Shenonymous writes to Leisure Suit Larry..

“..LSL says: Obama has one attribute which seems to trump all his inexperiance and failings that is his skin color. The USA is about to elect a man to the highest office of the land, because he is black. Are you playing the race card?  What a racist remark!  Are you a skinhead in a suit Larry?

~~~

Yep shenon...it IS an incredibly racist remark, but the trend of the comments from LSL shouldn’t have forewarned you. Skinhead in a LEISURE suit? It’s a frightful image.

People like LSL actually believe this stuff, because that’s what they HAVE to believe. Imagine the meltdown if old LSL had to come anywhere close to an acceptance of the fact that Barack Obama is the most qualified candidate for job, and his EXPERIENCE is what we need in addition to his intelligence and temperment, IF we’re gonna have another shot at survival. (despite the incredible stupidity of allowing Dick Bush to maintain a fascist authoritarian dictatorship for 8 years).

People like LSL must convince themselves that the only reason Obama will be elected tomorrow is because he’s black. They can’t allow themselves to believe the truth. It would literally kill them.

He’s right about this though...LSL writes to you..

“So you answer why we should elect another in a long line of snake-oil salesmen?  becaues we want to prove to the world that racism is dead in the USA.  It isn’t...and it won’t be in Obama is elected.”

~~~

Nope, we aren’t trying to ‘prove’ to the world that racism is dead in the USA. WE ALREADY KNOW IT ISN’T, AND SO DOES THE REST OF THE WORLD!!

The rest of the world knows that Barack Obama would have already won this election by a landslide, if he was NOT Black!! The election has only been as close as it has been for this long, because he IS Black, and because racism in America is foundational, and institutional. And no, it will NOT ‘go away’ when Obama is elected.

But, his election is our only chance at saving ourselves, (including the racists). So, it doesn’t prove that racism is dead in the USA. (Leisure Suit Larry is proof of that).

It’s just that the majority cares more about their own survival than they do about Obama’s race.

I disagree, Leisure Larry, I think world socialism and democracy is possible, indeed, the only way it can be possible.  Classic marxism was formulated for Western polities, notably, as you point out, Germany.  To develop a theory for earthperson socialism it is necessary to generalize marxism. 

Especially the need to generalize the redistribution and control of wealth to the redistribution of POWER.  It is not merely necessary to take away the wealth of the ruling class, but their power as well, which of course is lagely based on their control of the means of production. 

Therefore we need a generalization of marxism to serve as a uniting ideology formulated from a world historical EARTHPERSON perspective, rather than from the Western perspective.  This is necessary for a leader grouping to form, on the order of the Western Internationals of Marx. 

This is the only way to unite the various cooperatives that Anarcissie has been advocating on a world basis.  Expanding marxist theory from the Western values to earth values would subvert the Western Worldview that has legitimated liberal Democracies the past few centuries.

LSL says: GHW Bush gave us David Souter arguabally the most left leaning judge on today’s court.
Let’s see uh, What is your speculation about?  Nothing when one actually takes a look at it. Souter looked like he was leaning right when appointed.  There is no crystal ball about what way an appointee to the Supreme Court leans because the appointee doesn’t always turn out to be what is expected.  Now you didn’t really need me to connect those dots did you Larry?  Right-wingers gotta love’em.  If they can’t deflect the real issues, they attack a person’s race or character.

LSL says: Obama has one attribute which seems to trump all his inexperiance and failings that is his skin color. The USA is about to elect a man to the highest office of the land, because he is black. Are you playing the race card?  What a racist remark!  Are you a skinhead in a suit Larry?  You gotta know Larry, I’m for gray people.  Complete miscegenation of the races.  Save the culture but give up the purity.  Yeah, you are so right that politics is a dirty game, I’d like it to get even dirtier.  So well.  We liberals can take it cause the circles that you seem to run in are cyphers and cyphers just don’t count, cause they are zeros. 

Let’s hear it for Black Obama, Yayyyyy! and let’s hear it for White Obama, Yayyyyy!

For a less than pearly pure white White House, vote Obama/Biden.

