Wall Street Occupation...

[Ben]

Occupy Wall Street protester speaks out - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0j5S8iTvNg&feature=channel_video_title)

[Ben]

I like Andrew Bacevich.... I've read a couple of his books. And he's a conservative. Albeit he voted for Obama expecting, um, change.... And we know what we got: un-change -- ha ha!

Bacevich: US wars serve powerful interests - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzEbMwkt2uA&feature=relmfu)

[Ben]

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Welcome to the Police State: NYC Cops Mace Peaceful Protestors Against Wall Street (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/welcome-to-the-police-state-nyc-cops-mace-peaceful-protestors-against-wall-street.html)

by Yves Smith

I’m beginning to wonder whether the right to assemble is effectively dead in the US. No one who is a wage slave (which is the overwhelming majority of the population) can afford to have an arrest record, even a misdemeanor, in this age of short job tenures and rising use of background checks.
Now at least in New York (and I hope readers in other cities will chime in) the right to assemble seems to be pretty much a dead letter. I was in Sydney during the global protests against the Iraq War, and I was told that the New York demonstrations (which were already hindered by typically lousy winter weather) were pretty much blocked by the police. Protestors were trying to gather at the UN, and the cops put up a cordon at Second Avenue. The result was the turnout was far lower than the number who tried to show their opposition and were stopped.
The latest New York City protest is OccupyWallStreet. Even though its turnout last week fell well short of hopes (the estimates from the group were that 2000 participated; the New York Times suggests numbers more like “hundreds” but the photos from the 17th make figures larger figures seem plausible), making it a nuisance level demonstration rather than a major statement, the powers that be seem to be trying a bit too hard to prevent it from getting traction.
The organizers were using Twitter to promote participation and visibility. And so Twitter intervened. From AmpedStatus (http://ampedstatus.org/twittercensorship-blocks-occupywallstreet-from-top-trending-topic-twice/):
On at least two occasions, Saturday September 17th and again on Thursday night, Twitter blocked #OccupyWallStreet from being featured as a top trending topic on their homepage. On both occasions, #OccupyWallStreet tweets were coming in more frequently than other top trending topics that they were featuring on their homepage.
This is blatant political censorship on the part of a company that has recently received a $400 million investment from JP Morgan Chase.
The protestors were relegated to Zucotti Park, west of Liberty. If you know Lower Manhattan that is technically near Wall Street but well away from any offices buildings. It is on the periphery. The New York Times depicts the demonstrators as naive and ineffective, i.e, harmless (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wall-street-with-faulty-aim.html?hp):
Occupy Wall Street, a diffuse and leaderless convocation of activists against greed, corporate influence, gross social inequality and other nasty byproducts of wayward capitalism not easily extinguishable by street theater, had hoped to see many thousands join its protest and encampment, which began Sept. 17….
By Wednesday morning, 100 or so stalwarts were making the daily, peaceful trek through the financial district, where their movements were circumscribed by barricades and a heavy police presence. (Various arrests for disorderly conduct were made.) By Thursday, the number still sleeping in Zuccotti Park, the central base of operations, appeared to be dwindling further.
Members retained hope for an infusion of energy over the weekend, but as it approached, the issue was not that the Bastille hadn’t been stormed, but that its facade had suffered hardly a chip.
So the protest is only in the low hundreds. In a separate story (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/80-arrested-as-financial-district-protest-moves-north/?ref=nyregion&gwh=C55556D100671C0212729AC198203BA3), the Times reports that the police arrested 80 as they moved to Union Square (notice how high a percentage that is) and even the anodyne Times makes the policing sound heavy-handed:
The police made scores of arrests on Saturday as hundreds of people, many of whom had been encamped in the financial district as part of a lengthy protest, marched north to Union Square….
Protest organizers estimated that about 85 people were arrested and that about five were struck with pepper spray. Among those was Chelsea Elliott, 25, who said that she was sprayed after shouting “Why are you doing that?” as an officer arrested a protester at East 12th Street….
Nearby, two other protesters standing handcuffed on Fifth Avenue told a reporter that they had both been arrested on sidewalks and were not aware of having broken any law.
“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them,” said Kelly Brannon, 27, of Ridgewood, Queens. “They were herding us like cattle.”
Next to her, David Smith, from Maine, said that he had been chanting “Let them go” as people were handcuffed, and was then arrested by a senior officer who told him that he was being charged with obstructing governmental administration.
The article included this tweet:
@DustinSlaughter there’s 50+ of us arrested in a caravan, netted & maced by police after standing on sidewalk where they told us to
This video show police macing women who were already corralled and who made no aggressive or threatening moves
The authorities apparently felt that the response was so low that they could get rough with the protestors, meaning that their perception was that even unflattering coverage would not incite much bigger turnout. Sadly, they may have judged this correctly.

[beandip]

I like the fact that idiot leftist communists and union assholes are protesting there. I will vote them a 300% instant pay raise so this shit tanks in 6 months, there-by making them all homeless suckkas. I'll just sit back and laugh.

[Faldur]

Holy crap do these people even have minds? Talk about your mind numb robots..
Ok, repeat after me.. lol (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsK2WeO7VbQ&feature=player_embedded#!)

[Stavros]

I dont understand why people would spend so much time and energy on such a futile form of gesture politics. There were 'Stop the City' demos in London in the 1980s originally 'organised' by a couple of anarchists whose novel idea was to do it by word of mouth instead of informing the police in advance of their intention to hold a demo. They ended up costing the police, the tax payers and some buildings a lot of money -did they stop the city? No; did the demos carry on year in year out to march in tune with the death of banking, finance and the wicked capitalist system...er...no.

[russtafa]

love to be a cop with these protesters .more fun than being a 5 year old at Christmas :dancing:

[Ben]

Undoubtedly the 13 year old is a hardcore criminal:

Police arrest 13 Year Old Girl - Protesters Shut Down Brooklyn Bridge - Or Kettled - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36e57Ntp-8g)

[Ben]

"Why the 99% of us should be upset with how the top 1% have hijacked our economy"! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTLaEdGodBI)

[BluegrassCat]

The anger coming from the right-wing echo chamber at the sight of a real grassroots movement is depressing but not surprising. They can't stand the idea of a real populist movement; one that's not enraged, directed and controlled by big business. Or maybe it's just that they let black people into this movement.

[Ben]

An interesting article by the American economist Dean Baker.

