Biden Pandemic Adviser Calls for Four to Six Week National Lockdown

[Einzige]

(03-27-2021, 11:00 PM)noli Wrote: Americans think that freedom means killing babies.

Freedom does mean bodily autonomy.

[Einzige]

(03-15-2021, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 08:11 PM)TML Wrote: You know that the US is bad now when you think about freedom and start crying.

I guess that I didn't start crying when the regeneracy arrived determines things?

lol, even assuming that a straightforward interpretation of S&H theory is valid, this ain't the regeneracy.

[TMI]

The boxcars won't even be needed because Americans are so enslaved now that Americans will drive themselves to the concentration camps.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-27-2021, 11:13 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 08:11 PM)TML Wrote: You know that the US is bad now when you think about freedom and start crying.

I guess that I didn't start crying when the regeneracy arrived determines things?

lol, even assuming that a straightforward interpretation of S&H theory is valid, this ain't the regeneracy.

No?  The party that did not solve the major problems being faced by the culture during a crisis configuration of generations is replaced by a party that is pledged to solve them, and you don't call it a regeneracy?  Somewhere I noted that a worldview can make you blind.  In order to percieve what you desire to perceive you have to ignore reality.

Not a problem.  Obviously, people can do that.

[Einzige]

(03-28-2021, 09:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-27-2021, 11:13 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 08:11 PM)TML Wrote: You know that the US is bad now when you think about freedom and start crying.

I guess that I didn't start crying when the regeneracy arrived determines things?

lol, even assuming that a straightforward interpretation of S&H theory is valid, this ain't the regeneracy.

No?  The party that did not solve the major problems being faced by the culture during a crisis configuration of generations is replaced by a party that is pledged to solve them, and you don't call it a regeneracy?  Somewhere I noted that a worldview can make you blind.  In order to percieve what you desire to perceive you have to ignore reality.

Not a problem.  Obviously, people can do that.

Biden has endorsed the Trump policy on immigration, health care, etc. Biden is a continuation of Unraveling conservatism.

It's amusing that milquetoast conservative American liberalism is never taken for a "worldview".

[Einzige]

(03-15-2021, 05:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: The rate at which this is amassing wealth for the few and penury to many -- all that in the world's wealthiest nation -- shows how quickly we can revert to something akin to Feudalism.  We can control this, but it requires the will to oppose the richest and most powerful among us.
[*]Paranoia and Conspiracy.  With the arrival of Deep Fakes, the ability of large numbers of otherwise rational people to fall through a rathole just got bigger.  Since this is not limited to the US, I may have to move this up the list in the future.

[*]

The amusing thing here is that billionaires, who tilt towards an American liberal worldview owing to their breadth of exposure to the world and class interest, generally agree, which is why e.g. Richard Branson (Former CEO of Virgin Records), Elon Musk and others endorse things like UBI. High inequality tends to create a threatening proletariat. More, a UBI would justify stripping the other elements of the social safety net.

But their proposed solutions solve nothing long term. A UBI would generate liquidity short term, but is entirely dependent on taxation to fund. Insofar as those receiving such a subsidy would no longer pay taxes, the onus then would be on the haute-bourgeoisie to fund this programme. But they suffer the most from the effects of the declining rate of profit. A UBI-sustained capitalism might last a generation or two before the entire thing fell apart. It can, at best, buy the capitalists time to ride little Elon's rocket ship to Mars.

[retiredat50]

Wow.

Americans are so enslaved that they think government agents are holy gods, but since the elites and the government are the same now, asking for government protection from businesses is like asking a thief to watch your house when you go on vacation.

FAA regulates airlines, but airplanes still fail.

https://www.greensboro.com/townnews/aero...07c6f.html

SEC regulates stockbrokers, but markets still crash.

FDA regulates drugs, but drugs are still dangerous.

EPA regulates the environment, but the EPA pollutes.

https://dailycaller.com/2015/09/15/what-...mas-river/

The USSR was a Socialist utopia, but the Soviet Union was polluted.

https://www.gerdludwig.com/stories/sovie...al-legacy/

Maybe the real reason there are laws against car repair is because car dealers lobby for them.