LSL:  Souter usually votes with the liberal wing, though not as consistently as his predecessor.  He looked awfully like a conservative and fooled Bush.  Prior to Republican John Sununu’s recommendation, few observers outside of New Hampshire knew who Souter was, although he had been mentioned by The New York Times as one of Reagan’s four top nominees for the Supreme Court slot that eventually went to Anthony Kennedy.  Lack of a paper trail was seen by President Bush as a positive for Souter, because one of President Reagan’s nominees, Bork, had recently been rejected by the Senate due in part to the availability of his extensive written opinions on issues.  Bush claimed that he didn’t know Souter’s stances on abortion, affirmative action, or other issues. Hence he looked really really good.  What a joke.  Also the National Organization for Women opposed Souter’s nomination and held a rally outside the hearings to oppose his selection. The then-president of NOW, Molly Yard, testified that Souter would “end… freedom for women in this country.” Souter was also opposed by the NAACP, which urged its 500,000 members to write letters to their Senators asking for Souter’s defeat.  Despite this opposition and largely due to his lack of a paper trail, Souter won an easy confirmation compared to later Republican appointees.

Da Bronx,

Person after my own, as an ole union representative, with a some knowledge of labor history, workers have been a battling corporate special interests, the steel mills in the early 1020’s.  Big boys were able to buy enough advertising calling the steel workers communists, socialists and Bolsheviks, as usual the public voted against their own best interests their peers the steel workers.  The story continues today.

A takeoff from “Tao Walkers” post “we are all Indians now”, can also say “we are all Union workers now”. 

People vote against their own best interests time and time again, ignorance coupled with blind faith have been a great foundation for the constant manipulation of the masses.

Your comments about workers being abused brings back uncomfortable memories.

LSL:

You stated it wrong. In democracy, the rich are Still able to impose/inflict their will on the MAJORITY(coersion).

Just look at how many hoops Obama has had to jump through, just for a smidgeon of a chance!
Whereas the Gop’s, who shouldn’t stand a chance still are on the political radar after their debacle.

So the torture of the American mindset continues.

Everybody has to watch this! Obama and Bill Clinton together, two rousing speeches at a midnight rally in Florida, first Obama and then Clinton. What a one-two punch! Great stuff!

http://www.thisweekwithbarackobama.blogspot.com/

Tony WIcher, on points 1, 2, 3, and sort of a 4 YOU ARE SOOOOO RIGHT!  The news media are really lame.  Your post is very much appreciated.

For a real change in the White House and the Supreme Court and a better life, vote Obama/Biden.

Re Shenonymous, October 29 at 2:22 pm #

This comparison of the Obama and McCain economic policies leaves out several major differences.

1. Tax policy: Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and give the non-rich a tax cut. McCain wants to give the rich more tax cuts and have the non-rich pay for it by cutting government services.

2. The Iraq war: Obama plans to end the war in Iraq and use the money for domestic purposes. McCain calls for staying in Iraq forever and continuing to spend 10 billion a month there.

3. Health insurance: Obama’s health insurance policy will bring down the cost of health insurance by forcing private medical insurance companies to compete with a government-provided one (the same one that covers members of Congress such as Obama himself, as he has promised). If the price of government-provided insurance is low enough, everybody will get it, private insurance companies will be out of business and we will thus get to single-payer by the back door. If private insurance companies want to stay in business they will have to provide as good or better insurance as the government does at a lower price.

McCain’s health insurance plan, a five thousand dollar tax credit paid for by taxing employer-proviced health care benefits, on the other hand, does nothing to control health insurance costs and is nothing but a boon to private health insurance companies. It will result in more uninsured people and costs that continue to spiral up. It is an economic disaster.

Cyrena,

We are in agreement.  What’s wrong can be described in the old lament “The Shoemaker’s children have no shoes.”

LSL: If the foundation of your argument isn’t correct, you cannot draw the conclusion.  Marx WAS reacting to mid-19th century capitalism, and thought its excesses were due to its inherent contradictions.  He should rather have looked at the American idea that there is a social contract, called the Constitution, and THAT contract allows everybody to FORCE corporations and industries to abide by that contract.

That’s all we really have to do: Force corporations to abide by the Social Contract.  All this crap about “deregulation” means they don’t want to abide by the Contract.  And that is ALL regulation should do, but no more.