Steve Jobs and Alan Greenspan

by Dean Baker (http://www.commondreams.org/dean-baker)

On the tragic passing of Steve Jobs, while still a relatively young man, it is interesting to juxtapose him to Alan Greenspan, one of the other iconic figures of our time. One made us rich, with a vast array of new products and new possibilities. The other made us poor with a long lasting downturn that could persist for more than a decade.
The two of them can be taken as symbols for the best and worst of modern capitalism. Jobs is the symbol of capitalism when it works. Again and again he broke through barriers, creating new products that qualitatively altered the market by making vast improvements over the competition.
Apple made personal computers a standard household product by developing a simple user friendly idiot-proof system that anyone could use. Jobs was a decade ahead of the Microsoft based systems, using menu driven computers in the mid-80s that were not matched by Microsoft until Windows was developed in the mid-90s. His later generation of computers continues to include features that make it far superior to the competition.
As we know, computers were only the beginning. The iPod changed the way people listened to music. The recently developed CD quickly followed the record on the dust heap of antiquated technologies. Vast amounts of music could be stored in a small handheld device instead of requiring massive bookshelves of records, as had been the case just twenty years earlier.
Then we had the iPhone that made smart phones a standard appliance featuring everything from video cameras to translation systems. And, of course there is the iPad, which, along with its competitors, is revolutionizing the way we read books and is largely replacing the laptop computer.
Jobs didn't do any of this by himself. He put together teams of great innovators. But the point is that he was able to recognize talented people and give them the means to make great innovations and bring them to the market. This is what a market economy is supposed to do.
By contrast, Alan Greenspan's vision was about getting rich. And plenty of people got very rich under the rein of Alan Greenspan, a disproportionate number of them on Wall Street. When we think of successful people in connection with Alan Greenspan we have to think of people like Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide in its heyday as one of the leading pushers of subprime mortgages. Mr. Mozilo walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars while many of his customers faced foreclosure and his shareholders lost their shirts.
Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers is another hero of the age of Greenspan. Under Fuld' s rein, Lehman Brothers took the lead in packaging into mortgage backed securities (MBS) the loans hawked by Mozilo and his competitors in the subprime market. It apparently did not concern him that many of these loans were fraudulent and would inevitably blow up on both the homeowners and the purchasers of the MBS. Lehman also walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars as his company went down in flames.
And then there is Robert Rubin, another Wall Street multi-millionaire. After leading the charge for deregulation at Greenspan's side as Treasury Secretary, he took a top position at Citigroup. He pocketed over $100 million as Citigroup fell to near bankruptcy -- saved only by government bailouts - also done in by the subprime trash it marketed around the world.
The computer guru of Greenspan's world is Bill Gates, a man who got far richer than Steve Jobs. Gates' secret was not making great products -- the only ones praising his creativity at his funeral will be people on his payroll -- but rather in gaining control of markets. In other decades, the anti-competitive practices he pursued to win Microsoft a near monopoly in the computer market might have landed him behind bars. But in the age of Greenspan they made him the richest person in the world.
Unfortunately, we continue to live in the world of Alan Greenspan rather than the world of Steve Jobs. In spite of the remarkable innovations in technology over the last three decades, much of the country is poorer than it was 30 years ago. We have 26 million people who have the skills and desire to work, who can't find jobs or full-time jobs because of the mismanagement of the economy. We have people losing their homes and going homeless even though we have more than 14 million housing units sitting vacant.
This is economic stupidity of a high order. It is a world of unnecessary scarcity, where we have the ability to meet individual and social needs but are governed by people too timid or incompetent to take the steps needed to get the economy functioning right.
It is great to see people rising up in response to this absurdity in the Occupy Wall Street movement and its imitators around the country. Where this will end is anybody's guess, but at the moment it is our best hope for escaping the world of Alan Greenspan and moving toward a world that fosters the sort of creativity that Steve Jobs demonstrated in his too short life.

http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/author_photo/dean_baker.jpg (http://www.commondreams.org/dean-baker)
Dean Baker (cepr@cepr.net) is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (http://www.cepr.net/) (CEPR).

[Bobby Domino]

I like Andrew Bacevich.... I've read a couple of his books. And he's a conservative. Albeit he voted for Obama expecting, um, change.... And we know what we got: un-change -- ha ha!

Fabulous post!!!

[runningdownthatdream]

Might be something to that 1% claim after all:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

[Faldur]

News flash to the hippies.. you are the 1%, get your ass back in school and pay attention this time.

[russtafa]

if hippies were not filmed by the media and you had the average working guys protesting it would probably send a better message to the general public.but dirty hippies don't send a good message

[trish]

There are no hippies there. That was last century. The Vietnam War is over. You helped us lose it. Thanks a lot. Now get over it. This is the 21st century. The hippies are retired and enjoying their grandchildren.

[russtafa]

There are no hippies there. That was last century. The Vietnam War is over. You helped us lose it. Thanks a lot. Now get over it. This is the 21st century. The hippies are retired and enjoying their grandchildren.well great and enlightened Trish what are these dirty looking filthy ,rag wearing people long haired types?i don't think they are truck drivers or mechanics or office workers lol

[trish]

They aren't hippies you out of date dipshit, look it up.

[Bobby Domino]

well great and enlightened Trish what are these dirty looking filthy ,rag wearing people long haired types?i don't think they are truck drivers or mechanics or office workers lol

rednecks???
oh, what are we talking about again???

[russtafa]

They aren't hippies you out of date dipshit, look it up.i asked you a simple question dipshit and i get abuse .i will repeat the question what the fuck are these dirty,loud,long haired people dressed in rags?

[trish]

russtafa, just about every you post you're spewing abuse. I just like to see you get a little bit in return once in awhile.

[hippifried]

They aren't hippies you out of date dipshit, look it up.
I'm not sure there's anyplace to look it up. I haven't seen an accurate description of hippies in over a decade. Even at the time, there was so much punditry (all punditry is lies) from all sides giving bogus information, that unless somebody was directly involved in the movement, there was no way to know what it was about. The reason for the lack of understanding was that hippies were a true anarchist movement. Not only were there no leaders to talk to & articulate any goals, there were really no specific goals other than blowing up stereotypes & promoting the moral code. Despite the mythology & claims to the contrarty, the movement itself wasn't even radical. But on the other hand, in about 5 years, the worldwide hippy movement changed more cultural attitudes than anything before or since.

[russtafa]

i cant remember ever calling you names or abusing you Trish but if you want to go down that road fine so be it

[russtafa]

i just wondered what you call this current bunch of misfits ?

[Faldur]

I remember at some of the Tea Party gatherings when we were raping 14 year olds.. oh wait that didn't happen at a Tea Party event.. hmmm... that was the toe lickers gathering.. right...

[Stavros]

Russtafa -come off it Bruce, you have been a nightclub bouncer, so don't tell me you don't know how many different clubs there are: white clubs, black clubs, 'ethnic' clubs; staight clubs, gay clubs, house-garage-HipHop clubs; 70s-80s Retro clubs, and of course KYLIE CLUBS;

then the people who go: College Kids, Working Kids, Queer Kids, Fembois, Lesbians, Leather Queens, Shemales, THE GOTHS, bOOZE kIDz, DOPE KidZ, Fashionistas; SURFING DUDES, and of course KYLIE IMPERSONATORS and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. And yet you can't recognise a strand in society that goes to political demonstrations, doesn't vote for Labour or Liberals, stays in bed until 1pm and smokes a lot of dope or reads environmental pamphlets for 8 hours a day---???? Even in Sydney????