Maybe the real reason there are food stamps now is because food and banking corporations lobby for them.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/food-sta...d=17166643

Maybe the real reason tax filing is so difficult is that tax preparation corporations lobby for complicated tax forms.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/t...ng-n736386

Maybe the real reason there are laws against ridesharing is because taxi cab companies lobby for regulations against competition.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/loc..._Uber.html

Maybe the real reason there are mandatory vaccine laws now is because pharmaceutical corporations lobby for them.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm...story.html

Maybe the real reason the US is a police state now is because private prison corporations lobby for it.

Maybe the real reason the US is a warmonger now is because defense corporations lobby for wars.

Maybe the real reason there are mandatory health and auto insurance laws now is because insurance companies lobby for them.

Maybe the real reason there are bailouts and subsidies is because corporations lobby for them.

Maybe the real reason there are government student loans and grants now is because colleges lobby for them.

The government takes away your freedom, but won’t protect you.

The way to deal with danger today is to do what worked in the past.

Government needs to be small and people need to take personal responsibility and embrace freedom.

Being dangerous is not in the best of companies.

The big difference between private business and tyranny is that you can boycott the free market, but the government forces you at gunpoint to do something or not do something.

Look not to the politicians; look to yourselves.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

What do we need government for anyway?

Everything the free market does is better than what government does.

Would you rather graduate from Harvard or the University of New Mexico? Would you rather own a Yugo or a BMW?

If a private association like the MPAA can regulate movies, why can’t the private market regulate other things?

When the TSA fingers your asshole and pulls your cock, is the real purpose to protect you or to make you feel like a degraded slave?

When people smoke now, people just call the police on them, but people in the past either took some personal responsibility and ignored smokers, moved away from smokers, or asked smokers to go somewhere else. The problem with a police state is everyone now is either or a slave or a criminal. Who pays the taxes to pay for tyranny?

If smoking is dangerous, can’t nonprofits raise funds to pay for educational campaigns that warn of the dangers of smoking instead of outlawing smoking?

Can’t people use the BBB to verify if a business is good or not instead of forcing companies to pay fees to get a government business license?

https://www.bbb.org

Can’t private charities funded by volunteer donations provide homeless shelters and soup kitchens instead of being at forced at the point of a gun by the government to pay taxes that fund welfare?

https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/new...charities/

Can’t people use guns to protect themselves instead of relying on the Gestapo?

https://nypost.com/2017/08/04/alaskan-to...ice-force/

Can’t neighbourhoods hire private security firms to protect their homes?

https://dksecurity.com

Can’t the free market provide toll roads?

https://portcitydaily.com/local-news/201...anization/

Can’t the free market provide private airports?

https://www.oceanreef.com/amenities/private-airport/

Can’t the free market provide private schools?

https://www.privateschoolreview.com/scho.../wisconsin

Can’t the free market provide disaster relief instead of FEMA?

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/29/us/ha...index.html

Can’t the free market run delivery services instead of the USPS?

https://www.fedex.com/global/choose-location.html

Can’t the free market run railroads instead of Amtrack?

https://skift.com/2015/08/08/the-u-s-s-f...s-in-2017/

Think.

[pbrower2a]

(03-28-2021, 02:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 05:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: The rate at which this is amassing wealth for the few and penury to many -- all that in the world's wealthiest nation -- shows how quickly we can revert to something akin to Feudalism.  We can control this, but it requires the will to oppose the richest and most powerful among us.
[*]Paranoia and Conspiracy.  With the arrival of Deep Fakes, the ability of large numbers of otherwise rational people to fall through a rathole just got bigger.  Since this is not limited to the US, I may have to move this up the list in the future.

[*]

The amusing thing here is that billionaires, who tilt towards an American liberal worldview owing to their breadth of exposure to the world and class interest, generally agree, which is why e.g. Richard Branson (Former CEO of Virgin Records), Elon Musk and others endorse things like UBI. High inequality tends to create a threatening proletariat. More, a UBI would justify stripping the other elements of the social safety net.

But their proposed solutions solve nothing long term. A UBI would generate liquidity short term, but is entirely dependent on taxation to fund. Insofar as those receiving such a subsidy would no longer pay taxes, the onus then would be on the haute-bourgeoisie to fund this programme. But they suffer the most from the effects of the declining rate of profit. A UBI-sustained capitalism might last a generation or two before the entire thing fell apart. It can, at best, buy the capitalists time to ride little Elon's rocket ship to Mars.