“...Going further: Workers at NASA can’t afford to buy their own rockets...and don’t expect to.  Neither can workers at Boeing or Gulf Stream be expected to buy the planes they build...”

~~~

You’ve certainly got a point here ITW, so I acknowledge and appreciate the ammendment. And no, I certainly DON’T expect the workers at NASA to be able to afford to buy their own rockets, (though it might be not be a bad bennie to negotiate for ) but you did get my basic point, since of course I had in mind basic goods and services.

Still, a version of the Henry Ford theme exists (or used to) in other industry services like my own former industry of transporation services. We certainly couldn’t afford to buy the physical fleet that generated the corporate profits, but we were able to utilize the services at greatly reduced prices. Now that certainly doesn’t take the place payment for a living wage, because nobody can eat air travel or clothe themselves in it. But, it’s a great supplement to an education, or maybe even a replacement of, when the real deal cannot be afforded in status-quo or establishment venue.

Meantime, that’s still the key to it all in my own opinion..how we treat each other as the workers we are, whatever our particular genre happens to be. In the old days, nearly all industries had ‘perks’ for the workers of whatever the industry was. I think that was an excellent idea, because the ‘perks’ were IN ADDITION TO a living wage. So the auto workers got discounts on their cars, and the teachers got free (or reduced)tuition expenses for their kids, (I guess, I’m just making this up as I go along) and other groups of workers or professionals give each other reciprical benefits. I can think of many circumstances like this, and it might be an interesting project for some time down the road.

HOWEVER, the whole system has been so inverted that now, these corporate entities are using this ‘benefit’ system in lieu of a decent wage. And, that began at least 2 decades ago in my own industry, along with the oursourcing of jobs and the creation of the 2 and 3 tiered wage structures. So they go from paying real wages to paying in benefits, (’benefits’ being quite relative here) and eventually, they eliminate the so-called ‘benefits’ as well, or make them bureaucratically impossible to utilize.

All of that said, I do get your point.

Re Leefeller, October 29 at 10:43 am #

North Korea, is Marxist in the same way we are Democratic, a half arsed example. Despot Marxist compared to corporate democracy?
----------------------------------------------------
Leefeller,

I don’t think this comparison is apt. The United States is not completely democratic, but it is somewhat democratic and can become more democratic as we the people continue to seek a more perfect union. To me, democracy = socialism in the deepest sense of the words. North Korea is some kind of weird dictatorship or personality cult or monarchy which is as about far from both democracy and socialism as you can get. Now if the Republicans manage to steal this election somehow and the last vestiges of democracy here were stamped out, then there will be more of a comparison.

As of April 2008, the US owed Japan $600 billion, China $500 billion, the UK $250 billion. All countries outside the US put together add up to $2.6 trillion not $10 trillion as was exaggerated elsewhere. The majority of the US national debt is owned by various US investors and US government trust funds.

Obama vs. McCain on the national financial disaster
Interpreted from an Ezine Article Oct. 29
Housing and Credit Markets
Both candidates supported the most recent Economic Stabilization bill which aims to help improve conditions in the financial markets. Historically, McCain has been a stronger supporter of deregulation although he recently hedging his bets he proposed that the federal government should buy mortgages from banks in order to provide home owners with better terms, helping them to stay in their homes. The plan seeks to shift home owners from adjustable to fix rate mortgages. Obama, on the other hand, supports a tax credit for the middle-class which would increase home ownership deductions. Both candidates support stricter regulations of Wall Street financial practices.

Energy and Trade Policy
A major difference between the candidates are their differences in trade and energy policy. While McCain generally supports free trade, increased oil drilling and the expansion of international trade agreements, Obama has sought to revise existing trade agreements with a focus on labor standards, environmental regulations and carbon emission caps. Both candidates oppose drilling in the Alaskan ANWR region, as well as supporting mandated caps on carbon through a market mechanism. Obama, however, has placed a greater focus on fostering renewable energies, while McCain believes that a shift toward nuclear power offers a more viable short-term solution.

While both presidential candidates enter the campaign’s final week promising to be the better fiscal steward, each has outlined tax and spending proposals that would make annual budget deficits worse, analysts say, with Senator John McCain likely to create a deeper hole than Senator Barack Obama would.

Republican McCain, has proposed bigger tax cuts. He has also promised more in spending cuts, but he has not specified where most of them would come from. Even now that the financial crisis has given rise to one bailout package and prompted both candidates to call for billions more in stimulus spending, McCain has stuck by his promise to balance the budget by the end of his term, a pledge that fiscal analysts call unachievable.

Democrat Obama has vowed to reduce the deficit and put it on a path to balance. He also promises an expensive effort to make health care insurance more widely available, a raft of other spending programs and tax cuts for most families and small businesses. He would raise taxes on the wealthiest households to help pay for his health care plans.