[russtafa]

Russtafa -come off it Bruce, you have been a nightclub bouncer, so don't tell me you don't know how many different clubs there are: white clubs, black clubs, 'ethnic' clubs; staight clubs, gay clubs, house-garage-HipHop clubs; 70s-80s Retro clubs, and of course KYLIE CLUBS;

then the people who go: College Kids, Working Kids, Queer Kids, Fembois, Lesbians, Leather Queens, Shemales, THE GOTHS, bOOZE kIDz, DOPE KidZ, Fashionistas; SURFING DUDES, and of course KYLIE IMPERSONATORS and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. And yet you can't recognise a strand in society that goes to political demonstrations, doesn't vote for Labour or Liberals, stays in bed until 1pm and smokes a lot of dope or reads environmental pamphlets for 8 hours a day---???? Even in Sydney????
and what do you call these bludger's? we call them ferals maybe you call them something different?

[Stavros]

I call them people, Russtafa, because that's what they are. You might have noticed the diverse range of people passing you on their way into the club, on the street in King's X, or at the track: young, old, fat, thin, male, female -all sorts of people. I believe some of them are also called Australians; go figure.

[russtafa]

I call them people, Russtafa, because that's what they are. You might have noticed the diverse range of people passing you on their way into the club, on the street in King's X, or at the track: young, old, fat, thin, male, female -all sorts of people. I believe some of them are also called Australians; go figure.people i know don't have purple and green mohicans and that many pieces of metal thru their heads and haven't seen a shower unless it rains.i don't call them Australians i call them bludger's or ferals who run if you mention work:frustrated

[Faldur]

I am going to be so sad when this all ends. A never ending source of side-splitting entertainment. A hippie from his moms basement declares war on Oakland.. rofl

I have handcuffs! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieeNvciXULM&feature=player_embedded)

[hippifried]

Seems like the apologists for unethical greed are grasping at straws. Dragging up ancient rhetoric that they don't even understand in order to denigrate people they don't know or understand who won't accept the apologies. Search/scanning YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter is a big failure in trying to find something that points to the movement as a whole. All that's left is organized violence to protect the aristocracy in the new feudalism. That's not going to work.

What's the matter boys? Can't find any leaders or organizers to demonize, redbait, or to be the target of the newest spate of lies? The explanation is quite simple. Unlike that astroturf teabag crap, this is a true grass roots movement. There aren't any leaders. This is spontaneous & driven by anger at actual deeds & the lack of accountability. It's not political. Politicians are keeping their distance because they can't hang a linear (left or right) label on it. You don't recognize real grass roots because spontaneous movements are rare. Y'all wanted a culture war so bad? You got it.

[russtafa]

I am going to be so sad when this all ends. A never ending source of side-splitting entertainment. A hippie from his moms basement declares war on Oakland.. rofl

I have handcuffs! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieeNvciXULM&feature=player_embedded)

he looks like he's off his rocker:screwy

[Faldur]

Well done Mr. Schiff, point, set and match..

Peter Schiff Takes on the 99% (http://www.mrctv.org/videos/peter-schiff-takes-99)

[Prospero]

This sums it up...

[Ben]

Despicable stuff:

Top US foreclosure law firm threw Halloween party where staff dressed as homeless, foreclosed-upon Americans (http://boingboing.net/2011/10/29/top-us-foreclosure-law-firm-threw-halloween-party-where-staff-dressed-as-homeless-foreclosed-upon-americans.html)

By Xeni Jardin (http://boingboing.net/author/xeni_jardin) at 8:10 am Saturday, Oct 29


http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20111029_NOCERA-IMG-slide-V4QD-articleLarge.jpg
From a NYT opinion piece by Joe Nocera, "What the Costumes Reveal (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html?_r=3)"—

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum (http://www.mbaum.com/) threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s.
That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.

[Ben]

This sums it up...

Good stuff. But I do think a lot of the Tea Party supporters have legitimate grievances. And the so-called left have to address those grievances somehow.
As to how? Well, I'm not exactly sure.
Americans, that is the American people, and not the corporate machine, as it were, have to decide what kind of country they want.
And most Americans, if you look at the polls, are liberal.... Most Americans now support gay marriage. Most Americans think corporations have too much power over our government. (In a meaningful democracy the people and the government are identical. In a so-called democracy the government should serve the wishes of the people. What do the people want? Look at the polls.)

Rachel Maddow: Americans Are Liberal And Don't Even Know It - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZi8p7HUH_w)

[Stavros]

Its an old story Ben: a lot of people are liberal on social policy, and conservative on economic policy, one of them is a square peg, the other is a round hole. I don't know how to drive a car, but I love well-thought-out car chases in Movies: in particular, French Connection I; The Driver; Bullitt; and the Bourne car chases.

Ben -what do you make of Citizen Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposals? You do know that in the UK, 999 is our emergency number if you need the police, the fire brigade, or an ambulance....?

[Ben]

Its an old story Ben: a lot of people are liberal on social policy, and conservative on economic policy, one of them is a square peg, the other is a round hole. I don't know how to drive a car, but I love well-thought-out car chases in Movies: in particular, French Connection I; The Driver; Bullitt; and the Bourne car chases.

Ben -what do you make of Citizen Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposals? You do know that in the UK, 999 is our emergency number if you need the police, the fire brigade, or an ambulance....?

Cain's 9 9 9 proposal. Well, the American people don't like it, don't want it.
Americans, by and large, want corporate taxes to go up. Oh, but ya can't do that. 'Cause they're the job creators -- ha ha ha!
Yep! That's why corporations offshore jobs. They want to create jobs for Indonesians, the Chinese, the Indians -- ha ha ha!
I mean, corporations are not set up to create jobs. They're set up to maximize profits. But you can't say that. Or corporate propagandists can't say that. Or won't say it.
They're never honest. I respect honesty. I want people in the mainstream press to say: The focal point of any corporation is to maximize shareholder return. Not job creation. The corporation is designed to suit the interests of the investors. Those with money. I mean, capitalism, loosely defined, is: investing money to make money by those who have money.
But we don't have a capitalist system. I mean, it's never been tried in America. Because the State plays an active and powerful role. And, too, terms like socialism, social democracy and so-called capitalism are not precise. The definitions themselves aren't precise. I mean, we can describe the systems but how we choose to designate them doesn't seem to matter very much.
And, too, one can argue that the entire culture is set up to satisfy, defend and protect the interests of the super-rich. Which is understandable. It's rational, very rational.
Corporations are very rational institutions. That's why they're scary. They aren't concerned with anything but the maximization of profits. The long-term future is meaningless. And it has to be.
Sorry about the corporate rant -- ha ha ha!