[*]

Do not presume the stupidity of capitalists. Some have been wise enough to read about their enemy Marxism. If they have really good lives because of capitalism, they do not want it to come to an end in either Marxist revolutions or apocalyptic wars. The stupidest among the capitalists believe that the overt repression of fascism that enforces monopoly power and disembowels both a welfare state and any person (perhaps even literally) who shows signs of dissent. (Even the Nazis are not known to have burned people at the stake, broken people on the wheel, or disemboweled or impaled people as a means of murder). Such a regime almost invariably goes on a course of war to spread its ideology in places in which such is unwelcome and that regime ends up with too many enemies at once.  These days, such a war could culminate in a nuclear exchange that kills the perpetrators of such a regime. The other is to spread some of the wealth around through non-profits and through taxation. This may be better for us all than bloated bureaucracies that seem to pay off people who if broke might turn to Marx and one or more of his successors for inspiration on how to overthrow a thoroughly-nasty system. 

I agree with the libertarians on this: the fault with America isn't that it is "too" capitalist; it is instead that America is not capitalist enough. I am satisfied that capitalism at its healthiest allows only capitalists to get rich. Maybe there are a few exceptions such as highly-successful creative people and top-level professionals... but I look fondly upon the time in which the high-school science and math teachers might be among the top ten percent of income-earners in a community. Back then Americans had their priorities straight. Much business was small, with veritable cottage industries in retailing, finance, and manufacturing.

The neoliberal era that began with Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" may have recently ended, with COVID-19 showing how flawed the assumptions behind neoliberalism are.

[Einzige]

(03-29-2021, 01:47 AM)nikkifromcanada Wrote: Are the elites pushing Communism to get rid of the globalists or does the ruling class want to get rid of the 99%?

Alternatively, libertarians are retarded bootlickers and Communism is the only thing that can actually stop MUH ELITES, aka the capitalist class.

[n878]

The elites control Hollywood, the media, Wall Street, and the government.

https://www.srnnews.com/jimmy-carter-us-...democracy/

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/2017122...y-than-war

Almost nothing major happens in the US without the approval of the elites.

Debt benefits the ruling class.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump...le/2581633

Nanny state laws help our overlords meet their private private quotas.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli.../98300394/

http://fortune.com/2017/03/18/federal-ag...ive-order/

There are wars because the 1% owns the defense companies and they want more refugees to reduce wages.

There are food stamps because the 1% owns the food corporations and makes money from the bank fees.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/1...78457.html

The ruling class supports Obamacare and mandatory liability insurance laws because they make money from insurance premiums.

The elites support illegal immigration because they want to divide the population.

The 1% supports homosexuality because immorality weakens the US.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118749/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959337/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0842926/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112579/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748122/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_7

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0879870/

https://us.benetton.com

When was the last time you saw a movie about the Bill of Rights, freedom, or family values?

Why are females, immorality, blacks, and illegal immigrants praised, but morality and white men are ridiculed?

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/07/15/emo...-at-espys/

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/17/cnn-an...mmigrants/

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/02/chris-...-catholic/

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index...poste.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/gary-john...-is-2016-9

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-sup...tt-2016-12

What if the reason the 99% are not in concentration camps now is because the US Ponzi economy has not collapsed yet and Americans still have guns?

http://markanderson.bangordailynews.com/...zi-scheme/

Why is anyone who supports immorality, war, debt, welfare, tyranny, and illegal immigrants labeled normal, but anyone who supports morals, peace, a balanced budget, personal responsibility, freedom, and reduced immigration is called a spammer, troll, shill, bot, racist, junkie, retard, or nutjob?

Anyone who supports the government, immorality, war, debt, welfare, tyranny, and illegal immigrants is just a tool of the elites.

Freedom is not your enemy. Tyranny is the enemy.

The US is no longer a democracy. The government, media, and corporations are the same thing now. Asking for more government regulations to control corporations is like asking a robber to watch your house when you go on vacation.

The 1% doesn't care about regulations because they write the rules, have connections, and can afford lawyers.

The police state doesn't benefit you. Tyranny benefits the elites.

Think.

[David Horn]

(03-28-2021, 12:44 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-28-2021, 09:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-27-2021, 11:13 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 08:11 PM)TML Wrote: You know that the US is bad now when you think about freedom and start crying.