Regarding the financial catastrophe, these are the two choices of candidates’ positions of those who will win the election.  All other analyses are moot.

Leisure Suit Larry, October 29 at 11:07 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Marx (A Prussian)designed “communism” (Communal ism) for Gernany under Bismark. Germany was at the time the formost indrustrial power in the world, a super-power nineteenth century style.
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Sorry LSL: Spurious correlation.  Marx and Engels wrote the Manifest in 1848.  Bismarck didn’t rise to power until 1862.  Marx went on with his work and Bismarck simply rose at the same time.

This is in fact correct. The general theory at least is. Just as the second portion of it is wrong, (armed revolution isn’t going to right anything) the basic premise is that the worker should be able to afford the products of his/her own labor, regardless of what that (labor) is.

It’s pretty clear I think, that it’s where we’ve been headed for a very long time. Having allowed it to get to this point, it will not ‘correct’ itself, but that’s not to say that corrections cannot be made.
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This needs amendment.  This Ford rule applies to items that can be considered a commodity.  One expects a guy building cars to be able to buy a car.  But should a guy building a Bentley or a Lamborghini to be able to buy a Bentley or a Lambo?  I certainly don’t expect that.  In fact, in luxury or high end items you cannot expect the workers to be able to afford them.

Going further: Workers at NASA can’t afford to buy their own rockets...and don’t expect to.  Neither can workers at Boeing or Gulf Stream be expected to buy the planes they build.

But for basic goods it’s certainly true. If you are making shoes or simple cars you should earn enough to be able to afford shoes and a simple car.

Leisure Suit Larry, yours is not an educated guess...the world is much too big for a dictatorship, too many standing national armies, too many corporations in competition, too many religious wing nuts, too many oceans, too many artists, actors, pop singers, too many bakeries, too many pig farmers, too many rodeo riders, too many sushi bars, too many Frenchmen, too many Icelandic hockey teams, too many .... the list is open to eternity.

Y’all are way too dramatic.  American politics will continue the way it has been, American economics will continue the way it has been, American morals will continue to be non-existent.  Why?  Because none of the arguments mean much from people sitting at their computers doing nuttin to change things.

The social discontent and anger caused by poverty can lead to either progress or reaction, to sosocial democracy or fascism. This election will show which fork in the road this country is taking.

Tony Wicher,

North Korea, is Marxist in the same way we are Democratic, a half arsed example. Despot Marxist compared to corporate democracy?

ITW,

I don’t think we disagree at all, then. Marxism as a theory of governance where the free market has been eliminated has never worked anywhere. I would say that North Korea today is a fine example of where this theory leads.

Shenonymous: ‘Working a bit backwards from your post, Anarcissie, what modern empire has gone bankrupt?’

Since 1600 or so, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia, among others.  After World War 2, Britain and France would have gone bankrupt but got out of the business in time (and were also bailed out by the United States to some extent; they became satellites).  The Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, German, Japanese and Italian empires were destroyed by war, of course, but most of them were economically exhausted by the end as well.  The same is more or less true of the Dutch East Indies—the Japanese conquered them and set up an independent country which the Dutch were unable to defeat.  Relative to this, see The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy.  Or, more conveniently, look up both in Wikipedia. 

‘… I do not think poverty drives people toward fascism if you mean they take on the parameters of fascism as a way of thinking.  I don’t think fascism would even work that way.  It is the absolute rule of the few over the many.’

Well, there’s poverty and there’s poverty.  Capitalism tends to destroy everything in its path and create new things never seen before.  All that is solid melts into air, etc.  The sort of destitution which results from capitalist breakdown is more desperate because the foregoing period will have destroyed the old social institutions; then when the new ones also break, social chaos results.  Under such circumstances many of the desperate will go looking for a strong leader to save them.  For (recent) example, Putin, or in another age, Mussolini, Hitler or Perón.  These people may not be a majority but there are enough of them to be a potent political force and to staff a totalitarian state, as we can observe in recent history.

Tony Wicher writes:

“...Everything that is happening right now in the economy proves that Marx was right about capitalism, viz. that unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, such as we have seen during the last eight years, collapses from its own internal contradictions, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until the poor can no longer buy the products of their own labor. This we have seen many times. This Marx got right. Where he got it wrong was the idea that these contradictions could only be resolved by a violent revolution followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat and finally the withering away of the state. What we have seen since Marx is that the contradictions of the free market can be kept under control by proper government regulations and a tax structure that redistributes capital to create benefits and opportunities for working people so they do not become impoverished....”

