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Author Topic: Key Historical Events ...THAT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF  (Read 21892 times)

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AGelbert

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All this stuff about brainwashed capitalist ideologues believing this thing that's wrong or that thing....it's so obvious that you have this construct in your mind about what "other" people (like me in particular)  believe. I'll tell you just like I told Palloy. You really don't have much of a clue what I believe. And it's because you don't pay much attention to what I write here, since you have so many pre-conceived erroneous notions.

And you thought it was about the "Evil Red Russians", didn't you?

Uh, no. Actually, I didn't think that.

Durng the 1930's there was a LULL in Capitalist anti-Communist activity, NOT a "friendly to Communists/Socialists" activity. 


Actually, in the 1930's there were millions of people with no money, no food, and no prospects. This created a powerful impetus for change. Change did occur.

As recently as the 1920's we had people like Scott Nearing being fired from his faculty position at the Wharton School of Business because he wrote articles criticizing child labor in NYC sweat shops. We don't have sweat shops now, and that's because, between the labor unions and the New Deal, which instituted America's version of what you could call Social Democracy Lite, the plight of working people in this country improved a lot. My opinion is that the success of what real socialists would consider very minor improvements were enough keep working people from fomenting revolution.

POLITICS IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
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Radical Alternatives to a Collapsing System
In retrospect, we know that during the Great Depression the American people never rose up en masse to demand the overhaul—much less overthrow—of their long-established system of democratic capitalism, even though that system largely failed to relieve the miseries of the Depression for more than a decade.

In retrospect, we know that most meaningful long-lasting reform that emerged from the crisis of the Great Depression came from Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which permanently enlarged the role of the federal government in American society and tempered, for half a century, the volatility of the free market.

At the time, however, it wasn't at all clear that the New Deal marked the outer limit of possible sociopolitical change. The structural breakdown of the American system led many Americans to embrace much more radical alternatives to the status quo. And while none of those radical alternatives were ever fully realized (and many of them seem downright quixotic in hindsight), they did profoundly alter the boundaries of political possibility while influencing the direction of the New Deal.

American Communists: From Sectarianism to Popular Front
For communists, the Great Crash of 1929 and its bleak aftermath seemed definitive proof of Karl Marx's assertion that capitalism contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. While communists hoped—and most everyone else feared—that the Great Depression would lead to a proletarian uprising, the revolution never materialized.

Always a tiny minority in American society, the communists weakened their position further through their own rigid adherence to counterproductive doctrine. Until 1935, the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA), following the direction of the Communist International in Moscow, insisted that the greatest threat to worldwide workers' revolution came from the false promise of other liberal and left-wing groups. So, throughout the early years of the Depression, American communists devoted an inordinate amount of their time and resources to attacking New Dealers, socialists, Wobblies, American Federation of Labor trade unionists, Lovestonites, Musteites, and other obscure groups of non-communist left-wingers as "social fascists."

The average American worker—who surely couldn't distinguish a Musteite from a Muscovite if his life depended on it—found nothing appealing in the communists' extreme sectarianism. By 1934, despite the seemingly favorable circumstances for recruitment created by the Depression, the CPUSA still had fewer than 30,000 members nationwide.26

After 1935, however, international communist doctrine changed. Rather than denouncing non-communist liberals as "social fascists," communists would seek to make common cause with them under the banner of the "Popular Front." The new strategy freed American communists to work with New Dealers and trade unionists, which allowed the CPUSA to achieve the widest influence in its history. Communist activists took up leading roles in organizations defending civil rights and civil liberties, advocating friendship with the Soviet Union, representing the unemployed, and—especially—organizing the huge new unions of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).

While the Communist Party never gained a mass following in the United States, and Americans never came anywhere close to a Red Revolution, the Popular Front did allow the communists to achieve a wider influence in American society than ever before or since.

"Bring Back Some of That Grub!"
In the 1930s, the communists were far from alone in advocating the redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots. Bombastic Louisiana Democratic Senator Huey P. Long shot to national prominence by promising to "Share Our Wealth." Long sold his simple vision—which called for limiting wealthy individuals' fortunes to a few million dollars and redistributing the "excess" to the masses—with a uniquely folksy, if demagogic, personal style.

Long memorably likened the Depression-era economy to a Louisiana barbecue.

"How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what's intended for nine-tenths of the people to eat? The only way you'll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub that he ain't got no business with!

Now we got a barbecue. We have been praying to the Almighty to send us a feast. We have knelt on our knees morning and nighttime. The Lord has answered the prayer. He has called the barbecue. 'Come to my feast,' He said to 125 million American people. But Morgan and Rockefeller and Mellon and Baruch have walked up and took 85 percent of the victuals off the table!

Now, how are you going to feed the balance of the people? What's Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon going to do with all that grub? They can't eat it, they can't wear the clothes, they can't live in the houses... when they've got everything on God's loving earth that they can eat and they can wear and they can live in, and all that their children can live in and wear and eat, and all of their children's children can use, then we've got to call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Mellon and Mr. Rockefeller back and say, come back here, put that stuff back on this table here that you took away from here that you don't need. Leave something else for the American people to consume. And that's the program."27

The program, crude as it was, may have been entirely unrealistic, but that didn't stop it from becoming wildly popular. By 1935, Long claimed that more than 7.5 million Americans subscribed to the mailing lists of the 27,000 Share Our Wealth clubs scattered throughout the country.28

Long, who criticized the New Deal as too conservative, pondered an independent run for the White House in 1936—and Democratic polls indicated he might win as many as three or four million votes, potentially costing President Roosevelt his re-election. Some even feared that Huey Long's populism and personality cult made him a likely candidate to become an American fascist dictator; Roosevelt called him one of the two most dangerous men in the country.

Huey Long's left-populist challenge to Roosevelt ended on September 8th, 1935, when he was assassinated inside the Louisiana state capitol by the son-in-law of a local political enemy. A faint echo of Long's Share the Wealth program survived, however, in Roosevelt's "Wealth Tax" of 1935, which boosted the highest tax rate for the richest Americans to a nearly confiscatory 79%.

EPIC Threat In California

In 1934, the New Deal received another major challenge from the left—this time in California. Upton Sinclair—a writer remembered today mainly as the author of The Jungle, the classic 1906 muckraking exposé of the meatpacking industry—was a lifelong socialist who became frustrated with the New Deal's inability to end the Depression and founded EPIC (End Poverty in California) to pursue more radical solutions.

Rather than putting the unemployed on relief, Sinclair proposed to put them to work within a state-organized "production-for-use" economy totally independent from the capitalist marketplace. Under Sinclair's communitarian scheme, the state would take over idle farms and factories, allowing the jobless to grow their own food or produce their own clothing and other goods. Any surplus could be traded, through a system of barter, only for other goods produced within the system.

It was a shocking commentary on the state of the capitalist economy that Sinclair's scheme—which wasn't really much different from a pre-modern barter system—was seen by many Californians as a visionary solution to modern America's problems.