I guess that I didn't start crying when the regeneracy arrived determines things?

lol, even assuming that a straightforward interpretation of S&H theory is valid, this ain't the regeneracy.

No?  The party that did not solve the major problems being faced by the culture during a crisis configuration of generations is replaced by a party that is pledged to solve them, and you don't call it a regeneracy?  Somewhere I noted that a worldview can make you blind.  In order to percieve what you desire to perceive you have to ignore reality.

Not a problem.  Obviously, people can do that.

Biden has endorsed the Trump policy on immigration, health care, etc. Biden is a continuation of Unraveling conservatism.

It's amusing that milquetoast conservative American liberalism is never taken for a "worldview".

In the real world, nothing gets solved by the wave of a wand or a simple finger-snap.  This isn't Hogwarts.  Credit where it's due: Biden is keeping his head down and focusing on building a wall of support for progressive ideas.  He'll need a lot more help on the most contentious issues and he knows it.  For now, he's focused on building a coalition, and doing a decent job of it.  Add 3 or 4 Senators and 8+ Congress(wo)men, and he'll have a bare minimum, assuming the filibuster is neutered.

[David Horn]

(03-28-2021, 02:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 05:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: The rate at which this is amassing wealth for the few and penury to many -- all that in the world's wealthiest nation -- shows how quickly we can revert to something akin to Feudalism.  We can control this, but it requires the will to oppose the richest and most powerful among us.
[*]Paranoia and Conspiracy.  With the arrival of Deep Fakes, the ability of large numbers of otherwise rational people to fall through a rathole just got bigger.  Since this is not limited to the US, I may have to move this up the list in the future.

The amusing thing here is that billionaires, who tilt towards an American liberal worldview owing to their breadth of exposure to the world and class interest, generally agree, which is why e.g. Richard Branson (Former CEO of Virgin Records), Elon Musk and others endorse things like UBI. High inequality tends to create a threatening proletariat. More, a UBI would justify stripping the other elements of the social safety net.

But their proposed solutions solve nothing long term. A UBI would generate liquidity short term, but is entirely dependent on taxation to fund. Insofar as those receiving such a subsidy would no longer pay taxes, the onus then would be on the haute-bourgeoisie to fund this programme. But they suffer the most from the effects of the declining rate of profit. A UBI-sustained capitalism might last a generation or two before the entire thing fell apart. It can, at best, buy the capitalists time to ride little Elon's rocket ship to Mars.

No, Billionaires tend to be very socially progressive, but fiscally conservative to the max.  They're also risk averse when an issue is outside their direct control.  So UBI is perfect for them, since they have no intention of being the tax base that pays that bill.  Why is this surprising?

[pbrower2a]

(03-15-2021, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 08:11 PM)TML Wrote: You know that the US is bad now when you think about freedom and start crying.

I guess that I didn't start crying when the regeneracy arrived determines things?

When a genuine Regeneracy comes (if you want to know what a false Regeneracy looks like, then consider that Nazi Germany exemplified a false Regeneracy due to its ideological absurdity, destruction of liberty, official racism (antisemitism of 20th-century Europe and the American types is racist in character) and pervasive cruelty; ibe cannot deny that Hitler was a decisive leader with a clear agenda) people will shed more tears of joy  than of despair and grief. The people grieving will largely be those who have committed to the corruption, incompetence, inequity, and mindlessness of the preceding Degeneracy. The essence of the Regeneracy is that the debauch of improvident hedonism is over, and that clear indications of the new way of doing things is in clear formation.

[Eric the Green]

(03-28-2021, 02:20 PM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-15-2021, 05:20 AM)David Horn Wrote: The rate at which this is amassing wealth for the few and penury to many -- all that in the world's wealthiest nation -- shows how quickly we can revert to something akin to Feudalism.  We can control this, but it requires the will to oppose the richest and most powerful among us.
[*]Paranoia and Conspiracy.  With the arrival of Deep Fakes, the ability of large numbers of otherwise rational people to fall through a rathole just got bigger.  Since this is not limited to the US, I may have to move this up the list in the future.

[*]

The amusing thing here is that billionaires, who tilt towards an American liberal worldview owing to their breadth of exposure to the world and class interest, generally agree, which is why e.g. Richard Branson (Former CEO of Virgin Records), Elon Musk and others endorse things like UBI. High inequality tends to create a threatening proletariat. More, a UBI would justify stripping the other elements of the social safety net.