~~~~~

This is in fact correct. The general theory at least is. Just as the second portion of it is wrong, (armed revolution isn’t going to right anything) the basic premise is that the worker should be able to afford the products of his/her own labor, regardless of what that (labor) is.

Even Henry Ford knew this. It’s not anything less than the basics of how a society operates best, and that is still capitalism. It’s just a version of capitalism that doesn’t collapse/crash from the inbalance. When the worker cannot afford to acquire the products of their own labor, the whole thing collapses, and we wind up with the same political structure/architecture that so many other societies have been subjected to.

It’s pretty clear I think, that it’s where we’ve been headed for a very long time. Having allowed it to get to this point, it will not ‘correct’ itself, but that’s not to say that corrections cannot be made.

Tony Wicher, October 28 at 6:44 pm #

I beg to differ. Marxism has worked very well as a critique of capitalism. Everything that is happening right now in the economy proves that Marx was right about capitalism, viz. that unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, such as we have seen during the last eight years, collapses from its own internal contradictions, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until the poor can no longer buy the products of their own labor. This we have seen many times. This Marx got right. Where he got it wrong was the idea that these contradictions could only be resolved by a violent revolution followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat and finally the withering away of the state. What we have seen since Marx is that the contradictions of the free market can be kept under control by proper government regulations and a tax structure that redistributes capital to create benefits and opportunities for working people so they do not become impoverished. This was made so obvious in the Great Depression that one might have thought it could never be forgotten, but the Republicans since Reagan have spent the last thirty years trying to forget it, and their success has the consequences we are now observing. More intelligent capitalists understand this “Marxist” truth which is why they are flocking to the Obama’s banner, even while the shortsighted greedy idiot capitalists call him a socialist as they once called FDR.
*****************************************

TW,
The only thing we disagree on in your post, is that I don’t think this proves Communism works, it merely points out that Marx was an acute observer of what was wrong, not what was needed.  Marx was actually the inventor of the field of Economic History, which continues to this day.

Inherit The Wind, October 28 at 9:31 am #

Marxism won’t fix it.  Marxism was a pretty idea concocted in the first half of the 19th century to address obvious abuses of workers in the early industrial age. It was designed to be compassionate and fair.  BUT IT DOES NOT AND NEVER HAS WORKED!
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ITW,

I beg to differ. Marxism has worked very well as a critique of capitalism. Everything that is happening right now in the economy proves that Marx was right about capitalism, viz. that unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, such as we have seen during the last eight years, collapses from its own internal contradictions, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until the poor can no longer buy the products of their own labor. This we have seen many times. This Marx got right. Where he got it wrong was the idea that these contradictions could only be resolved by a violent revolution followed by a dictatorship of the proletariat and finally the withering away of the state. What we have seen since Marx is that the contradictions of the free market can be kept under control by proper government regulations and a tax structure that redistributes capital to create benefits and opportunities for working people so they do not become impoverished. This was made so obvious in the Great Depression that one might have thought it could never be forgotten, but the Republicans since Reagan have spent the last thirty years trying to forget it, and their success has the consequences we are now observing. More intelligent capitalists understand this “Marxist” truth which is why they are flocking to the Obama’s banner, even while the shortsighted greedy idiot capitalists call him a socialist as they once called FDR.

Working a bit backwards from your post, Anarcissie, what modern empire has gone bankrupt?  I agreed that part of the problem, probably a big part of the problem, is the deindustrialization of America.  I don’t know about not being able to “fix” the financial problem.  Seems money flows here and there by many means not known and not fathomable by the public and that public never will know.  Changing the financial machinations is beyond the average citizen, and in that department I list myself among the average.  I still think the .1% SDTs ought to be levied if only to bring in the “few” dollars to put into the system and to make the financial moguls have to pay for their money acquisition.  Whether that particular action makes a dent or not in the overall problem is moot far as I am concerned.  There must be and will be other measures as you are suggesting, but have not specified, that will have to be taken to begin to rectify the damage. 