Registering as a Democrat, Sinclair ran for Governor on the EPIC platform in 1934, and pulled off a huge, surprising victory in the primary election. Considered the front-runner in the general election, Sinclair was subjected to intense attacks from both Republicans and Democrats who feared that his victory would effectively remove California from the capitalist orbit and pave the way for communism.

Meanwhile, Sinclair was also attacked by the communists themselves, who stuck to their sectarian policy by attacking EPIC as "social fascism.") Opponents of EPIC—including many New Dealers who reluctantly backed arch-conservative Republican Frank Merriam over the old muckraker—claimed that if Sinclair were elected, California would be overrun by millions of hoboes looking for a free lunch and that Sinclair "concealed the communistic wolf in the dried skin of the Democratic donkey."29

Sinclair lost the general election, drawing almost 880,000 votes to Merriam's 1.13 million. Still, considering the radicalism (and even utopianism) of the EPIC platform, Sinclair's vote tally was remarkably high; if 260,000 Californians had switched their votes in Sinclair's favor, California would have embarked upon a socio-economic experiment unlike anything in American history.

Pensioners to the Rescue: The Townsend Plan
California was also the origin of another radical scheme that swept the nation toward the latter end of President Roosevelt's first term: the Townsend Plan.

Francis Townsend, 66 years old, was a retired country doctor. Believing that the two fundamental problems underlying the Depression were too little consumer spending and too many workers seeking too few jobs, Townsend proposed a national sales tax to fund a $200 monthly pension for all Americans over age 60 who pledged not to work and to spend the full amount within the month. The scheme would remove the elderly from the work force, opening up jobs for younger workers, while the seniors' mandatory spending of $200 a month each would create the demand for consumer goods needed to get the economy going again.

Like Huey Long's Share the Wealth program, the Townsend Plan was politically appealing but economically preposterous. Funding Townsend's generous pensions for the aged would have absorbed fully half the national income.30

Still, like Share the Wealth, the Townsend movement attracted millions of boosters throughout the country. As many as 25 million Americans signed petitions demanding that their representatives pass the Townsend Plan as a federal law.

In the end, the Townsend Plan was pre-empted by FDR's own Social Security legislation, which passed in 1935 and provided federal pensions to the elderly, at least in part to head off Townsend's momentum. However, Social Security benefits initially were only about one-tenth of those called for by Dr. Townsend, and Townsend Clubs remained active in demanding more generous old-age pensions well into the 1950s.



https://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/politics.html


You're making me into some kind of cut-out enemy in your mind. It isn't your portrayal of the facts that I take issue with, it's your venomous anger at what you perceive as capitalism being the personification of evil, and the way you make it into this black and white issue, whereby anyone who questions your assumptions sends you off to write the definitive opus on the history of capitalism...in order to set me straight on the facts. Dude, I have some slight comprehension of the facts. I just don't agree with you completely.

I really don't find anything in this long rant that I didn't know, at least in general terms...or anything in your broader assessment that I even disagree with that much. But like all your posts on this subject, it's the product of a very narrow view, and it's the equivalent of a five minute book report on an epic novel. It's very much the Readers Digest condensed version for rabid socialists. There's a whole lot left out.


Since the 1930's, this country has been a very weak social democracy, no matter what you choose to call it. Marx was right. Pure capitalism did run into big problems. But it wasn't overthrown or eliminated. It was slightly modified, out of sheer necessity, at a time when the capitalists were running scared. This proved to be enough to keep the wheels from coming off.

Marx never anticipated the information age, nor did any other economic theorists. Just when capitalism started to hit the wall again, the age of computers changed everything again, providing a new economic engine from digital technology. At the same time, the shift of manufacturing to China started making consumer goods really comparatively cheap by historical standards.

Too many people got fat and happy, and the foxes took over the henhouse. There's more to it. At this same time Wall Street predators like Carl Icahn learned to destroy US companies for fun and profit.

Maybe blame some of what's happened to the successful Bernaysian brainwashing Palloy likes to talk about. I blame a lot of it on schools that dumb kids down instead of making them into critical thinkers.

But now, most people just can't connect the dots. It's beyond their limited ability to comprehend....it's a complex system with lots of nuances. Not one person in 1000 has the least clue what's going on.


The 1970's was a time of great hope. But the public got really complacent. The pendulum was allowed to swing very hard to the right in the 1980's, and it hasn't quite even started to swing back. It will, I believe. But I expect it will be a case of "too little too late".

I do agree with Palloy that media brainwashing played a roll in creating the public attitudes that brought us the Reagans and all that's followed. I just don't want him or you to think that my POV comes from a lifetime of Bernaysian programming. If I weren't capable of critical thinking, I probably wouldn't hang out on a site populated by folks waiting for the end of Life As We Know It.

As I've said before, and I will repeat one more time, I'm not a Reaganite or a Trumpite. I come from a working class background, and I've  never been any kind of apologist whatsoever for the evils of capitalism. I'm an armchair student of human social interactions, of which politics is a part. I'm just as much as perplexed and upset about the failures of human civilization as you are. I just don't worship socialism like you do. I'd be happy, though, with a more equitable arrangement than what we have now.

But we aren't headed for a successful socialist revolution. Even if we have one, it won't help much. Our birthright has already been spent, and we can't get it back. We are primed for a new socialist  movement. But it won't be driven by a sensible desire to share the wealth. It will be driven by the coming collapse, which will push the have-nots to insist that the state needs to save them from homelessness and starvation.

If resources were plentiful, something good might come of that. As it is, it will be a useless, last minute attempt to stop the Titanic from going down, and it won't work.

I take a critical view of most ideologies, including capitalism, but also socialism. My objections to socialism as a panacea have a lot to do with the nuts and bolts of how it works, and not the broader ideas.

We no longer have the same situation that we had in 1877 or even in 1919.

Taxation of workers, for instance. In 1900 there was no income tax and no sales tax. Now those two consume as much as half of what a worker makes.

Taxation is the engine that's supposed to provide the cash for the programs that a social democracy provides. I consider myself a worker. I derive my income from highly skilled labor. The investments I make come from the surplus I create. I don't steal it from anybody, RE's rants to the contrary not withstanding. This makes me fundamentally different from the people you refer to as capitalists, who really are CORPORATISTS.

If the transfer of wealth from overtaxation was passed through to give benefits for the truly needy that'd be one thing. Or if it went to good causes like university education. But the truth is that taxation is a way of bleeding the poor and he middle class, so that the rich can build these conduit schemes in the course of administering the benefits.....that accrues even more wealth to them and their infernal corporations.

And it creates the system for deficit financing for a permanent state of war, instead of creating the decent social programs we should be paying for.

We could fix all this pretty easily. But we don't. We haven't. I have to assume we will not.

So pardon me, but I object to wealth transfers that lead to massive wasted resources and misappropriations. Especially when it involves me writing six figure checks to the IRS, which I do every year.

