My words? How about you give me a few examples of "my words". You might notice that the "crippled" i used was quoted from your earlier post.
My extremes? My dehumanization? I suggest you review this thread carefully, your own words and those of your fellow travelers in particular, before resorting to that.
My point is that deeply held beliefs that won't withstand self examination & introspection, particularly ones that prevent it, are not the product of the mind of the individual holding them, but rather the result of the individual accepting simulated rationality as real.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010726030451/http://www.indymedia.org/print.php3?article_id=3159
Or, anything you believe in uncritically can and will be used against you by the people who convinced you to believe it in the first place.
My words? How about you give me a few examples of "my words". You might notice that the "crippled" i used was quoted from your earlier post.
Methinks you still don't know what socialism is. Hint: it's not what Fox and your AM radio blowhards claim it is. I know you wish it matched your partisan caricature of socialism ... but it doesn't.
Also, methinks you are not very well qualified to determine how smart someone isn't.
There is not more than one definition of socialism, there are degrees of it. But you can't simply take a word and use it incorrectly, however you please, and then say it has multiple definitions. Language doesn't work that way.
There are different definintions.
But what would you call a movement that advocates goverment telling companies how much profit to make, what size is too big, how much money should be taken from one group, and how much money should be given to another?
If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck. It might just be a duck.
It sounds like a goverment by the people for the people. In the real world there are limits. There is a reason such things as laws exist. Anti-trust laws, anti-corruption laws, regulatory laws etc etc etc etc. are all in place for the common good of society.
When such things are removed nations turn into banana republic shitholes, like the US.
Coorporatism, plutocracy and kleptocracy are not viable options to a genuine democracy where people have a direct part to play. Unfortunately the US is light years away from that.
The US needs a complete reboot. Out with corrupt politicians, judges (clean out POTUS and start again), the FED, the Pentagon (the War Department), the FBI and the CIA etc etc and start again. Write a new constitution, the old one is just about toilet paper now.
dont watch fox or listen to am radio. And because thats your only argument, you are no longer worth addressing. When you come up with something original, or thoughtfull let us know.
Perhaps you can enlighten us.ROFL! That's a great cop out, but it totally misses the point (again). Ultimately, it is irrelevant why you are ignorant -- Fox, AM radio, home schooling, forwarded e-mail chains, Free Republic, space aliens, whatever. The simple point remains that you are, that you have your own RNC-approved mis-definition for socialism. How you got there is your problem.
Perhaps you can enlighten us.
Also, a link to this RNC mis-definition would be nice.
It sounds like a goverment by the people for the people. In the real world there are limits. There is a reason such things as laws exist. Anti-trust laws, anti-corruption laws, regulatory laws etc etc etc etc. are all in place for the common good of society.
When such things are removed nations turn into banana republic shitholes, like the US.
Coorporatism, plutocracy and kleptocracy are not viable options to a genuine democracy where people have a direct part to play. Unfortunately the US is light years away from that.
The US needs a complete reboot. Out with corrupt politicians, judges (clean out POTUS and start again), the FED, the Pentagon (the War Department), the FBI and the CIA etc etc and start again. Write a new constitution, the old one is just about toilet paper now.
OCCUPY WALL STREET
AlterNet / By Les Leopold 315 COMMENTS
The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement
The corporate media may obsess about what Occupy Wall Street is all about, but these images should make it clear.
October 23, 2011 |
What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us.
Now is not the time for wonky policy solutions, as the media meatheads are calling for. Rather, it’s time to air our grievances as loudly as possible, which is precisely what Wall Street and its minions fear the most. Here’s a brief list of why we should be angry and the charts to back it up.
1. The American Dream is imploding...
The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance.
2. Our wealth is gushing to the top 1 percent...
Actually the top tenth of one percent. Because of financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, the income gap is soaring. Here’s one of my favorite indicators that we compiled for The Looting of America. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)
3. Family income is declining while the top earners flourish...
As women entered the workforce, family income made up for some of the wage stagnation. But now even family incomes are in trouble. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest families continue to rise.
4. The super-rich are paying lower and lower tax rates...
To add financial insult to injury, the richest of the rich pay less and less each year as a percentage of their monstrous incomes. The top 400 taxpayers during the 1950s faced a 90 percent federal tax rate. By 1995 their effective tax rate – what they really paid after all deductions as a percent of all their income – fell to 30 percent. Now it’s barely 16 percent.
5. Too much money in the hands of the few combined with financial deregulation crashed our economy...
When the rich become astronomically rich, they gamble with their excess money. And when Wall Street is deregulated, it creates financial casinos for the wealthy. When those casinos inevitably crash, we pay to cover the losses. The 2008 financial crash caused eight million American workers to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own. The last time we had so much money in the hands of so few was 1929!
6. We’re turning into a billionaire bailout society...
We bailed out the big Wall Street banks and protected the billionaires from ruin. Now we are being asked to make good on the debts they caused, while the super-rich get even richer, some making more than $2 million an HOUR! It would take over 47 years for the average family to make as much as the top 10 hedge fund managers make in one hour.
7. The super-rich still control politics...
Both political parties are occupied by Wall Street. For nearly an entire generation they have competed with each other to gain campaign contributions in exchange for tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for the richest of the rich. Today’s so-called financial reforms are porous, while the money continues to flow to both parties.
8. Unemployment is a catastrophe...
The reckless gambling on Wall Street tore a hole in the economy sending millions to the unemployment lines. Wall Street caused the enormous spike in unemployment and no one else – not the government, not home buyers, not China.