Marx was dealing with a much smaller organism of working class, unless he was merely hypothesizing and not actually seeing his theory applied.  The immiserated “they” is still representative of a small population.  If your speculation is true that the poor are driven toward racism, fascism (this one I do not believe), and fundamentalism rather than socialism it may indicate inherent weaknesses in that particular brand of socialism.  That the poor may be oppressed and forced to live under fascist regimes I cannot argue against.  If that is what you mean by being driven towards.  I do not think poverty drives people toward fascism if you mean they take on the parameters of fascism as a way of thinking.  I don’t think fascism would even work that way.  It is the absolute rule of the few over the many.

Shenonymous: ‘A categorical mistake is to think the “working class” in America is a homogenous group.  The reason why the “workers have not taken over” is they are as diverse as there are flavors of ice cream. ...’

Marx didn’t postulate a uniform working class, at least not in the material I’ve read.  He did think, however, that they would be “immiserated”, and thus be forced to revolt and take over the political and economic system, and this is exactly the process we are observing today—the rich are getting (comparatively) richer and everyone else is getting poorer.  Hence, some Marxists theorize that Marx’s predictions are only beginning to come true; this has to do with the totality and universality of capitalism.  Unfortunately poverty seems to drive people toward racism, fascism, and fundamentalism, rather than socialism.  Not too much sober sense has been in evidence in the last 100 years or so.

‘The Nader .1% on SDTs Fix of the budget deficit from the collapse of the financial world that would provide 500 billion in one year may not “fix” the problem in one year, but it will in a few years and can even approach the so-called 3 trillion dollar loss noted in this forum. ...’

No amount of money will ever fix the problem, because the problem is that the U.S. spends more than it takes in, borrows publicly and privately to make up the difference, is selling itself to foreign companies and people, is deindustrializing, is destroying itself as a market (see above), and until recently was inflating credit in order to mask the deficiencies.  All that has to change or the U.S. will go bankrupt.  Otherwise, taxing this or that will just be like bailing out a sinking boat by throwing water from the bow to the stern and back again.  Most modern empires have gone bankrupt if they weren’t destroyed by war, so that will not be a surprising outcome.

A categorical mistake is to think the “working class” in America is a homogenous group.  The reason why the “workers have not taken over” is they are as diverse as there are flavors of ice cream.  They are not organized as a whole group, even though there are some unions left these days that represent a spectrum of labor structures.  So it is not surprising that socialism has not taken and deep root in America.  That does not mean that a capitalistic society such as is had in America is permanent, we have heard the crushing collapse of it for the last few weeks and even now it is happening as we post here on Truthdig.  As workers ( laborers do not make up the entirety of the category of workers) become educated by either schooling or internetting, as to how they are exploited, change will happen and it ought not to be too surprising if that change isn’t cataclysmic.  Sometimes learning happens all at once and a huge societal awakening happens.  Since information is now instantaneous and people are notoriously reactive, nothing in the way of changes should be surprising.

The Nader .1% on SDTs Fix of the budget deficit from the collapse of the financial world that would provide 500 billion in one year may not “fix” the problem in one year, but it will in a few years and can even approach the so-called 3 trillion dollar loss noted in this forum.  It is still a good idea to make those who have benefited and skinned the publics ass over the years pay for it.  It would be a good idea to make it a permanent tax to offset any future losses due to mismanagement.  That should give the Republicans apoplexy.  The “extra” money made after the huge debt is paid back could be re-invested to make money just like the scummy bastards did who skimmed the system to the tune of hundreds of billions.  Or it could be used to pay back China who loaned the Bush Administration billions to pay for the Bush War in Iraq.  It could be put to good use somehow.  And as you know Tony Wicher, I am not a big Nader fan, but if the guy has good ideas, it would be stupid to not consider them and give him the credit.

As far as I know, Marx himself did not have any plan for implementing socialism or communism.  In the Communist Manifesto, he appears to envision power passing automatically to the working class when the bourgeoisie collapsed, whereupon the former, with “sober senses”, would rationally take charge and put things in order.  Although capitalism has collapsed a few times since, one must agree that the workers have not taken over.  Otherwise there is not much there to work or not work.