If we could just:

Limit terms for politicians.

Limit the accumulation of massive intergenerational wealth.

Take corporate money out of the election process.

Three simple steps....this would change everything. But people ARE too programmed and/or too dumb to figure it out. So everybody loses. None of those obvious simple things can even be accomplished.

Your depiction of "capitalists" as if they were some nameless, faceless group of evil smokestack era industrialists who all eat dinner at the same club together and plot to keep the masses of working stiffs in line? That might have made sense in 1920. But it isn't an accurate depiction of where we are, and sadly, it can't be fixed by the few well-meaning, ethical politicians who are left. All three of them. (Maybe fewer, that's an optimistic estimate.) Bernie can't fix it. I'd vote for him if I could, but he still couldn't fix our predicament.

So all this sturm and drang about the Workers Struggle and the Evil Elites is just a lot of farting in the breeze now. It's all over......all but the part where the anvil lands on Wylie Coyote's head and squashes him flat.

I'm not sure, but I suspect you probably were one of the air traffic controllers that got **** over by Reagan, which was kind of a watershed event, whereby the capitalists were finally able to start taking things back off the table that workers of previous generations worked so hard to get.

I can understand that you might have a very personal reason to be invested in your personal POV, which I consider completely legitimate, btw. I'm not even arguing with you. I'm trying to make you understand my points, which often get ignored, as you folks with such strong belief systems want to put me in a box that isn't even my box.

I hated Reagan and the reactionaries who put him in charge. Believe me when I tell you that I view Ronald Reagan's presidency as The Beginning Of The End of America. I hated that prick and everything he stood for.

And just a couple more things. Just an aside, really. When I mentioned Hoover, I wasn't talking about J. Edgar Hoover. I know what a tool he was. I'm old enough to actually remember him.

I was talking about ex-president Herbert Hoover, who headed the Hoover Commission, the erroneous findings of which landed us in Viet Nam for all the wrong reasons (among other negative consequences).

And that part about all anarchists being socialists? Not sure if that was ever true, but it certainly is not true now. And they aren't all pacifists either. Not Ted K.

But this rant is over for me, and your follow-up, now doubt delivered in a tone even more shrill, must remain unanswered by me. I just don't care enough about what you believe to even waste my time.

The gentlleman Eddie doth protest too much!

Eddie said, after a long post where in which he assumes my post is directed exclusively at him. That's rather arrogant of you, Eddie.


Quote
But this rant is over for me, and your follow-up, now doubt delivered in a tone even more shrill, must remain unanswered by me. I just don't care enough about what you believe to even waste my time.

Eddie, the reason I have engaged your erroneous view of Capitalism and American Anti-Socialist skullduggery before 1947 is not to actually convince you of anything. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone reading here that, as you said, you do not care. I wish you did care. Nevertheless it is refreshing to hear you admit you do not.

I had other reasons. Many here don't know the history and I wanted to help them understand it. Capitalism is morally bankrupt. It really bends you out of shape for me to say that and you take it personally while trying to frame me as the "touchy" hysteric. You shouldn't. You then ascribe all sorts of hatefilled hysteria to me. You shouldn't. I'm for peace, not hate. Capitalism is for hate, division, poverty and war for profit. If you don't believe that, you are wrong.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Eddie, the reason I have engaged your erroneous view of Capitalism and american Anti-Socialist skullduggery before 1947 is not to actually convine you of anything. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone reading here that, as you said, you do not care. I wish you did care. Nevertheless it is refreshing to hear you admit you do not.

Once again you are trying to twist my words. I leave it to any readers who might have a shred of intelligence to figure that out. I expect there are some, but they probably can see that you're a crank too, and won't waste time responding.

That my view is or was erroneous is your take. And I have taken the time to try to explain why I disagree, which is way more than I should have done.

What I don't care about is what silly old cranks think, you included. I do care about the subject material, which should be obvious to anyone who took the time to read what I wrote. It's not hard to follow unless you have real tunnel vision.

That's Ad hom.    I thought you weren't going  to "waste your time". Have a nice day.

Oh, I'm ad hom now am I? 

What I am is tired of people putting words in my mouth. I don't suffer fools gladly. Your bullshit about my "erroneous" views is worse than ad hom. It's a deliberate attempt to misrepresent my POV, which you are never going to get away with.

Erroneous views....f u ck you, a s s h o l e.

Now THAT is ad hom. Just so you know.


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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As I have previously posted, the historical narrative claims that Hoover used his COINTELPRO tools only AFTER 1947. That is a bold faced lie. Yes, they were more polished and high tech by the 1950's, but they were a rinse and repeat of what Hoover began doing as far back as the early 20th Century, when he fabricated evidence against Anarchists/Socialists/Communists, even before Hoover orchestrated the 1919 First Red Scare. By that time most, if not all of the following heinous tools of repression, were old hat for Hoover, who carefully developed ALL OF THEM.

Hoover was engaged in Eavesdropping, Bogus mail, Black propaganda, Disinformation, Harassment arrests, Infiltrators or agent provocateurs, Bad-jacketing, Fabrication of evidence and Assassinations.

Here's an explanation of each morally bankrupt technique plus some true US history NOT taught in the USA:

Quote
The FBI, in close collaboration with local police units (sometimes called Red Squads ), used a number of techniques in its efforts to disrupt and destroy leftist groups, the most important of which are enumerated here.5

Eavesdropping: This involved not only electronic surveillance, but also putting “tails” on people and breaking into offices and homes, as well as tampering with mail. The FBI's intention was not simply to gather intelligence, but, by making their presence known in various ways, create paranoia among activists.

Bogus mail: FBI agents would fabricate letters, ostensibly written by movement activists, which spread lies and disinformation. The Bureau sent many fake letters to American Indian Movement (AIM) and Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders and activists that were designed to sow confusion and division in the ranks. The Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver wings of the BPP, for example, were split after the FBI sent a number of manufactured letters from disgruntled party members to Cleaver, then in exile in Algeria, criticizing Huey Newton's leadership.

Black propaganda: The distribution of fabricated articles, leaflets, etc., that misrepresented the politics and objectives of an organization or leader, in order to discredit the group or individual and to pit people and organizations against each other.

Disinformation: The FBI often released false or misleading information to the press to discredit groups or individuals and to foster tension.

Harassment arrests: The police or FBI often arrested leaders and activists on trumped up charges in order to tie up activists in legal and court proceedings, drain their financial resources, and heighten their sense of fear and paranoia.

Infiltrators or agent provocateurs: The infiltration of organizations by police agents served two purposes. One was to gather intelligence on the group. Provocateurs were used to try and encourage individuals to engage in illegal activity that could then be attributed to the group as a whole; to disrupt the internal functioning of organizations; and to assist in spreading of disinformation inside and outside the group.