But their proposed solutions solve nothing long term. A UBI would generate liquidity short term, but is entirely dependent on taxation to fund. Insofar as those receiving such a subsidy would no longer pay taxes, the onus then would be on the haute-bourgeoisie to fund this programme. But they suffer the most from the effects of the declining rate of profit. A UBI-sustained capitalism might last a generation or two before the entire thing fell apart. It can, at best, buy the capitalists time to ride little Elon's rocket ship to Mars.

[*]

It's amusing how Einzige uses communism to support conservative policies. Underneath the proletarian veneer lies a trickle-downer.

[pbrower2a]

(03-29-2021, 02:03 AM)Einzige Wrote:

(03-29-2021, 01:47 AM)nikkifromcanada Wrote: Are the elites pushing Communism to get rid of the globalists or does the ruling class want to get rid of the 99%?

Alternatively, libertarians are retarded bootlickers and Communism is the only thing that can actually stop MUH ELITES, aka the capitalist class.

Fascists and institutional racists use the specter of Communism as a pretext for imposing despotism, terroristic repression, and extreme oppression on behalf of economic elites who want complete domination of all aspects of life in their countries. Communism is utopian... Marxism-Leninism is a failure as an economic solution for going beyond the early-industrial level of economic development. The contrast between countries at the same level of economic development at the same time, one going Communist and the other staying capitalist is that the Communist-ruled country had its development retarded:

1. Russia - Japan. If anything, Japan was poorer in 1910. The cultural match is poor, but to what country would one compare Russia? 

2. German Democratic Republic (east) - German Federal Republic (west). To be sure the pluralistic Germany was more swiftly rebuilt while Communist East Germany endured severe reparations from the USSR... and the DDR was more rural in its economic make-up. Still, East Germany had some highly-industrialized areas in its southwest (Saxony and Thuringia). Central planning does not work. 

3, North Korea - South Korea. If you ever saw the movie Black Panther, which is about a hidden African kingdom that has solved all its problems as the world has big problems, you will find an amazing credit for the high-tech wonder tucked away... the country that is South Korea. If anyone comes back from the Korean peninsula and says "I have seen the future and it works", then that person has visited South Korea. To China, North Korea is a money pit and South Korea is a big trading partner. North Korea is a political Hell almost as horrible as Nazi Germany was. 

4. Bulgaria - Greece. Despite their long enmity these two countries were more alike in history and culture (especially religion) than one might expect. Bulgaria went Communist and Greece remained capitalist. Greece did much better. 

5. Hungary - Austria. The two countries were part of the same empire as late as 1918, and they were peers. Austria is comparatively socialist in government ownership of the steel mills, but otherwise Austria is basically capitalist., Hungary needed an electrified fence to keep people from fleeing. Hungary's 'goulash communism' may have made Hungary the 'jolliest block in the Soviet prison'... after 1956. But it still underperformed a once-equal neighbor. 

6. Czechoslovakia - Netherlands. Before World War II, both countries were exporters of luxury goods. Countries can get rich as exporters of luxury goods. Even after losing the captive market that was Indonesia, the Netherlands still prospered. After going Communist, Czechoslovakia backtracked to fit a reactionary and obsolete model imposed by the USSR. The difference between the two countries was not that the Nazis bled them unequally (the bleeding was about equal) or that the countries endured great differences in wartime devastation to infrastructure. It was that the Netherlands had a multi-party system that remained intact since the end of the Second World War and that Czechoslovakia went under Commie rule.  

7. Yugoslavia - Italy. They were about even in economic development before World War II. Italy had an economic boom while Yugoslavia stagnated. 

8. Romania - France. It seems unlikely and absurd now, but France and Romania were similar in culture and economic development in 1940. Romania had oil, and France didn't... forty years of Commie rule, much of it insane, did unspeakable damage.

9. Poland - Spain. The cultural similarities are remarkable, and both countries experienced similar brain drains in the 1930's and 1940's. Spain lost large numbers of creative people to other countries (including France -- many contemporary French are really Spaniards) and the United States. Hitler destroyed a huge part of Poland's middle class (heavily Jewish before World War II) Spain went fascist and Poland went communist, and Franco's Spain was about as culturally repressive as Poland's commies were. Spain remained the sort of place that was great to visit on a holiday but a place that people chafed in if they were smart. Spain never had central planning, and capitalist investments paid off. 