Anarcissie, October 27 at 10:21 am #

Incredible as it may seem, 500 billion dollars is not going to pay for the financial crisis.  The financial crisis is part of the deflation of huge bubbles in the real estate and equities markets.  Moving funny money from one point to another may keep some banks nominally solvent, but it’s not going to cure the problem.
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Absolutely correct!

Let’s not forget that Bush & co’s deficit has been bleeding $500 Billion out of the credit market EVERY YEAR for 6 or 7 years.  That’s $3 TRILLION dollars, folks, that we (the USA) borrowed just to pay for our budget because the Re-thugs wouldn’t tax the wealthiest. (and don’t forget the 10’s of billions in interest on that) Yeah, $3 Trillion bled out of the world’s credit system and anyone WONDERS why it collapsed?

But like a house that collapses when you pull out the supports, you can’t just put them back and expect the house to stand up again...it doesn’t work that way.  Instead, it has unintended consequences.  When commercial paper isn’t available, a business goes under and all its employees are out of work.  When that paper is available, again, the business is gone.  Its suppliers and customers that depend on it are hurt too.  Maybe they go under as well from the lack of commercial paper. They were sound businesses, they just needed a revolving credit account to smooth over when they spent to fill an order and when they were paid.

So the car dealerships start closing...now when people can afford cars again, they are not there.

Out west, just as Ayn Rand predicted in 1957, when the wheat crop came in, there weren’t enough grain cars to move it--nobody had invested in them for 10 or 20 years.

Another stupid analogy: You burn down the house, putting out the fire doesn’t rebuild it.  Bush&co;waited too long, had the wrong solution, and now, even when he CAN counteract much, Paulsen won’t use the power he has correctly--he’s still hung up on neo-con theology.

Marxism won’t fix it.  Marxism was a pretty idea concocted in the first half of the 19th century to address obvious abuses of workers in the early industrial age. It was designed to be compassionate and fair.  BUT IT DOES NOT AND NEVER HAS WORKED!

Incredible as it may seem, 500 billion dollars is not going to pay for the financial crisis.  The financial crisis is part of the deflation of huge bubbles in the real estate and equities markets.  Moving funny money from one point to another may keep some banks nominally solvent, but it’s not going to cure the problem.

By Shenonymous, October 25 at 5:24 pm #

Hey Ralph Nader had a great idea about how to pay for the f*cking financial fiasco.  Just charge a .1% tax on security derivative transactions and in one year it will generate 500 billion dollars, thus making those who profited from America’s treasury bailout by paying it back in a manner of speaking.  Funny I haven’t heard any response to this brilliant solution, not even from the Truthdiggers who are supporting Nader.
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Shen,

I didn’t know about this suggestion, but I think this is a fine idea. As you know, I am totally opposed to Nader as a presidential candidate, but I do think he has many fine ideas, of which this is one. Nader might be able to get such ideas actually implemented if he would join the Obama campaign and administration instead of opposing it.

It seems to me that capitalism, which I think is probably an inevitable development in human culture, cannot be considered a “mistake” because that would indicate there was some kind of individual intelligence plotting and planning human development.

My theory, which I have not worked out in any great detail, is that as human technology and wealth increase, more and more energy becomes available to humans of all classes and types.  (I’m using energy very loosely here.) In the Middle Ages, the main energies available were military power and agriculture; there was mechanical technology but it was still peripheral.  However, at a certain point enough wealth, technology and economic activity were available to allow towns of capitalists to arise.  As the new energies were fed back into the system, the towns (that is, the capitalists) grew more and more powerful and burst the bonds of the feudal system.  This was the revolutionary process of capitalism which Marx describes so poetically in The Communist Manifesto.

The peculiar thing about capitalism is that as each phase ground to a halt, a new form of capitalism arose which devoured the old.

Marx seems to have looked forward to a point where enough technology (mechanical and social) and enough power and wealth would be dispersed among the working class so that, during the downfall of the last period of capitalism, instead of a new form of capitalism arising, the workers would simply take control of the system—socialism.  Obviously this hasn’t happened yet; there seems to be a lack of the “sober sense” Marx relied upon to get the workers to take up the burden of running the world.