Bad-jacketing: This “refers to the practice of creating suspicion-through the spread of rumors, manufacture of evidence, etc.-that bonafide organizational members, usually in key positions, are FBI/police informers.”6 The technique was used to particularly deadly effect inside the American Indian Movement. Talented AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash, for example, who was murdered on Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in February 1976, was first subject to a successful whispering campaign, initiated against her by FBI informant Doug Durham, who had joined the AIM chapter in Des Moines, Iowa. Durham's role in AIM also seems to have been to encourage AIM members to engage in “rash, inflammatory acts,” according to author Peter Mathiessen.7 Durham, for example, released “several unauthorized memos, disseminated on organizational letterhead, indicating that AIM was preparing to launch a campaign of 'systematic violence.'”8

Fabrication of evidence: FBI agents, police, and prosecutors routinely fabricated evidence in order to obtain convictions in criminal cases against activists. A number of AIM and BPP activists, including BPP leader Geronimo Pratt and AIM leader Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison for three decades for a crime he did not commit, were convicted on such trumped-up evidence.9

Assassinations: There is ample evidence that FBI and related agencies played a direct role in the assassination of a number of key radical leaders.

Who did COINTELPRO target?

While COINTELPRO was initiated against the Communist Party (CP) in 1956, the program expanded to include civil rights groups and the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) by the time Kennedy became president in 1961 and his brother, Robert, served as attorney general. In fact, Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, months before Kennedy's assassination, won him the FBI designation as “the most dangerous Negro in the future of this Nation.”10 President Johnson, while expanding the war in Vietnam and rhetorically battling the war on poverty at home, used the Black inner-city rebellions of the mid-sixties from Watts to Detroit as a pretext to issue “'standing instructions' that the Bureau should bring the 'instigators' of such 'riots' to heel, by any means at its disposal.”11

Among the many targets of COINTELPRO, the most serious attention was paid to those movements that most threatened state interests. The most violent repression under COINTELPRO was used against the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. It was fueled by the state's need to preserve the near total political and economic disenfranchisement of people of color in the face of the first serious threats to the racial status quo since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The need of the American empire to keep Puerto Rico in its colonial orbit, while it was losing the war in Southeast Asia, drove the violent repression there and against Puerto Rican immigrants in the United States.


http://www.isreview.org/issues/49/cointelpro.shtml





Read more: https://www.noi.org/cointelpro/

It is also germaine to this discussion of WHO gets marginalized and WHY in our Capitalist "Paradise" to remember that the "right" to VOTE for women, Native Americans. African Americans AND Puerto Ricans (1916 Jones Act made them citizens so they could be Cannon fodder for WWI), as long as they moved to the continental USA, if they moved to the USA was obtained until IT DID NOT MATTER. That is, the CORK on the maximum number of Representatives in Congress was (illegally -it was NEVER ratified by the required numberof States!) was rammed though in 1911. So, any semblance of a "Democratic" Republic that USA had disappeared into the Capitalist Boardrooms who buy our politiicians to make "laws" for them.

Quote
In addition to setting the number of U.S. Representatives at 435 😈 💵 🎩 🍌[ img]http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418203402.gif[/img]  , the Apportionment Act of 1911 returned to the Webster method of apportionment of U.S. Representatives. Adopted in 1868, Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had already removed the three-fifths method of counting slaves, and instead required "counting the whole number of all persons in each State."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_Act_of_1911


This is an old graphic. A Capitalist RAT has been replaced. But they are still a bunch Capitalist TOADY RATS!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The issue here is that "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".  As long as you maintain the position the "Capitalism has some good points, it was just corrupted by a few Evil Men at the top", you are part of the problem.  This is the group of people who now try to make a distinction between "capitalism" and "corporatism". Trying to throw whitewash over a really bad system which has impoverished billions for the profit of 1%.  It's not the "few bad apples" that make Capitalism bad, the system itself is rotten to the core.

Will Socialism fix all the ills of resource depletion and population overshoot we have now?  Of course not, but it would provide a more equitable distribution of wealth during the spin down.  All the wealth of the top 10% should be stripped and used to fund the rebuilding of public infrastructure.  All excess housing besides the dwelling a person actually lives in should be converted to housing for the Homeless.  All excess vehicles besides the one the person needs for daily tasks should be converted to a fleet for pbulicly available rental cars at affordable prices.  All wages should come within 1 Standard Deviation of the mean, in our current economy around $70K household income.  Essentially this means nobody over $150K, nobody under $35K.  Medical care should be public and supported by taxation on profits and excess income above the $150K threshhold.

Most industries should be converted to Worker Cooperatives, run by the workers.  The main conduits in particular, Energy, Food, Housing, Medicine, Communications and Transportation.  Managers should be selected by the workers, not by the share holders in a corporation.  Banking and Money Creation should be done by Goobermint, not by a private cartel of International Banksters.

Many other changes are necessary of course, but this would be a good start towards managing the spin down we have ahead here.  Capitalism and its Apologists are the Enemy, they gotta go.

RE

This is all so incredibly f u c k i n' silly.

It's ALL gonna go. Capitalist, socialist, monarchy, whatever.

What's a socialist country anyway?  Are there any in existence? Where?

I see some "social democracies". These are capitalist countries, because it's the capitalists paying the taxes that create the wealth to redistribute.

Sweden is the poster child.

Yesterday I got in trouble with Palloy because I said Russia was socialist, and he corrected me. They have rich oligarchs.

China has all kinds of rich oligarchs.

Viet Nam?

N Korea?

Cuba?

Are those your idea of a successful way to run a  country. No thanks. I'll pass. The Repressed Citizens of America are way better off than the people in any of those places. Even smack shootin' rednecks in the trailer park are better off. People in NK are HUNGRY. The poor people here are obese.

Do you mean some hypothetical socialist country where people in power DON'T feather their own nests because they can? Some perfect world socialist country. Yeah, I'll take that. But it'll only happen when flocks of flying monkeys erupt from my ass
.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Do you mean some hypothetical socialist country where people in power DON'T feather their own nests because they can? Some perfect world socialist country. Yeah, I'll take that. But it'll only happen when flocks of flying monkeys erupt from my ass.

LOL.  I never said such a country or Goobermint currently exists, or in fact has ever existed.  But then again, no truly "Capitalist" country ever existed either.

My main goal is to provide a roadmap to a Better Tomorrow.  That is the goal of the SUN project.  I know the current system in the FSoA is FUBAR and will collapse of it's own accord.  So I present ideas on how to improve on things as the spin down progresses in terms of equity in collapse.  It won't take monkeys flying out of your ass either.  It will just take empty shelves at Walmart.

If you don't like the new system, feel free to hop on a sailboat and go...somewhere else.