[Faldur]

Americans, by and large, want corporate taxes to go up. Oh, but ya can't do that. 'Cause they're the job creators -- ha ha ha!
Yep! That's why corporations offshore jobs.

The misconceptions of some is just confounding. You realize the US has the highest corporate tax rates in the world? And yet you wonder why our corporations flee the country? Amazing..

It is a simple formula, what ever you tax more of you will get less of. It's guaranteed..

[Stavros]

Faldur you may be right about corporate tax rates, but it seems everyone wants to reduce them to persuade businesses to base themselves in: eg Ireland, which wants to cut its CP rate, the USA, and so on -Corporations already register their addresses in Delaware to get reduced tax rates, how many corporations can keep shifting their corporate HQ to whichever country has the lowest rate, and does it even make sense if, eg, you are a German company, but register in the USA if your business is with Europe and China? Most employers are not large corporations anyway but small-to-medium enterprises.

Anyway, what's your take on Citizen Cain's 9-9-9?

[Faldur]

I like Cain very much as a candidate, I appreciate his honest candor. 9-9-9 looks ok on the surface, I haven't read up on it. It would have to have a exemption for those making poverty levels of income. I think all the flat or fair tax proposals would greatly change our country, for the better. Never again would we have 1/2 of the working population avoiding paying there fair share. Eliminate the 65,000 pages of the tax code and make it simple, and then eliminate the IRS.

I have yet to hear a candidate share their ideas on how they would ever get a proposal such as 9-9-9 through congress and into law. I think that is probably why Cain left in the option to file your tax the old fashion way or the new. Our special interest infested congress is pretty well impotent when it comes to doing its job. I pity any president to come, there life ain't going to be easy.

[Stavros]

I think the problem with all tax regimes is that because they evolve over time the documentation accumulates to the point where the only people who understand it are tax lawyers who charge $1,000 an hour (or more).

I looked at this because I didn't understand it, and because simple slogans in politics often conceal something wholly different from what they claim to be -and it seems that this 9-9-9 is in fact only one part of a phased overhaul of taxes but that's without factoring in the political equivalent of gender reassingment surgery Congress would surely perform on Cain's Big Idea -we seem to have gone from Citizen Cain to Cain's Mutiny....note the cute remark by Ms Bachmann on 999 becoming 666 (!)...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/9379-a-critique-of-herman-cains-9-9-9-tax-plan

[Ben]

The misconceptions of some is just confounding. You realize the US has the highest corporate tax rates in the world? And yet you wonder why our corporations flee the country? Amazing..

It is a simple formula, what ever you tax more of you will get less of. It's guaranteed..

This isn't the reason they leave. They leave because of cheaper labor. And it's very rational. Remember these are highly rational institutions. And they have to be. That's the nature of their structure.
And corporations are not institutions created to create jobs. That isn't their function. And it's sensible -- and, again, rational. (And corporations and governments work in tandem to centralize power. Again, very rational.)
The goal is straightforward: increase investor return. And as rational entities they look for the cheapest possible labor. (It'd benefit corporations if you had a pure free market economy. I mean, pure. With no minimum wage laws and no child labor laws.)
Again, corporations are not benevolent institutions. They aren't created/designed to meet the needs and wishes of average people. And they can't be.

[Stavros]

Ben, corporations should not be immune from criticism, but they don't constitute the main portion of business, they just make more money than most of them. If you were offered a job with Exxon or IBM @ say $85,000 a year, would you say no? In addition to the salary you would probably have free lunches, an annual bonus, health insurance, a generous pension plan, depending on the job it could involve all-expenses paid trips to Omaha and Tulsa, and you often find that the people you are working for are not Company Boys and Girls but as critical of the system as you are. Corporations do look after their own, as well as their shareholders, and they do have influence in Politics that gives them an advantage over the average Korean corner shop, but I guess if you are dealing with the country's main source of energy or its computing systems that follows. Apply now!!

[Faldur]

This isn't the reason they leave. They leave because of cheaper labor.

With all due respect Ben, your nuts. They leave because in other areas they can find a more profitable environment. Labor is definitely a reason to the equation. But if you can improve your bottom line by 6% by moving to "X" country, you have a responsibility to your stock holders to do it. Especially when you are operating in a environment where the politicians are talking about higher taxes, and more burdensome regulation. Its a no brainer, the survival and profitability of a company is the primary reason for its existence. Companies exist to make money.

[Faldur]

this is a true grass roots movement. There aren't any leaders. This is spontaneous & driven by anger at actual deeds & the lack of accountability. It's not political. Politicians are keeping their distance because they can't hang a linear (left or right) label on it. You don't recognize real grass roots because spontaneous movements are rare. Y'all wanted a culture war so bad? You got it.

Grass roots.. well maybe if you smoke enough grass you would believe that. Many of the occupy groups are Incorporating, hate to tell you but you need to have a listed set of leaders, called officers to be a corporation. And now the Occupy Corporations have quite a bit of assets.. hmmm.. will they occupy themselves?

And then you can always look at there list of supporters, grass root.. hahaha.. Supporters consisting of communists, socialists and white supremacists. Would your war reference be better stated a "communist revolution" vs "culture war"?

The 99%: Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers: (Unions to be added later)

Communist Party USA
Sources:
Communist Party USA, OWS speech, The Daily Caller

American Nazi Party
Sources:
Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News

Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
Sources:
The Guardian, Tehran Times, CBS News

Barack Obama
Sources:
ABC News, CBS News, ForexTV, NBC New York

The government of North Korea
Sources:
Korean Central News Agency (North Korean state-controlled news outlet), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India

Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam
Sources:
video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly

Revolutionary Communist Party
Sources:
Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance

David Duke
Sources:
Talking Points Memo, video statement, davidduke.com

Joe Biden
Sources:
Talking Points Memo, video statement, Mother Jones

Hugo Chavez
Sources:
Mother Jones, Reuters, Examiner.com

Revolutionary Guards of Iran
Sources:
Associated Press, FARS News Agency, UPI

Black Panthers (original)
Sources:
in-person appearance, Occupy Oakland, Oakland Tribune

Socialist Party USA
Sources:
Socialist Party USA, IndyMedia, The Daily Caller

US Border Guard
Sources:
White Reference, www.usborderguard.com, Gateway Pundit, Just Another Day blog

Industrial Workers of the World
Sources:
IWW web site, iww.org, in-person appearances

CAIR
Sources:
in-person appearance, Washington Post, CAIR, CAIR New York

Nancy Pelosi
Sources:
Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard

Communist Party of China
Sources:
People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph

Hezbollah
Sources:
almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia

9/11Truth.org
Sources:
911truth.org (1), 911truth.org (2), 911truth.org (3)

International Bolshevik Tendency
Sources:
bolshevik.org, Wire Magazine

Anonymous
Sources:
Adbusters, The Guardian, video statement

White Revolution
Source:
whiterevolution.com

International Socialist Organization
Sources:
Socialist Worker, socialistworker.org, in-person appearance

PressTV (Iranian government outlet)
Sources:
PressTV, wikipedia

Marxist Student Union
Sources:
Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com

Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Sources:
FightBack News, fightbacknews.org

ANSWER
Sources:
ANSWER press release, ANSWER web site, Xinhua

Party for Socialism and Liberation
Sources:
Liberation News (1), pslweb.org, The Daily Free Press, Liberation News (2)

[trish]

That's the Official List eh? For an unofficial movement. Someone is pulling your leg, faldur.
You can find this on the web too...