It is not a matter of a simple conception of Marxism.  There are different species of marxism just as there are different species of warm-blooded animals.  It is wise to learn the distinctions and be able to discuss them as they are defined.  I agree that capitalism has bercome a blight on human society and that a baronial system cannot succeed without a heavy totalitarian power structure.  I favor social democracies over all others and believe that the world would be better off to get rid of all kings and queens of every stripe and variety.  One man/woman one vote is the only correct structure.  And this is by social agreement.  Republicanism of representative government is no longer necessary with the advent of instant voice. 

It should be within the province of human interaction to try to convince others of particular ideologies but equal time must be given to opposing views.  The people then should be left alone to make their choice, a simple majority rules.  Those who lose must wait until they have better arguments to win the majority.  Then and only then may each man/woman stand for a civilized and self-satisfactory way of life.  What of those who cannot make choices due to some mental deficiency?  They are those who will have to live under the outcomes of those who have sufficient mental capacity.

The American electoral process has always been sharply biased in favor of the power structures favored groupings, the richer, whiter, older, males. It costs money for a working person to wait in line for hours, and in any case sometimes can’t get off of work to do so.  That is why election day is on Tuesday rather than on the weekend.

It is why the election information is disseminated through the internet and newspapers, which the poorer population does not get.  There are enumerable sources of this class and racial bias and it is supported by both the Gops and, to a lesser extent, the Dems. 

The Dems, by disinfranchising the poor minorities, avoid issue conflict with the power structure that funds and medias them.  Their function is to serve the interests of power while pretending to serve the interests of the population.  Since Americans inherit their party preference from their families, like their religions, we cannot think in a more holistic way about power relations when these simple holistic truths subvert our inherited misconceptions about power.

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Capitalism, and the Western tradition that legitimates it, is an historical mistake, Ms. S.  An aberration that has caused untold suffering to the people of the world.  The notion that merchants, bankers and industrialists can actually rule a people, when their training, experience and values are focused around the profit and loss of money, is so absurd that the space peoples of the galaxy must be laughing their heads off at the aburdity of the human condition.

But the problem is that the earth is increasingly an integrated whole, and therefore must change as an intergrated whole to go to the next stage, whatever it turns out to be.  The idea that Europe, a pininsula off the Asian mainland, which the West has established absurdly as a ‘continent’, could rule the people of the world, or that the US could, is basically a power misunderstanding, based on murderous weapons. And not on Freedom and Democracy, as Huntington has pointed out.

The world ideology succeeding marxism in the 20th century will break out of the Western worldview and conceive the past, present and future persons of the earth as a holistic entity.  The simplifying conceptual structure of the natural sciences can be applied in social science, but only at the price of subverting the Western scientific ideology that legitimates it. 

These simple conceptions, expressed in both words and math symbols, generate an earthperson worldview, as I think of it, incompatible with the Westtern worldview.  A conceptual revolution in social science, similar conceptually to the great scientific revolutions, would transform our worldviews of reality, legitimating a worldview incompatible with the Western worldview.

Talking about voter suppression, a friend of mine who lives in Florida, Broward Country, voted yesterday; it took her three and a half hours, most of it waiting on line.  The voting process itself requires marking a complex printed ballot in three languages by thoroughly filling in little ovals with a pencil.  I expressed some concern about the difficulties and she said (about the authorities), “If people vote, it’s a problem.” I thought there might be some trouble for the election officials about it in the future and she said, “Well, we’re used to that, aren’t we?” It is interesting that, for all the talk about getting out the vote, there is so much resistance to people actually doing it.  If it were a matter of selling cornflakes....

Note that Broward County, Florida, is about the most Democratic county in the universe.  Things may be different elsewhere in the state.

Alienation seems to be just about a right description for some folks who are unable to think about or evaluate reality.  I think there are those in Texas, north Texas that is, which where I live, however, who just don’t like either candidate and will vote their party of choice and not for a candidate per se.  I say that mainly because they were voting today in droves, the lines were amazingly long in the jumbo market where a dozen voting booths for early voting were set up.  The line wound from the front to the back of the store.  So I don’t think these people were alienated.

I agree that turning one’s back on the political process not only allows power structures to force their will, but forfeits rights once fiercely fought for.  Unfortunately it seems many do not see that connection. 

If you would name those liberal Democracies that you are criticizing Folktruther, it would be helpful to discuss in a reasonable way the ideology you say would be subverted.  It is too nebulous the way you put it.  If it is a “few centuries” of this happening, then you won’t h