RE
  ;D
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Among the many targets of COINTELPRO, the most serious attention was paid to those movements that most threatened state interests. The most violent repression under COINTELPRO was used against the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. It was fueled by the state's need to preserve the near total political and economic disenfranchisement of people of color in the face of the first serious threats to the racial status quo since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The need of the American empire to keep Puerto Rico in its colonial orbit, while it was losing the war in Southeast Asia, drove the violent repression there and against Puerto Rican immigrants in the United States.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/49/cointelpro.shtml

MLK, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Harry and Harriette Moore, and worst of all, the state-ordered execution of Fred Hampton and mark Clark  in 1969. Chicago police formed a "select group" but his assassination was demonstrated a conspiracy between local law enforcement and the FBI. The cops claimed, of course, that they were involved in  “shootout.” A bald-faced lie: the physical evidence definitively established that the raiders fired nearly 100 shots at the Panthers while they were sleeping, while only one shot could be linked to a Panther weapon. Because ballistics.

After the raid the Minister of Defense for the Black Panther Party, Bobby Rush, declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were responsible. But there was no hard proof. The first documentation that supported Rush’s claim came in 1971 when activists broke into an FBI office in Media, PA, and liberated a trove of FBI documents. These outlined the FBI’s COINTELPRO program and its focus in the 1960s on the Black liberation movement and its leaders. As noted above, Hoover directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “disrupt, misdirect, and otherwise neutralize” African American organizations and leaders including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Nation of Islam, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.

You know the rest. Thus the wages of "revolution" here in this capitalist paradise.


Exactly correct!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The issue here is that "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".  As long as you maintain the position the "Capitalism has some good points, it was just corrupted by a few Evil Men at the top", you are part of the problem.  This is the group of people who now try to make a distinction between "capitalism" and "corporatism". Trying to throw whitewash over a really bad system which has impoverished billions for the profit of 1%.  It's not the "few bad apples" that make Capitalism bad, the system itself is rotten to the core.

Will Socialism fix all the ills of resource depletion and population overshoot we have now?  Of course not, but it would provide a more equitable distribution of wealth during the spin down.  All the wealth of the top 10% should be stripped and used to fund the rebuilding of public infrastructure.  All excess housing besides the dwelling a person actually lives in should be converted to housing for the Homeless.  All excess vehicles besides the one the person needs for daily tasks should be converted to a fleet for pbulicly available rental cars at affordable prices.  All wages should come within 1 Standard Deviation of the mean, in our current economy around $70K household income.  Essentially this means nobody over $150K, nobody under $35K.  Medical care should be public and supported by taxation on profits and excess income above the $150K threshhold.

Most industries should be converted to Worker Cooperatives, run by the workers.  The main conduits in particular, Energy, Food, Housing, Medicine, Communications and Transportation.  Managers should be selected by the workers, not by the share holders in a corporation.  Banking and Money Creation should be done by Goobermint, not by a private cartel of International Banksters.

Many other changes are necessary of course, but this would be a good start towards managing the spin down we have ahead here.  Capitalism and its Apologists are the Enemy, they gotta go.
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There is one thing that virtually everyone is missing... that "golden age" of American capitalism, the 1950s and 1960s, the one when America was "great"?  Who owned the vast majority of corporate stocks back then?  Pension funds.  So, indirectly, the corporations, in being run for the shareholder's benefits, were being run for for the worker's benefit, when they retired, on their defined benefit plan.  But then, in the 1970s, the switch was made to defined contribution plans, and participation made optional, and ownership of corporations dwindled away from the workers.

Excellent, excellent point. The switch from defined benefit to defined contribution plans is a foundation stone of building a precariat, and impoverishing retirees.

True.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Message to Eddie, who agrees I am a "good man" man as long as I don't call him out on his erroneous view of history, at which point he shows his coarse lack of compassion for me, an aged and infirm fellow American, by going partial, and then FULL Ad Hominem:

🕵️ ;D

This entire discussion began when YOU claimed that Communism wasn't a negative "buzzword" before 1947. While it is true that the expression, "negative buzzword", did not even exist in the English language back then  ;D, I jumped because Anti-Communist propaganda and skullduggery dates to the turn of the 20th Century and before. 

I showed you evidence that you were wrong about Communism not being a negative "buzzword" before 1947.

Also, I claimed that your view that the 1930's was a "friendly" period towards Communism was also wrong.

That got your Texas pride filled drawers in a bunch and you went on the attack, starting with trying to frame me as a "touchy", "Shrill", etc. you get the idea (SEE: attack the messenger fallacious debating technique). 

Let us assume for the moment that my attitude towards Capitalism is as pedestrianly uneducated as my "simplistic irrationally positive" view of Communism/Socialism/Anarchism.

How did you put it? I think this thoroughly demeaning quote of yours pretty much covers it (I know, after this post you will Texas double down on your insults by claiming that I ain't seen nuttin' yet  ;)):

Quote
I really don't find anything in this long rant that I didn't know, at least in general terms...or anything in your broader assessment that I even disagree with that much. But like all your posts on this subject, it's the product of a very narrow view, and it's the equivalent of a five minute book report on an epic novel. It's very much the Readers Digest condensed version for rabid socialists. There's a whole lot left out.

The above quote is revealing. You do NOT, generally  ;), DISAGREE with my historical "rant", yet you are silent as death about the FACT that you previously erroneously claimed that Communism wasn't a negative "buzzword" before 1947.

Now, either you DID know that and you didn't want to talk about pre-1947 persecution of Communists, or you DIDN'T know about it. You cannot have it both ways. But, you are doing your best to do exactly that. ;D

As Eddie likes to say, "You are not going to get away with that attempt to question Eddie's vast knowledge and Eddie is not done by a Texas long shot" , RIGHT? 

So then, rather than admit your error, you procede to undermine the post that you (see your quote above) didn't seem to have issues with, by relegating it to the level of a five minute overly simplistic book report.

I wan't trying to right a comprehensive history, Tex. I was, as you KNOW, challenging your erroneous view that Communism wasn't a negative "buzzword" before 1947 (see the title of the post, please!).

OF COURSE there is a whole lot left out. And, it is clear that what was "left in" was, from your POV, suitable only for "rabid" Socialists.

 I guess you consider Surly, a man with three times the historically accurate knowledge of American History that you and I have, PUT TOGETHER,  a "rabid" Soclialist. He is a man of integrity and respect. You were attacking him as well as me. NO, Eddie, I am NOT "putting words in your mouth! You made that post after Surly praised my post as an accurate summary of the history. Try as you may to twist Surly's respect for my knowledge of history, nobody who is objective here is going to buy it, Tex.

YOU are the one going on a rampage of irrational insults and demeaning posts, trying to put words in MY mouth, making silly, childish, foolish, immature, shrill and thoroughly hateful broad statements about my accross the board "bullshit".

And, YEAH, I DO KNOW YOU! Unless there are TWO Eddies posting here where one Eddie, the mild mannered reporter from the Daily Planet who supports many Socialist programs in the US Government for the poor and disadvantaged, is the principled brother of his evil, uncaring twin who thinks the poor in America are just a bunch of lazy greedy riff raff waiting for the Loto to solve their economic problems. I certainly DO read and interpret correctly your point of view in regard to what you CARE about and what you DON'T CARE about.