THE OFFICIAL SPONSOR OF FOX NEWS: The Devil Himself.

[Faldur]

That's the Official List eh? For an unofficial movement. Someone is pulling your leg, faldur.
You can find this on the web too...

THE OFFICIAL SPONSOR OF FOX NEWS: The Devil Himself.

The word "Official" was used by the author of the list

[Stavros]

Communist Party of China
Sources:
People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph

Faldur, it is inevitabe in the kind of protest that OWS seems to be, that anyone who feels 'the bankers' have been rewarded for failure and that a small clique of politicians and big business elites are facilitating their bonuses will include people whose views on other issues diverge. It is also the case, as I am sure you know, that wherever there is a crowd like this, political fringe groups such as Nazis and Communists and peaceniks and Jedi knights, descend on them like maggots on a corpse for the feast, even if in reality they only make a few converts, if that. In the UK, for example, whenever there is a demonstration or a picket line or a protest like OWS you will find the so-called Socialist Workers Party desperate to satisfy their self-proclaimed role as the vanguard of the people.

As a reader of the Telegraph I was puzzled by your listing of the Chinese Communist Party because normally they never endorse events like this, and the only article I can find shows they did not, and therefore should not be on your list. They called for 'reflection' on the causes of the protest, but want to maintain the stable and healthy development of the global economy -not exactly an endorsement of OWS...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8831107/Occupy-Wall-Street-China-says-protests-time-for-reflection.html

[Ben]

With all due respect Ben, your nuts. They leave because in other areas they can find a more profitable environment. Labor is definitely a reason to the equation. But if you can improve your bottom line by 6% by moving to "X" country, you have a responsibility to your stock holders to do it. Especially when you are operating in a environment where the politicians are talking about higher taxes, and more burdensome regulation. Its a no brainer, the survival and profitability of a company is the primary reason for its existence. Companies exist to make money.

We agree. Not on the nuts part -- ha ha ha!
I mean, even if you reduced American corporate income taxes to zero they'd still leave. And they have to. It's understandable. From their structural viewpoint. A corporation's sole function, as an extremely rational institutional structure, is to amass wealth. Nothing else matters. Again, it's very rational. They will look for ways to maximize their wealth. China and India do provide cheaper labor. That's a fact. As does Mexico. And CEOs have to, in their very rational capacity, move these jobs to where they can further maximize a company's wealth. Corporations, again, as rational entities, aren't concerned, and can't be, about communities. They never have been. And never will. Their interest doesn't lie in serving, say, the interests of future generations. That's totally irrational. (And the notion of democracy never enters the picture. Because corporations aren't democratic institutions. So, if the most powerful institutions in our society aren't democratic, well, how can we have a true and meaningful democracy??? Well, classic conservatives, like Edmund Burke believed in elite rule. That the smart and responsible men will hold a society together. And, according to classical conservatives, if you hand power to the people, well, they'll just screw the whole thing up.)
Anyway, we could go further and say end all taxes. We could do that. As they interfere -- and they do -- with the so-called free market. (But child labor laws, minimum wage laws and a public police force also interfere with the free market. As do borders. Adam Smith said the fundamental core of free trade is the free circulation of labor. Meaning you can go anywhere you want. He even said: if you see two businessmen in a pub they're plotting to deceive and oppress the public.
Everyone knows the name Adam Smith. But no one has actually read him. I mean, in the first paragraph of Smith's Wealth of Nations he talks about the division of labor. Ya know, how the baker does his thing and the butcher does her thing. But if you get to page circa 300 he says this will be monstrous. Because it turns people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as a person can actually be. A person becomes, in essence, a machine. And Adam Smith, the real Adam Smith, was not a proponent of pursuing one's own selfish ends. He pointed out the fundamental core of being human is care and concern for others, sympathy for other people.
And we could also point to markets. How are markets supposed to work in order to be efficient? Well, the sellers must bear the full cost of what they produce. This doesn't happen. I mean, future generations will be stuck with an enormous environmental clean-up bill.
Also INVESTMENT INCOME MUST STAY IN THE COUNTRY! Again, for markets to work.
But corporations aren't concerned about markets and actually try to undercut them. I mean, a market system works IF YOU HAVE INFORMED CONSUMERS MAKING RATIONAL CHOICES. And, lastly, savings must be spent on real wealth, not phantom wealth. This is fundamental market theory. But no one cares about markets.)
And we should note that America developed in radical violation of free market principles. I mean, the government has always played a substantial role in the overall economy. So, we have a sorta state-capitalist economy. And it does what it does.
As an addendum: What is an economy for?

[Faldur]

Communist Party of China
Sources:
People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph

Faldur, it is inevitabe in the kind of protest that OWS seems to be, that anyone who feels 'the bankers' have been rewarded for failure and that a small clique of politicians and big business elites are facilitating their bonuses will include people whose views on other issues diverge. It is also the case, as I am sure you know, that wherever there is a crowd like this, political fringe groups such as Nazis and Communists and peaceniks and Jedi knights, descend on them like maggots on a corpse for the feast, even if in reality they only make a few converts, if that. In the UK, for example, whenever there is a demonstration or a picket line or a protest like OWS you will find the so-called Socialist Workers Party desperate to satisfy their self-proclaimed role as the vanguard of the people.

As a reader of the Telegraph I was puzzled by your listing of the Chinese Communist Party because normally they never endorse events like this, and the only article I can find shows they did not, and therefore should not be on your list. They called for 'reflection' on the causes of the protest, but want to maintain the stable and healthy development of the global economy -not exactly an endorsement of OWS...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8831107/Occupy-Wall-Street-China-says-protests-time-for-reflection.html

Fair enough, I looked and couldn't find the Reuters article. The Reuters search engine leaves something to be desired. Think this LA times article sums it up pretty well.

http://wwmp.org.za/home/wp-content/uploads/docs/Occupy_Wall_Street.pdf

Copy of the scrubbed photo.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01539272fdb2970b-pi

[Stavros]

Exactly, I think just the idea of a group of people talking politics causes unease in China, and I doubt many Chinese would be complaining about their economy anyway, although a lot have been shut out of the prosperity we are led to believe that many enjoy...when I was in China, most of the groups of people I saw in the parks and public spaces, were couples practising their ballroom dancing...has to be seen to be believed, but they take it so seriously!

