at all] will continue.”
Again and although Grumpy and the balance of his brethren will never address this fact, all of the failures within this “string of failures” unfolded against a backdrop of either agrarianism or semi-agrarianism in the both of which, for what could be the 1000th time, it is a material impossibility to establish a socialist society. Marxian science clearly explains this fact. Marx and Engels specifically warned against attempting socialist revolution within any type of society other than fully industrialized and thus capitalist societies. And Marxists such as myself have been repeating that same warning for more than one-hundred years all the while “know-it-alls” the likes of Grumpy, avbornbred, NoSpin, marino, Randy Hall, etc., etc., etc. have been utterly ignoring these objective realities. I mean, after all, Rush Limbaugh told them otherwise.
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(This post will be my final posting to this thread. Replies to this post – if any – will be posted in the form of a new thread that may be posted toward the end of this month if not early the next.)
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Notes:
* I’m puzzled as to why it was that Grumpy placed the word “automated” within quotation marks. Grumpy?
Persevere.
Guy
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roxi says...
NYTimes/2008:
“For decades, Kosice, a city of 250,000 in eastern Slovakia, was considered an industrial backwater — if it was considered at all. (Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital got the attention.) But the past several years, a beautifully refurbished center has emerged from behind Kosice’s ugly veneer of gray concrete and steel, drawing artists, entrepreneurs and a growing number of tourists….
“…Dormant mines and military barracks have been refashioned into studios for underground artists….”
“…The transformation was no accident. With its steel factories slowing down, Kosice, a former Soviet Bloc city, decided in the 1990’s to restore the town….”
“It’s no longer the case where public art gets decided by old guys from Communist times….”
Sound familiar? Could Kosice, Slovakia be what Detroit is today? Lancaster, with old men in suits determining art?
Kosice’s poverty has been accused of being very provincial – for poor services and lack of foreign language skills (to accomadate foreign tourists, I assume) – which according to this article is a, quote: holdover from it’s Communist days.
Isolating communities into homogenized communities without outside influence looks like the best way to kill a community, gain control and strip it of it’s wealth – and leave it in RUINS.
What has come full circle with Kosice, Slovakia, after all have left and left it in ruins – are the bohemians, as intelligently observed by a NYC artist visiting:
“There is this sincerity that comes with the lack of ambition towards money.”
Indeed. The human spirit has no price tag.
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Cybertariat says...
“There is this sincerity that comes with the lack of ambition towards money.”
To be so “lacking” in the face of such material depravities is, to me, indicative of humankind’s unquestionable ability to cast aside greed, selfishness and violence and for all of us to eventually return to our cooperative, egalitarian and peaceful nature.
Thank you, roxi.
Persevere.
Guy
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Grumpy says...
- I’m puzzled as to why it was that Grumpy placed the word “automated” within quotation marks. Grumpy? "
Geez, this thread is so long it took me a while to find the posting! The quotation marks are my way of saying ‘automated, so to speak,’. If it didn’t make sense, my point was that the capitalist/consumer social model works without external pressure because it flows from human nature & desires, in contrast with the “top down” government control model.
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Cybertariat says...
So you, Grumpy, believe the American capitalist class’ means of industrial production to be but quasi automated. I see.
I also see that you have reasserted the false assertion that the capitalist system operates free of “top-down directives” without addressing my rather lengthy denegation of that position, just as surely as you have failed to address any of my countervailing positions. Is the post listed immediately above this one your final response to my approximately 3300-word post of “02/13/12 – 03:26 AM,”?
Finally, Grumpy, have you an example of my having stated or so much as suggested that socialist society would be a perfect society?
Again, we Marxists fully acknowledge – indeed embrace the fact that there would be disagreements between people within socialist society. Might you have read that portion of my response to your writings, Grumpy? Might you have read any of my response?
Thank you, sir or madam.
Back to it… :-)
Persevere.
Guy
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Grumpy says...
Guy, I’m really sorry but I honestly can’t devote the time it would take to analyze your postings in detail. I wander through my day, occasionally stopping by the computer to check email & maybe hit a couple of blogsites, and this leads to skimming for the gist of the subject.
It IS possible to condense complexity, such as condensing the essence of the various forms of government into the realization that in all human society there is a group at the top directing things. Once you accept that you start to understand that much of the blah-blah written about various forms of government just boils down to, as I noted in a previous post, discussion of how they came to power and how they stay there.
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Cybertariat says...
“It is possible to condense complexity…”
Meaning what, Grumpy, that you have addressed my responses to your writings? You have not … not even in a condensed fashion. You haven’t addressed my responses at all.
Persevere.
Guy
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Grumpy says...
Being of an age where I have to ration my time (there being not all that much left) I must admit the lavish verbosity of Guy’s postings means I rarely allot time to more than skim them for the high points.
What stands out to me in skimming this one is a jarringly contradictory notion about the admittedly misguided “make us safe” legislative over-reaction.
Guy by some convoluted reasoning that I can’t follow assigns responsibility for the Patriot Act excesses of our legislators to the nominally anti-government “capitalist class plutocracy”, which I presume is the catch-all term for citizens who employ others rather than being employed. This idea strikes me as bizarre in the extreme, since iron-fisted control of the citizenry is actually one of the major hallmarks of the more, shall we say, “evolved” socialist/communist governments.
A secondary oddity is the notion that this whole overblown security empire nonsense somehow is an advantage to capitalism/business, which it certainly is not. Seems to me that if it indeed has any significant effect on business operations at all, the effect is a negative one and not something the evil capitalist-plutocrat-businessmen would instigate.
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