The issues may be complex, but there is no justification for simultaneously holding two opposing views. 

As to the complexity of this issue of Communism versus Capitalism, yeah, it's VERY complex. I don't know WHO TF you are to think you are the only one that has come to that enlightened erudite conclusion, but the body of work in your posts, especially when you are in a good mood, evidences that you generally DO NOT DO NUANCE unless you are challenging somebody else's POV. Then you go into all sorts of, "not being sure of this or that" in regard to what the other poster stated, continually casting doubt on the validity of the post you are challenging.

However, when someone challenges YOUR overly simplistic acceptance of Capitalism as the "best system" despite it being a "mixed bag", the Texas Longhorn horns come out. What's good for Goose is SUPPOSED TO BE  good for the Gander, Tex! Holster your guns and start thinking with your mind instead of your pride! 

But let us assume for the moment that, as you have just repeatedly abused your Admin privilege to label me as such, I am just some "old crank/ass hole/rabid Socialist".

The fact remains that the following graphic (see upper right hand corner) has a DATE on it that proves your claims that "Communism wasn't a negative "buzzword" before 1947" AND that the 1930's was a "friendly"  period for Communists in the USA are both incorrect.


I am not the one speading inaccurate Historical narratives here, Tex.

YOU made a BROAD, OVERY SIMPLISTIC, HISTORICALLY INACCURATE STATEMENT when you claimed Communism wasn't a negative "buzzword" before 1947. So, for you to claim I am the one being overly simplistic in my subsequent posts is hypocritical in the extreme.

No matter how you try to spin it, Capitalism is morally bankrupt. As RE said, in so many words, if you cannot see that, you are wrong.

Go ahead Eddie, "fire up the drones". That's an old expression I heard often in the FAA, based on the exact same empathy deficit disordered "sense of humor". Back then it was from some "funny" Southern boys who thought it was great fun to say, "Fire up the Ovens" when discussing Jewish businesses.

Now, don't say I am calling you anti-Jew, I am certainly not doing that. I am NOT putting "words in your mouth".

What I am doing is making it crystal clear to you that your casual offhand coarse jokes and peculiar sense of humor offends all peace loving people, of whom you claim to be one.

If you wish to be given the benefit of the doubt about your allegedly objective views on Capitalism and Socialism, stop with the jokes about Capitalist murder and mayhem for Empire. Those coarse sarcastic jokes of yours are as funny as basket full of dead babies.

Yes, I am painfully aware of the fact that you don't care what I think. It appears, from the number of views I get, that you are in the minority in that respect. Also, you may wish to revise your post where you joined into the positive recognition of my contributions here after over a million views.

You need to be consistent if you want people to take you seriously. Now, if you don't care what anybody thinks, then, by all means, have a ball by continuing your Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde routine.

As for me, I will continue reading your posts when you are discussing medicine, technology and many other issues you are knowlegeable about and worthy to be listened to. Your biases on political issues and history don't interfere with your technical kowledge base.

However, though I will continue to vigorously disagree with your thoroughly biased view of American History, I will avoid discussing such with you because, quite frankly, you and I will never find common ground there.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2022, 03:55:45 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Its wrong to say Anarchists support socialism, just not soviet style. Capitalists are actually more supportive of Socialism than Anarchists. Anarchists do not want a govt at all, so they definitely don't want a govt to tax them to provide social services. Democratic Socialism actually depends on Capitalism. If they dont have capitalism to tax to provide healthcare, education and social security, it can only be done through communism, for a while. Theres a reason China didnt go down with the Soviet Union and Cuba is doing better without Castro calling the shots, pun intended. Pointing this out doesn't give me an affinity with Mitch Romny either.

Sir, you are splitting Socialist hairs. That part about Anarchists not agreeing to Soviet style Communism, which Anarchists NOW, AT PRESENT, label as "State Capitalism", is not relevant to Anarchist total solidarity with the Socialst movement in the USA, even before the 20th Century began. Had you watched the Columbia University video in my post, the  common ground between Anarchists and Socialists, due to the brutal, dangerous and deadly working conditions in the USA when the 20th Century began, would have been made clear to you.

Hoover was out to GIT the Anarchists BECAUSE they recognized, like the Communists/Socialists, the moral bankruptcy of Capitalism.

The attitude of Capitalists towards ANY economic sytem based on Liberty and Justice for ALL has always been negative, to put it mildly.

Your posts usually concentrate on the negative track record of Socialist/Communist governments while studiously ignoring the massive record of human rights abuse by Capitalist governments, especially our US Fascist Paradise Government. That is a sophistic debating technique. Yes, it is clever but it is fallacious. 

I suggest you try to be more even handed in your comparison of the two systems (yes, there are basically ONLY TWO systems in discussion here). All human run systems are flawed and it is easy to cherry pick the negative aspects of any one of them.

Nevertheless, it is incorrect to claim that Capitalism has the moral high ground over all things Socialist. The exact reverse is true.

The two comments in the following graphic provide Prima Facie evidence that Capitalists=War Loving, Greed Inspired, Conscience Free Predators are the sworn enemies of all things Socialist AND that Capitalism is morally bankrupt.


Sorry Agelbert, but if communism is the point being debated, I am not required to compare it to capitalism in every particular as that is a much larger undertaking and would leave the critical points i wished to make lost. I had hoped that "I dont believe in using money at all", should suffice to excuse me from that onerous task, but did suspect that an either with us or against us attitude would ignore all that. The main point re communism I made was the death toll. 100m in the 20th Century, that puts it in first place ahead of Christianity in 2nd and Islam in 3rd by my calculation.

 Its ridiculous to say that Socialism is pacifism because Marx SAID you only need to wait for capitalism to destroy itself. They didn't wait, they violently overthrew the monarchies and killed everyone as an ongoing process. Then communism ended up dying on its own, not capitalism. I have said the ongoing death toll is required, because communists never make everyone equal as promised, so need to keep killing anyone who mentions this or even might mention it.

Ill watch the vid now as I had planned last night, but couldnt keep awake after getting home after dark as usual. Overtime pays well, but money puts most people in a gold barred prison, either of the mind through materialism, or just practical survival. Either way, the pre-occupation and associated agitation is debasement of human nature. I believe native peoples figured this out already over 100k years. The concept of "mine" is foreign to them. If you tell a fijian you like his shirt, he will give it to you and you must take it. If you try using something like a musical instrument or weapon "belonging" to a Maori and are better with it than they are, they give it to you. I learned this when i picked up a pair of those chrome chinese balls that are meant to be spun around in your palm. Even when I said its only easy for me because my glove size is 2XL so an unfair advantage, they were very serious in insisting I take the balls. That relates directly to my point before about capitalism or any FINANCIAL system, that the most crude measure of a mans worth being money is the most important. Obviously for the native people the value is in the ability insteadand the ability benefits everyone. In fact the great Aboriginal boxer, Lionel Rose, made a joke that "blackfelllas are the original communists" when all his winning money was distributed to everyone else.