10. Vietnam - Thailand. Thailand has done better longer, and Vietnam is becoming an economic powerhouse as it liberalizes its economy and abandons (as did China) central planning. 

11. Cuba - Florida. Not perfect, as Cuba was poorer... but Florida was one of the poorest states in the US and Cuba was by far the richest country in Latin America in 1959. Florida was practically an Apartheid-like state, but Florida is about as free-wheeling a free-enterprise community in the world. Florida isn't quite up to the US average but it is much closer than it was in 1959, thanks in part to many Cuban refugees and their offspring. Cuba does have good medical care, which is one thing it does well. (Maybe we Americans would fare better with cheap education as Germany does that keeps the cost of physicians' services in check. Physicians get poorly paid by US standards and pay higher taxes, but they got inexpensive education through medical school if they had the grades). 

12. Somalia - Namibia or Botswana. Say what you want about Apartheid, but once Namibia cast off that yoke it became one of the most prosperous countries in sub-Saharan Africa despite being (like Somalia) entirely desert or semi-desert with a long coastline. Namibia quickly went to free-wheeling free enterprise, and it is a huge exporter of fish and other seafood. Somalia became a haven for pirates as its Commie social order broke down. See also Botswana, arguably the best country in sub-Saharan Africa in which to live. Botswana doesn't have diamonds as a source of taxable revenue, but it does have cattle ranches.   Somalia had a horrible famine and Botswana didn't during a drought that afflicted both countries. 

13. Estonia - Finland. One country stayed out of the Soviet political and economic orbit, and one became the richest SSR in the Soviet Union. You know how that goes.

[pbrower2a]

(03-29-2021, 06:09 PM)NLVT Wrote: Americans say that anyone who loves freedom supports the police state.

This sounds like computer-generated word salad. 

Real human beings can be offensive, abrasive, incoherent, ignorant, and obscene. Obviously I would trust neither Classic X'er nor Einzige with my basic human rights, but they seem to put a message together. Maybe they contort what I say into a sick parody. I don't know what Marxist-Leninist school Einzige belongs to, but even I can admit to learning something from Marx. Marx is obsolete; what other thinker who died in or before the year in which Harry Truman was born could be fully up-to-date on a topics that are anything but  stagnant? Is Marx relevant? Sure... and nobody who wishes to fully understand modern economics and sociology can avoid reading him without having some gap in essential knowledge in the field. If one is an anti-communist one is well advised to know the Enemy. I look at all Marxist-Leninist leaders and see body counts in the range of fascists, Nazis, and Baathists, and if I think someone like Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy an inexcusable horror, then what can I say of those who "liquidate" far larger numbers of people? 

I have also read Mein Kampf, and in it I saw the moral depravity and intellectual hollowness of Adolf Hitler and come to recognize that optimism in the potential achievements and personal goodness of other people is necessary for avoiding crimes like his. I have also read the Protocols, the infamous tract delineating the supposed conspiracy of all Jews by "race" to exploit, abuse, and dominate Gentiles, and see the absurdity.  Jews know who is Jewish by some equivalent of "gay-dar"? Antisemites have seen my writing on the Internet and have been absolutely certain that I am Jewish.  Well, I would rather be Jewish than what they are, as Judaism is morality and racist antisemitism is gross immorality that usually intertwines with other evil. 

The difference between the Commies and the Nazis is that nobody ever got the dubious experience of seeing bodies stacked like cordwood at a liberated camp (except that there are piles of skulls and bones associated with the Khmer Rouge, maintained by two successor states). I see much more in common between Agosto Pinochet and Fidel Castro than between Agosto Pinochet and someone without someone on the conservative Right (let us say Margaret Thatcher) who has practically no blood on her hands or Fidel Castro with some social democrat like Willy Brandt. In more recent times I see Ba'athist thugs like Satan Hussein and Assad pere and fils either rivaling fascist butchery or being fascist butchers themselves. 