[russtafa]

Australia makes bucket loads of money from these people ,so i think the Chinese are the best thing out

[Stavros]

Yes, its all about gas, when you think harder...

[russtafa]

Yes, its all about gas, when you think harder...
yeah and our stupid socialist government is spending like money is going out of fashion

[trish]

Money IS going out of fashion. It's already so yesterday. Republicans in the U.S. urge settling your medical bills with barter. Sophisticated people use plastic. The really sheik prefer not paying at all. No rich person ever needs to pay for a drink. :)

[russtafa]

Money IS going out of fashion. It's already so yesterday. Republicans in the U.S. urge settling your medical bills with barter. Sophisticated people use plastic. The really sheik prefer not paying at all. No rich person ever needs to pay for a drink. :)still money what ever you call it

[Stavros]

Money IS going out of fashion. It's already so yesterday. Republicans in the U.S. urge settling your medical bills with barter. Sophisticated people use plastic. The really sheik prefer not paying at all. No rich person ever needs to pay for a drink. :)

Cash is a hassle, and those little coins in particular -the US still has dimes and also I think one cent coins? Not to mention those useless dollar bills; in the UK we have 1 pence, two pence, five pence and ten pence pieces, which might be useful for machines, but which otherwise are a dead weight. What annoys me most is that if you save the small coins and then go into a bank you can't get cash or deposit more than £3 in your account 'to combat money laundering'!!

[Stavros]

yeah and our stupid socialist government is spending like money is going out of fashion


I wouldn't call Gillard a socialist, I don't think Australia has ever had one in government. There was an interesting discussion on radio during our most gracious sovereign's trip to Australia, in which the mineral sector as the impetus for the Australian economy was discussed -not just North West Shelf gas, but now the vast shale gas deposits. Maybe Western Australia should go for independence...why should those hard working lads and lassies subsidies the beach bums of Sydney?

[Faldur]

Cash is a hassle, and those little coins in particular -the US still has dimes and also I think one cent coins?

Yup we still have pennies, they cost us $.0167 per coin to mint. Now thats quality governmental thinking.

[Ben]

yeah and our stupid socialist government is spending like money is going out of fashion

The word socialism has been so evacuated of meaning. The essence, core, backbone and basis of actual socialism is worker control of production (meaning deep and profound democracy), people controlling their own communities, their lives. (Not top-down or centralized control.) We can't just throw around words.
People just don't understand the true meaning of socialism. There aren't any socialist countries. It has never been tried. Just like true capitalism (pure and unfettered capitalism) has never been tried.
You can say, well, the Australian government are spending too much. That's fine. Simply state they're spending too much.
Or the Australian government care about the wrong people. That's fine. Simply state that.
But, again, no country is socialist. Just like no country is capitalist.
Again, the word has been demonized. Effectively so. To equate it with total state control. Well, this is the ANTITHESIS of socialism.
What the Soviet Union was was a monstrous tyrannical state.... The exact OPPOSITE of socialism.
I mean, the first thing that Lenin and Trotsky did was to destroy all remnants of actual socialism. And replace it with state tyranny and what was called a labor army. You know, orders came down from the top, to middle management and they handed those orders to the workers. SORT OF HOW A CORPORATE STRUCTURE WORKS.
One could and should define the former Soviet Union as simply a massive corporate state. Modeled on the principles of a corporation.
Again, we have to stop using words like socialism and capitalism. Because no countries are socialist or capitalist. As to how they're ACTUALLY defined.

[trish]

Yup we still have pennies, they cost us $.0167 per coin to mint. Now thats quality governmental thinking.It balances out when you think how little it costs (relatively) to make the hundred thousand dollar bill.

[russtafa]

I wouldn't call Gillard a socialist, I don't think Australia has ever had one in government. There was an interesting discussion on radio during our most gracious sovereign's trip to Australia, in which the mineral sector as the impetus for the Australian economy was discussed -not just North West Shelf gas, but now the vast shale gas deposits. Maybe Western Australia should go for independence...why should those hard working lads and lassies subsidies the beach bums of Sydney?Stavros there are large blocks of suburbs all though out Australia that do not work and never had work for generations,career single mothers,drug addicted families and career criminals that live of the government and hope to always do this.i would say that the Australian labor government is very socialist

[Stavros]

Stavros there are large blocks of suburbs all though out Australia that do not work and never had work for generations,career single mothers,drug addicted families and career criminals that live of the government and hope to always do this.i would say that the Australian labor government is very socialist

But most of the governments since 1949 have been Liberal, John Howard was in power for 11 years -the same years those suburban layabouts were hitting the beach in the daytime and old ladies at night: was he a socialist? Malcolm Fraser, PM for 7 years?

[russtafa]

But most of the governments since 1949 have been Liberal, John Howard was in power for 11 years -the same years those suburban layabouts were hitting the beach in the daytime and old ladies at night: was he a socialist? Malcolm Fraser, PM for 7 years?All our prime ministers are socialists compared with America.Malcom Fraser loved by all socialists ,he is an arsehole .i think you should think about Hawke and keating ,labor priministers that have done more damage to the working class in Australia than Howard has ever done.Keating that said that Australia had to have a level paying field and wiped out our tariffs and closed down entire towns,virtually wiped out our industries and put entire towns on social welfare

[Stavros]

Come on Russtafa you can't swipe the lot of them as if they were all the same, calling them all socialists is plain daft (presumably you think Menzies was a red too); your romantic attachment to the so-called working class of Australia compared to 'ferals' 'lebs' and whoever else is in the mix, doesn't seem to think they should in fact be working, and with the mining industry in Australia barely at its peak -traditionally a working class jobs niche- the question is why don't those beer swilling foul-mouthed layabouts up sticks and go where the work is -in Western Australia? Maybe you should go with them.