There's no reason the same principle can't be applied today if the overall culture, corrupted by the use of money, were different. There would not be endless growth, expansion, critical GDP, because there are industries where workers need money all year round to survive, then if they have excess that creates new industries whose workers also need work all year round, including even arms dealers in a vicious cycle. All things could be produced as needed. If an individuals worth without money is measured in their ability, and that ability benefits everyone, nobody will object to being asked by someone else for resources such as crude oil or iron ore. Uranium might get asked some questions. The scenes in movies where American Indian chiefs have given long consideration to what gift can match some piece of technology they do not have, such as a rifle, shows the principle. The one asking for the resource feels diminished until they can return the compliment, such as shipping back some finished goods when needed. Call this real anarchy or socialism, because with money involved there is only the real world results and the back and forth blame game, when there is no black and white between socialism and capitalism. They are the same system, with a distinction of degrees not difference.

You aren't required to compare the two systems even handedly, but I insist that is the only way to rationally compare them. We will have to agree to disagree on that.

And no, it is not "ridiculous" to claim Communism/Socialism is a pacifist ideology. As I said before, the application in practice may not be pacifist, but the ideology is. Capitalist ideology, on the other hand, considers war another tool of routine national politics.

On the other hand, it really IS ridiculous to claim Capitalism is "more pacifist" that Socialism/Communism. Yeah, there was blood spilled by all groups. So? After the Russian Revolution, WTF did you expect the Russians to think when they were being attacked from all sides by various covert and overt Capitalist methods to strangle their economy? In that death count you ascribe to Communism/Socialism, are yoy including the deliberate attempts to starve Russia by Capitalist countries? Of course NOT! How convenient is that, eh?

And while we are on the subject of Russia, let's talk about all those millions that died from Russian Communism, shall we? Russian Communism, for anyone that understands Capitalist Corporate structure, PERFECTLY MIRRORS a monopoly, over EVERYTHING, Capitalist Corporation. That is why the Anarchists call it "State Capitalism".
Premier = CEO
Politburo = Board of Directors
"Communist" Party = Stock Holders
Russian Igor and Sofia vodka sixpack = employees


Communism, MY ASS!

The ideology was just Socialist lipstick on Capitalist pig.

Now you can jump in (I will studiously avoid answering any spurious bullshit thown in here by the gun tottin' Texan who manages to look in a mirror every day without flinching even though he claims he doesn't suffer fools easily) and say that  IF what I say is true, then WHY did the USA (and other Capitalist countries) try to destroy Russia by any means possible? I mean, weren't they all a bunch of fascist crooks fighing over world domination, as all good Capitalist ideologues are?

NOPE.

Socialism, even the fake kind the USSR practiced, was still an ideological threat to Capitalism. Any threat to Capitalism MUST BE ATTACKED.

Your claim that what Marx said about Capitalism self-destructing was basically happy talk no person living in the real world of rough and tumble dog eat dog took seriously is more applicable to those who push "democracy=peace" in the name of Capitalism than in regard to Socialism.

But, again, you do not want to line up the two systems side by side, so you point at all the monarchs overthrown and so on, as if the overthrow of monarchs was something that discredits any claim to pacifism by Socialist ideology.

There is a vacuum in every discussion I encounter on this subject about the 24/7 paranoia that is absolutely CENTRAL to Capitalism. That paranoia fuels much of the murder and mayhem in this world. Do you want to go there? NO, you don't.

I'll tell you why that subject is routinely disparaged as conspiracy tin foil stuff, though massive paranoia is routinely, and spuriously, ascribed to the "dysfunctional" Socialst Governments.

Capitalism is pitched as a system where everybody competes in a democratic fashion. If people really did that, they would not be routinely spying on their competitor or/and trying to sabotage the competitor's business in order to get the edge on the other business and eventually bankrupt it.

You KNOW that is how Capitalism works in practice. Now how in God's good Earth people feel justified in making the TOTALLY ERRONEOUS claim that a Government run by Capitalist True Beleivers is not going be composed of the worst kind of paranoid bastards constantly attacking by any means available any real or imagined threat to their monopoly exploitation gravy train, is NOT a mystery to me.

They DON'T want people to know that, so they propagandize the public to claim the Socialists are the ones guilty of doing what is SINE QUA NON for Capitalist ideology. It's all part of the morally bankrupt PROFIT MOTIVE.

The USA got into WWI to make money for Capitalists, PERIOD. How many of those deaths do YOU blame Capitalism for? ZIP!

After WWI, if France, England and the USA had treated Germany, another Capitalist country, fairly, there would not have BEEN a NAZI Germany. But the demand to rake Germany over the coals for PROFIT so angered the Germans that they helped the rabid Hitler gang come to power.

How many of those Germans who starved to death during the Weimar Republic are in your count of deaths caused by Capitalism? ZIP!

Even worse, the USA ended up going into WWII because OUR CAPITALISTS built up those NAZI bastards. How many of the MILLIONS of people killed by the NAZIs do you blame Capitalism for? ZIP!

The indictment of Capitalism is, as if the above history wasn't enough, multiplied by the FACT that, despite the USA OWING RUSSIA BIG TIME for the defeat of NAZI Germany, the Capitalists, true to form, weren't having any of that "Socialist disease" business. The post WWII crowd, in the USA in particular, saw massive profits in MAINTAINING A WAR ECONOMY. They needed an enemy. So, they invented one. That's how we got the MIC that is eating this planet alive for CAPITALIST profit.

During all this period, the Russians were struggling to survive economically BECAUSE of trade barriers hither and yon by their "competitors" (i.e. other countries with the Capitalist system, but without the socialist lipstick). While all the evil stuff by Lenin and Stalin is well publicized, and used repeatedly in every debate about Communism versus Capitalism, the MASSIVE advances in all forms of technology in Russia from 1905 on, where they went from a nearly totally agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse, WHICH DEFEATED THE NAZIs, is always sort of left out of the discussion. The USA became an industrial powerhouse gradually from around 1840 on up to our massive war machine in 1940. That is about 100 years. The Russians did that MUCH Faster.

Count the years. That State Capitalist Country (i.e. the USSR) exploited their people ruthlessly for what Lenin and Stalin claimed was their own good. I am not convinced of that. Their blah, blah, blah about Socialist this and Socialist that, despite it being mostly happy talk lipstick, was like waving a red flag (pun intented ;D) at the Capitalist BULL on Wall Street.

Get this, pal! WE did everything we could to destroy Russia until we needed them. We WANTED the NAZIs to crush them! When the NAZIs were eating our lunch, then we became TOKEN MR. Nice Guy with Russia. Is that part of your historical narrative? If it isn't, you have a flawed view of most of the 20th Century's history.