I can argue with Classic X'er, who I think would butcher people much as Hutu perpetrators did in Rwanda to people whose humanity if he got the chance (and I welcome him to argue that he would not because he has some high principles that preclude him from denying the humanity of those who are unlike himself). If he lacks such principles, maybe I can demonstrate the necessity of such principles to any claim of being fully American. I can argue with Einzige on my interpretation of what I have seen among Marx's writings, including the Communist Manifesto and Capital.  Marx may be useful and even necessary for a full understanding of economic history, but he certainly isn't enough. Politics may be theoretical, but they at best have practical tests of accommodating human dreams and dodging the nightmares. Theories do not support themselves on pure reasoning alone.

[David Horn]

(03-30-2021, 03:56 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(03-29-2021, 06:09 PM)NLVT Wrote: Americans say that anyone who loves freedom supports the police state.

This sounds like computer-generated word salad...

I'm purging this same poster as fast as new accounts are created, but I can only go so fast.  Threads (s)he creates disappear in the purge, so consider that before you start a conversation on one.  That applies in general.  The thread starters are always a headline and a link.

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(03-30-2021, 03:56 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: . I don't know what Marxist-Leninist school Einzige belongs to,

I've said this before and I'll say it again: none of them. My sympathies are with what is broadly called "left-communism", from Antonie Pannekoek, the Dutch Council Communist (and his American heirs like Paul Mattick) to Amadeo Bordiga.

"Marxism-Leninism" simply refers to the State capitalist dogma of the Soviet Union. As I am not sympathetic to the Soviets after 1922, I am not sympathetic to "Marxism-Leninism".

Quote:but even I can admit to learning something from Marx. Marx is obsolete; what other thinker who died in or before the year in which Harry Truman was born could be fully up-to-date on a topics that are anything but  stagnant?

What other thinker who died in the year Harry Truman was born in anticipated the computerization of the economy and the Information Age? (Grundrisse, "Fragment on Machines")

Quote:Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.

The Fragment goes on to state the following:

Quote:... But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages.

The fact that Marx distinguishes the "mechanical" and "intellectual" organs of this automaton is evidence that Marx was aware of the possible function of machine intelligence in capitalism. This wouldn't actually require an impossible feat of prognostication - proto-computers like the Difference Engine, the Eureka Machine, etc. were known to the Victorians. Their integration into capitalist production would have been obvious to a materialist like Marx.

This is a description of networked capitalism from three years before the American Civil War.

Nobody who was Marx's contemporary wrote anything this insightful. Not Ricardo, not Veblen, nobody.

[pbrower2a]

(03-30-2021, 10:25 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-30-2021, 03:56 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(03-29-2021, 06:09 PM)NLVT Wrote: Americans say that anyone who loves freedom supports the police state.

This sounds like computer-generated word salad...

I'm purging this same poster as fast as new accounts are created, but I can only go so fast.  Threads (s)he creates disappear in the purge, so consider that before you start a conversation on one.  That applies in general.  The thread starters are always a headline and a link.

The nonsense character is obvious. It doesn't even parse, yet it pretends to great profundity. "Americans say" is obvious because Americans in no way form a cultural or political monolith unless one has a narrow identification based upon ideology and perhaps ethnic identity. Someone cannot love freedom (unless it is the freedom of some clique to do what it wants to anyone not inside that elite, which is how medieval lords operated) and support any style of police state. 

At times the headline often has a provocative, meaty story behind it. Sometimes such leads to a legitimate story. I have started threads that way, but I have typically sought to explain why the story has interest. There might even be random successes in finding such a story. But as a rule, if it leads to something obscure and the conclusion does not match the headline the thread is worthless.  

"Word salad" is one of the most common epithets for worthless communications. If something does not make sense and one cannot suggest that its truth is real despite being counter-intuitive, then we have one category of garbage. 

This said, I thought that a police state was forming in the last year of the Trump Administration. It has been shut down; President Biden has no use for it even as a parody to do much the same thing. Some people are delusional enough to believe that the attempt to undo the formal election of the President was an act of consummate patriotism instead of a dangerous coup. Many people saw nothing wrong with people driving vans (the ones that I saw in the news media were all Chevrolet Suburban vehicles) with a US flag and a Trump banner. Personal loyalty to the Leader among those doing the dirtiest work of law enforcement typically characterizes dictatorial and despotic regimes from at least ancient Sparta on. Mercifully such did not go far.

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Paul Brower: Address My Post