9. Our prospects for the future are growing dim...
It’s bad enough that unemployment is sky-high. But it’s even worse when you can’t find a job for months, even years. Right now the number of unemployed for 26 weeks or more is at record levels. Many of the long-term unemployed will never work again.
10. The big banks are getting even bigger...
Too big to fail is alive and well. Our nation’s biggest banks are growing larger and larger with no end in sight. Despite what politicians say, the taxpayer will bail out the big banks again. And the big banks know it.
Stand up and be counted!
Americans are a patient people. Mass movements do not form very often. Most of us hoped that after the crash, the big banks would be broken up, the casinos would be shut down and the gamblers would be punished. At the very least, we expected that the elite financiers would pay for the damage they created – the jobs destroyed, the neighborhoods wrecked, the services cut. It didn’t happen. Finally something clicked. A small number of kids stood up and got noticed. And now it’s growing. We see an outlet for our frustration, our justifiable anger, our disappointment in leaders who sold out.
We don’t know where it’s all going. But this is the time to stand up and be counted – literally. The currency of a populist revolt is numbers in the street. Let’s show our anger where it will be seen. And let us take heart from the words of Franklin Roosevelt who during his first inaugural address in 1933, led the first occupation of Wall Street:
Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.
Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow-men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit, and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
how is spreading the much around not socialism?
It would be improperly managed. Allowing the few at the top to manage the bulk of the wealth is better for everyone. The money that they put back into the economy by hiring, and purchasing products and services exceeds the net benefit of the catastrophe that would occur were the average American in charge of a percentage of wealth were all wealth split evenly among all Americans.
He can't. The only thing he can do is call people ignorant, and slap whatever label he wants on them.
Actual thought beyond that is missing in his posts.
Something IS screwed up, on both the financial AND social sides of the government. Money is NOT getting to where it is needed, and the "Haves" are paying off lawmakers to make sure it never gets taken in the first place.
This would be all well and good if they themselves did not rely on the ones who NEED this funding. Many are doing just what the banks did/and are doing in that they do not care about the long term effects of eliminating certain programs so long as their short term gain is measurable.
Slash and burn makes for a few good seasons of crops, but before long you are left with dirt that won't grow shit.
A valiant attempt, but he's shown again and again he is unwilling to listen to anything that contradicts his wing-nut indoctrination. He knows what he knows and he'll be damned if he'll let reality interfere with his faith.You need a link:
RNC Socialism = Big Brother. Taking money from anyone who earns to pay for Welfare Babies. Taxing you on your own purchases. Outlawing guns.
The usual crap.
All you have to do is switch on Fox "news" and you will get someones "definition" of Socialism in 30 minutes or less (or your political outlook is free!).
Point being, broad brushing has clouded the definitions of all the cold war terms to the point where using them no longer addresses the actual issue. It is just pointless namecalling at this point.
BTW, I have not really seen any solutions to the problem we are facing at this point from the Right. All the "solutions" are actually just extensions of what got us into the problem in the first place.
the creation of another bubble will only serve to widen the gap further, but it will make people happy through the next election.
Perhaps you can enlighten us.
Also, a link to this RNC mis-definition would be helpful.
I'm willing to listen...where's this RNC-approved mis-definition for socialism you speak of?A valiant attempt, but he's shown again and again he is unwilling to listen to anything that contradicts his wing-nut indoctrination. He knows what he knows and he'll be damned if he'll let reality interfere with his faith.
Or maybe you could actually read the thread, specifically the recent comments that spurred this tangent. They are good examples of how the right's propaganda machine has twisted "socialism" to smear almost anything it disagrees with.
the recent bailout of Wall St et al is truly socialism, with the govt owning interest in large firms like GM, AIG and also in the banks themselves, even if that ownership was couched in different terms. Socialism bailed out capitalism, saved it from itself.
OTOH, history shows us that it needs to be tempered by the will of the people, as it was in the progressive era and again in the New Deal
Those at the top need to give a little, not a lot, even as the rest of us have been asked to sacrifice in this economic downturn.
Some of us were opposed to ALL of the bailouts from the very beginning and sincerely wish they would have let the failures happen naturally.Of course, none of them were complaining when BIG GOV'T saved all our asses three years ago. In a true free market, all the banks would have went under, likely taking the FDIC with it, and it would have been chaos. While that could have been fun for a while, I'm a big fan of my comfy job, healthcare, bank account, getting not shot, and banging my white hot wife in a 68 degree household. I guess socialism works, until three years later, when it's again safe to slap that label on whatever.
Some of us were opposed to ALL of the bailouts from the very beginning and sincerely wish they would have let the failures happen naturally.
All we've done with the bailouts is delay the inevitable.
This mystical "total reset" that people are calling for now? We could have been halfway there already, or close to it. Would it be complete chaos? Absolutely. But, that's going to happen anyway -- as I said, it's inevitable.
I guess the only benefit of the delay may be that it has given the smartest amongst us time to prepare...
Some of us were opposed to ALL of the bailouts from the very beginning and sincerely wish they would have let the failures happen naturally.
All we've done with the bailouts is delay the inevitable.
This mystical "total reset" that people are calling for now? We could have been halfway there already, or close to it. Would it be complete chaos? Absolutely. But, that's going to happen anyway -- as I said, it's inevitable.
I guess the only benefit of the delay may be that it has given the smartest amongst us time to prepare...
No, the planning for such an event does not center around weapons; however, they will certainly be there if/when they're necessary.I assume you have a cache of killbots stored up or something?