[russtafa]

Come on Russtafa you can't swipe the lot of them as if they were all the same, calling them all socialists is plain daft (presumably you think Menzies was a red too); your romantic attachment to the so-called working class of Australia compared to 'ferals' 'lebs' and whoever else is in the mix, doesn't seem to think they should in fact be working, and with the mining industry in Australia barely at its peak -traditionally a working class jobs niche- the question is why don't those beer swilling foul-mouthed layabouts up sticks and go where the work is -in Western Australia? Maybe you should go with them.stavros old pal you don't know what you are talking about ,those yobs in the state housing areas were offered jobs but i don't think there was a high acceptance rate ,pity you only read a few foreign papers and become an expert.if believed every thing about Europe i would think it was full of very rich yuppies and discos

[russtafa]

oh stavros i worked in W.A for 2years

[Stavros]

If you are saying there is no difference between Gough Whitlam and John Howard you would not be taken seriously in Australia, you just express your contempt for elected governments by damning them all as Socialists, not because any of them were, but because socialism for you is a lazy, but easy-to-use term of abuse, like someone on the left calling someone they don't agree with a Fascist, or a Stalinist.

If the government sponsored work schemes but the people weren't interested, then its hardly the fault of the government, which you continuously attack.

If you know Western Australia then presumably you know why some people go and never come back and why some can't wait to leave. Australia has all sorts of problems with its erratic and violent climate; but you are blessed with a huge land surface, a small but very well educated -and diverse population- mineral wealth that exceeds the ability of the state to produce it, which will form the basis of national wealth for decades to come; a relatively strong agricultural sector even if it is one subject to the climate problems I mentioned, and stable and secure political and economic institutions -let's put it another way, pace the suburbs of Melbourne, you are not Greece. All of your complaints and put-downs ignore the broadly positive aspects of life in Australia, which might not seem so obvious if you are stuck in some run-down alleyway in Sydney, which is hardly representative of Australia, any more than London is of the UK or New York City the USA.

[russtafa]

If you are saying there is no difference between Gough Whitlam and John Howard you would not be taken seriously in Australia, you just express your contempt for elected governments by damning them all as Socialists, not because any of them were, but because socialism for you is a lazy, but easy-to-use term of abuse, like someone on the left calling someone they don't agree with a Fascist, or a Stalinist.

If the government sponsored work schemes but the people weren't interested, then its hardly the fault of the government, which you continuously attack.

If you know Western Australia then presumably you know why some people go and never come back and why some can't wait to leave. Australia has all sorts of problems with its erratic and violent climate; but you are blessed with a huge land surface, a small but very well educated -and diverse population- mineral wealth that exceeds the ability of the state to produce it, which will form the basis of national wealth for decades to come; a relatively strong agricultural sector even if it is one subject to the climate problems I mentioned, and stable and secure political and economic institutions -let's put it another way, pace the suburbs of Melbourne, you are not Greece. All of your complaints and put-downs ignore the broadly positive aspects of life in Australia, which might not seem so obvious if you are stuck in some run-down alleyway in Sydney, which is hardly representative of Australia, any more than London is of the UK or New York City the USA.
no i am saying Gough all most bankrupted the country and Howard input the country in surplus i know you know that all socialist governments throw money around like it was nothing that's why they last for only 1 or 2 terms and yes they are for the no hopers and yuppies

[hippifried]

The word socialism has been so evacuated of meaning. The essence, core, backbone and basis of actual socialism is worker control of production (meaning deep and profound democracy), people controlling their own communities, their lives. (Not top-down or centralized control.) We can't just throw around words.
No we can't. But is your narrow take correct? I don't buy the idea that Marx invented the term, or is even an authority in its use. I guess maybe I'm just tired of all the crackpots pointing at other crackpots & trying to tell me that a "one way" or even linear thought process is legit as an authoritative reference.

We're social critters because we're bereft of fang or claw, & without the society, we're just another prey animal that doesn't survive because we're not fast or strong either. As far as I'm concerned, you're either a "socialist" or you're a hermit. Capitalism isn't some kind of separate or opposite system. It's just how business pools its collective resources, It's just privatized socialism with a narrow scope. The incessant McCarthyesque red baiting is just stupid or gullible people (either knowingly or unwittingly) promoting fascism.

[Stavros]

Neither Ben nor Russtafa understand Socialism as a concept in itself, one uses it as a term of abuse, the other is just confused.

Alexander Gray published a critical survey called The Socialist Tradition in 1947 which traced the ideas that constitute socialism back to Moses and ancient Greece; the concept of Christianity as a form of socialism has been problematic: in Europe the Christian Socialist parties that were established in the 19th century in Austria and Germany were extreme right and either mildly or explicitly anti-Jewish; whereas in the Netherlands and Switzerland they have tended to be centre-left. The Labour Party in the UK in part, and only in part, grew out of a powerful anti-establishment Christian socialist movement that viewed all men and women as equal in the sight of God, and therefore all property too. The influx of Russian, Eastern European and Baltic Jews into the Labour Party after its foundation in 1900 -and the Jews brought their own Socialist traditions to the UK- meant that officially Labour could never be wholly Christian; nevertheless its most famous left-wing Firebrand of recent years, Tony Benn is a teetotal Christian Socialist, and his famous adversary Denis Healey left the Revolutionary Communist Party in the 1940s to join Labour because it was more congenial with his personal Christian commitment to do something about poverty. A lot of the support Labour politicians have given to Israel relates to the mistaken belief that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a socialist experiment.

If socialism was one thing, it would be easy to discuss; but it is not. Marx and Engels, the latter in particular, bear some responsibility, appearing to create a division, in Engels words of Socialism: Utopian or Scientific? In which Marx's forensic analysis of capitalism was deemed to be scientific, and thefore TRUE, whereas the emotional, come on lads let's all work together ethos, was deemed to be romantic tosh with no political backbone.

Crucially, socialism must believe that private property must be abolished, that property be held in common; that goods that are produced should be shared equally; that equal opportunities for all are a human right. As it said on my Labour Party card before that traitor to history Antony Seldom Blair scrapped it:

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

[trish]

Crucially, socialism must believe that private property must be abolished, that property be held in commonIf that's a necessary tenant of socialism, there must be very few socialists indeed. Way fewer than people seem to see in every corner and nook. Certainly words evolve with usage. Once released into the public sphere, the messenger loses control of the message and the special jargon that may have been in it.

[Stavros]

If that's a necessary tenant of socialism, there must be very few socialists indeed. Way fewer than people seem to see in every corner and nook. Certainly words evolve with usage. Once released into the public sphere, the messenger loses control of the message and the special jargon that may have been in it.

But in the strict sense of the word no, there aren't many socialists around, and although it sounds arcane, a logical progression of Marx's critique of private property results in the abolition of money, because in a capitalist society in which everything is turned into a commodity, the value of a commodity is expressed in monetary terms. I once tried to explain to a Conservative who assumed the socialists were going to come and take away her house that this would not happen -but money will be abolished, which shocked her even more.

A moneyless society ecame part of a debate in 'revolutionary Russia' around 1919-20, Bukharin in particular advocating it. Lenin went one way, and then another, as he often did. The feeling was that the Civil War had caused so much disruption, inflation and so on that the new State was approaching a kind of Year Zero, ideal for creating a moneyless, propertyless society -it is also possible that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had this in mind when they embarked on their own Year Zero, suggesting it might not be a good idea, certainly not if imposed from above with attendant violence...