All that said, there are so many different definitions for Communism, as well as Capitalism, that it is an unreal rabbit whole to go down. So, I look at the historical cause and effect of systems that had the name. 

Claiming that socialism and capitalism are the same system is incorrect. Regardless of the varying definitions, one is based on a hierarchcal unequal non-egalitarian social structure (Cappitlism) and the other on an   egalitarian social structure (Socialism).

I will agree that, if the people are of good will, just about any system can work fairly well. It all depends on whether morality is integral to the system or not. I maintain that morality is anathema to Capitalism.

You said:
Quote
money puts most people in a gold barred prison, either of the mind through materialism, or just practical survival. Either way, the pre-occupation and associated agitation is debasement of human nature. I believe native peoples figured this out already over 100k years.

Agreed. The problem we have today is that the overwhelming majority of humans now have too much of a Nietzche style Territorial Imperative, so to speak.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2022, 03:56:13 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The Thom Hartmann Program (Full Show) - 8/14/18


You've found the place where The Thom Hartmann Program is streamed live Monday-Friday,

Agelbert NOTE: In this show Thom discusses this excellent book filled with irrefutable historical truth:


Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai

The authoritative attack on the idea that the American working class is primarily white, with Black, Asian and Indian labour being little more than special interest groups. This book presents US history from a working class, revolutionary and non-white perspective.

Paperback, 176 pages
Published 1989 by Morningstar Pres
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3184732-settlers



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The near-sinking of the Mayflower and the first settler murderer

SNIPPET:

Some folks have an idealized vision of those people who first came to the New World on the Mayflower, and we tend to think of them as the devout sort who spent the journey alternately praying and being kind to their neighbors. That definitely wasn't the case for all of them. Let's talk about John Billington and his family .

First off, his sons were kind of jerks. According to Mental Floss, the Billingtons were fleeing to the New World to escape some serious debts he'd run up in England, and thanks to the Billington kids, the ship almost didn't make it. At one point, one of the boys decided it was a brilliant idea to play with dad's gun and fire it below decks in a cabin full of people and barrels of gunpowder.

Once they landed, it became clear where they'd learned their manners from. John Billington not only refused the mandatory bit of military service but started spouting anti-establishment propaganda while plotting to overthrow the new colony's leaders. For whatever reason, he was allowed to continue his hate-talk, and it wasn't until 1630 he got into an argument with a new settler and shot him. As you do. The man, John Newcomen, died from infection and Billington had the dubious honor of being hanged as the first settler murderer.

The revenge of Hannah Duston

Junius Brutus Stearns, US Public Domain

We'll tell the whole story here and let you make your own decisions about how heroic Hannah Duston was because 99% Invisible isn't sure. Duston lived in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1697, and she had just given birth to a daughter when her little settlement was attacked by a group of Abenaki. Duston, her baby, and maid Mary Neff were taken and marched north. Historic Ipswich adds a horrifying but important detail: When the baby slowed them down, she was smashed against a tree and killed.

Everyone can agree no mother should ever have to go through something like this. It's no wonder Duston had some serious rage, and when the raiding party and their captives stopped for an overnight rest in New Hampshire, she got her revenge. Duston, Neff, and a boy named Samuel killed the entire group as they slept. Knowing no one would believe them without proof, they scalped them, too.

That included six children. Duston made it back home, and went on to tell her tale to the minister Cotton Mather. He ensured it was recorded for history, and it's been memorialized in weird ways. There's a nursing home named after her, bobbleheads in her likeness, and there's a statue to her in Boscawen, New Hampshire. Yes, her statue is holding scalps. Discuss.

Full accurate historical article:

https://www.grunge.com/106746/messed-things-happened-colonial-times/sl/the-near-sinking-of-the-mayflower-and-the-first-settler-murderer
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?  

If you cannot, then do not watch this video. EVERYTHING Webster Tarpley says about various events in American History (including, but not limited to, heinous events you may have never heard of) is 100% ACCURATE.

If you CAN handle the truth, teach your children about it. It's time 👀 to stop pretending U.S. historical reality is the apple pie disneyworld version.


Webster Tarpley on Who Killed Kennedy

| Nov 24, 2013 | 74,238 views | by ulaghchi



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Paul Manafort , Roger Stone 😈, and Me

By Tom Lewis | September 3, 2018 | Politics

SNIPPET:

I always blamed the nastification of the Republican Party largely on Lee Atwater, who later surfaced as a Reagan adviser, and who spent 1980 showing us how to do the new Republican fandango — getting a Congress-critter elected by calling his opponent a liberal, a communist, a (white) member of the NAACP, and a past recipient of electroshock therapy, which Atwater described as being hooked up to jumper cables. Sounds normal today, but it sure didn’t in 1980.

I heard about Atwater, of course, but what I did not know until recently was that also in 1980, a new consulting firm was founded in Washington to institutionalize the new pit-bull politics. The firm was called Black, Manafort and Stone, and it soon became renowned among Washington insiders for combining in one firm lobbying and political consulting, performed with a take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth, amoral style. They lobbied for a long list of the world’s nastiest dictators and companies (including Big Tobacco), and managed campaigns for some of the nation’s nastiest politicians. Lee Atwater soon joined Roger Stone and Paul Manafort as a senior partner of the firm.

The work of these savages drove me from the Republican Party. It was they, for example,  who ...

Must read full article:

http://www.dailyimpact.net/2018/09/03/paul-manafort-roger-stone-and-me/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Quote
Please note due to a complaint that I did not properly attribute this NBC article, I do so here.  No harm intended. I felt this story should be shared as soon and as widely as possible and I apologize to NBC for apparently not attributing the story properly to them, although the heading above the story clearly (I thought) attributes the story to NBC. I also apologize to KOS for apparently exceeding the length of quoted text, and shall take this into consideration with any further diary.

This article is shared to you from NBC News at the following link:  www.nbcnews.com/
...

David Brock on NBC:

“I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps." And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally. Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "b i t c h."

But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.

Call it Kavanaugh's  cabal : There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke.  In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman , known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" 😈 👹 — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.

That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.

But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson , the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush 🦖 and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.

Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by peddling the same garbage at Starr's office.

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.

Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.

Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.

But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights.

But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/28/1799871/-MUST-READ-David-Brock-on-Brett-Kavanaugh

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Oligarchy 😈👹💵🎩🍌🏴‍🦍☠️: The Cancer of Human History

Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire’s civil and military services and reorganized the empire’s provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire.

Webster Tarpley exposes the persistent Oligarchic Organized Evil behind the fact that the structure of the modern United Nations is nearly IDENTICAL to Diocletian's structure for the Roman Empire nearly 2000 years ago. 👀 😱


W | Apr 10, 2013 | 73,297 views | by OaklandLYM

14 July 1994. Former member Webster Tarpley gives a class on 2000 years of rule by Oligarchy, both its headquarters, which has existed within the empires of ...
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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