A mild version, sometimes called social democracy, or democratic socialism is associated with the Labour Govt of 1945 that brought into public ownership the railways and the transport system (ie buses), coal and steel, and education and health, although private services and schools were allowed to remain. Subsequently, although anti-socialists opposed these on ideological grounds, the Tories tended to argue that public owned industries were inefficient badly run, etc -and in some cases they were.

If the history is too obscure or well, just about things that have been and gone, ask yourself why people call Obama a Socialist -its mainly because it is associated with failure and is a term of abuse, it has nothing to do with ideas that challenge the concept of an individual rather than society, of what Habermas once called the Public Creation of Privately Appropriated Wealth....

[russtafa]

But in the strict sense of the word no, there aren't many socialists around, and although it sounds arcane, a logical progression of Marx's critique of private property results in the abolition of money, because in a capitalist society in which everything is turned into a commodity, the value of a commodity is expressed in monetary terms. I once tried to explain to a Conservative who assumed the socialists were going to come and take away her house that this would not happen -but money will be abolished, which shocked her even more.

A moneyless society ecame part of a debate in 'revolutionary Russia' around 1919-20, Bukharin in particular advocating it. Lenin went one way, and then another, as he often did. The feeling was that the Civil War had caused so much disruption, inflation and so on that the new State was approaching a kind of Year Zero, ideal for creating a moneyless, propertyless society -it is also possible that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had this in mind when they embarked on their own Year Zero, suggesting it might not be a good idea, certainly not if imposed from above with attendant violence...

A mild version, sometimes called social democracy, or democratic socialism is associated with the Labour Govt of 1945 that brought into public ownership the railways and the transport system (ie buses), coal and steel, and education and health, although private services and schools were allowed to remain. Subsequently, although anti-socialists opposed these on ideological grounds, the Tories tended to argue that public owned industries were inefficient badly run, etc -and in some cases they were.

If the history is too obscure or well, just about things that have been and gone, ask yourself why people call Obama a Socialist -its mainly because it is associated with failure and is a term of abuse, it has nothing to do with ideas that challenge the concept of an individual rather than society, of what Habermas once called the Public Creation of Privately Appropriated Wealth....well i know what i dislike and it's what you people support so i don't like it automatically:)

[russtafa]

I support anything by on My Knees or Erika and can not go wrong

[Faldur]

Amen!

Adam Carolla on OWS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJD8pZiRIzs&feature=player_embedded)

[Ben]

Amen!

Adam Carolla on OWS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJD8pZiRIzs&feature=player_embedded)

Nobody decried Steve Jobs for attaining an 8 billion dollar fortune. No one decries Madonna for being a multi-millionaire. No one decries Lady Gaga for being a multi-millionaire or Britney Spears. Or Charlie Sheen. Or Tom Cruise. No one is upset with Brad Pitt being a multi-millionaire.
Or for Julia Roberts making $20 million a film.
Or Nicole Kidman being rich.
No one decries George Lucas for being a billionaire. No one decries Oprah Winfrey for being a billionaire. Or Steven Spielberg. You can't sustain a protest movement based on wealth inequality. It wouldn't work in America.
So, no one decries a businessman or woman who invests his or her own money and works hard and is thus rewarded.
Adam Carolla says at the end of the clip, "There goes Mr. Jenkins, he works hard, he built a company." Exactly. But what Adam Carolla omits is the corruption, the corruption on Wall Street. No one, again, decries, say, a Mr. Jenkins for working hard and building a company. That isn't the point. I mean, Ron Paul could explicate all of this to Adam Carolla -- :)
The profound problem is the corruption. The problem, as RON PAUL has said, is soft fascism.
Fascism was coined by Mussolini. It means: a merger of corporate power with state power. (When Dick Cheney gets to HOLD ONTO HIS SHARES AT HALLIBURTON when he's vice president and then hands them billions and billions of public money and the stock goes up and then he cashes in when he leaves office, well, that's downright sleazy corruption. That's money that's undeserved. Unless you think everything is okay, criminal activity is okay, corruption is okay. Everything is fine with respect to how you make your money.)
After the 2008 crash General Motors and the other auto companies were bailed out, were saved by the government. Again, what does that have to do with principles of free markets?
We, all the time, RADICALLY VIOLATE free market principles. By violating core free market principles, well, we don't believe in pure capitalism.
Also, take, say, free trade. The core of free trade is the free circulation of labor. Meaning you can go anywhere you want. Again, we violate this core notion of market principles!
And it's the corporate takeover of congress, of the presidency. That's the crux of the problem. The democratic system has been bought. Elections now are essentially bought. Whichever candidate raises the most money wins.
Bankers got behind Obama and he won. (And it's the sleazy revolving door that exists between politicians and corporations.)
The problem, in part, is that we don't live in a free market system. Because what does bailing out the banks have to do with capitalism??????? In capitalist theory when the lender lends he/she assumes the risk. And if he/she loses, well, they assume that loss. Again, what does baling out the banks have to do with free market capitalism??????
What we have is a rigged system.
Adam Carolla doesn't talk about the stark erosion of the middle class. He doesn't even talk about externalities. I mean, externalities are a big problem in the economy. He doesn't mention the vast investments made by the state sector in this so-called capitalist society. I mean, things like the Internet, computers, radio, television, lasers etc. etc. came out of the state sector. (Places like M.I.T. and the University of Chicago.)
The Internet was in the State sector from 1965 to 1995 and then was handed over to the private sector. Which no one really knows how it happened.
All this goes back to Adam Smith. Adam Smith was worried about England when he said the free movement of capital and free import of goods would harm England. This has happened to America. America looks the way it does because of policy decisions.
I mean, if you wanted to raise wages for the vast majority of the population, well, you tighten the labor market. How do you do this? Well, bring down the retirement age. And restrict the number of immigrants -- as was done throughout the 50s, 60s and early 70s which brought about a burgeoning middle class.
Actually, a middle class was created through tax policy decisions and unions.

[trish]

The profound problem is that wealth is power and wealth inequality is reflected the inequality of political power. The fix is for the people, through the State, to regulate the modes of wealth acquisition and taxation to protect the commons and create revenues to serve the common good. The State (of by and for the people) is there to protect OUR shared resources and OUR shared liberties. Neither our liberties nor our resources are there for the taking by greediest opportunist. They are there for US.


Actually, a middle class was created through tax policy decisions and unions. Exactly

[sammitv]

http://ut7.xhamster.com/t/887/5_b_938887.jpg (http://xhamster.com/movies/938887/watch_me_make_this_14inch_dildo_vanish_up_my_t_gir l_pussy.html)

[BluegrassCat]

Good, I finally get to use the block button.