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Thread: "The taboo has been broken" Richard Wolff

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    "The taboo has been broken" Richard Wolff

    This week: On Sanders and Socialism. Is socialism still an American taboo? Not so much, says professor Richard Wolff; nor was it in the past, says Nation columnist John Nichols. Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University in New York City. He has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including his most recent; Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown 2010- 2014, and he hosts the weekly Economic Update podcast. John Nichols' many books include The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism, and, most recently, Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-Media-Election Complex is Destroying America. This episode also features an commentary from Laura on renaming capitalism.


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhH-PWjR3b0


    Here is a longer piece by Richard Wolff A cure for Capitalism It is filled with many ideas for modifying our economic system

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guSdjsctrUQ
    Last edited by grannyfranny, 7th August 2015 at 00:14.

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    The danger of socialism is that it usually translates into more and bigger government. What has worked best for this country in the past has been less government. The only thing I think the government doesn't step in enough with, is taxing corporations, prosecuting corruption and breaking up monopolies. Government welfare is crucial for some people, but it would be far better for most people to have enough money to not need it, even well after retirement.

    These are problems that have plagued civilizations for a long time. One of the reasons most often given for the collapse of the Roman Empire was that it tried to support a massive military and a welfare state at the same time.

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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    The danger of socialism is that it usually translates into more and bigger government. What has worked best for this country in the past has been less government.
    That is not so much one of the dangers of socialism as it is one of socialism's biggest nuisances, brother.

    The true danger of socialism -- as it has manifested in just about every socialist/communist regime I can think of -- lies in what George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, i.e. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." In socialist regimes, the leaders always have more wealth and privileges than the rest of society. And the second biggest danger lies in the collectivist thinking, where individuality and individual needs become irrelevant in favor of the collective.

    Neither socialism nor capitalism are the answer, as they both pave the way for exploitation and degeneration of the original ideas behind them -- i.e. solidarity and freedom, respectively. They are also both outdated ideologies because they pertain to a scarcity-based economy model, with the scarcity itself being both an artificially perpetrated concept and an artificially exaggerated fear by way of clever political spin. I've said it before and I'll say it again: socialist regimes in today's globalized society are struggling to survive because they still depend on international trade, and international trade itself is ruled by capitalism and corporatism. So even within a socialist regime, you would be faced with that artificial scarcity as an essential strategic component of the capitalism/corporatism-based global economy model.

    The existence of scarcity is what puts people -- to a much greater extent for the vast majority than for the financially succesful minority -- into a "survival mode" psychology. What is really needed, is for humanity to move away from the barter-based economy -- and thus, from the very recognition of the man-made concept and pseudoscience called "economics" as a whole -- and into a non-scarcity-based society model, where everyone would be voluntarily contributing to the wellbeing of others, and where the resources offered to us by this beautiful planet are used responsibly by everyone.

    This takes enormous amounts of love, compassion, sympathy and empathy, and I'm afraid humanity just isn't ready for that yet, if it will ever be. After all, we're talking about thousands of years worth of conditioning, and hundreds of years worth of indoctrination, of which the past 100 years have been severely indoctrinating in the western world because of The Great Commie Scare™, and most specifically (albeit not exclusively) in the United States of America, as an imperialist nuclear superpower with a crypto-fascist political philosophy derived from the adventurers and criminals who fled to North America from Europe and who drove the so-called First Nations off of their land -- quoting Redbone -- "in the name of manifest destiny".

    The only societies known in modern history to ever have come close to the ideal were those of the Native American tribes. They lived in perfect harmony, both with the land and with each other. Until the White Man came, of course.



    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZpJbBja4oM



    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    In the name of
    Manifest destiny
    You and me
    You and me
    You and me

    They made us many promises
    But always broke their word
    They penned us in like buffalo
    Drove us like a heard
    And finally
    On the reservation
    We were going for
    Our preservation
    We were all wiped out
    By the Seventh Calvary
    You and me
    You and me

    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    In the name of
    Manifest destiny
    You and me
    You and me
    You and me

    Now we make our promises
    We won't break our word
    We'll sing, sing, sing out our story
    Till the truth is heard
    There's a whole new
    Generation
    Which will dream of
    Veneration
    Who were not wiped out
    By the Seventh Calvary
    You and me
    You and me

    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    We were all wounded
    At Wounded Knee
    You and me
    In the name of
    Manifest destiny
    You and me
    You and me
    You and me

    We were all wounded
    By Wounded Knee
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    I noticed it (the idea of socialism not so bad) getting meme-ed on the facebook.

    Which means any "truth" to it will be promptly twisted, if it was not in fact purposely rolled with out with the twist included.

    That is, if the idea that humans are communal, that succeeds as a species working together (rather than the extreme "value" of individualism program we grew up with as Americans), is already weaponized, or soon will be.

    Do you think is a "whack-a-mole" type situation to those who control, where empowering "truths" pop up despite the intent that they be suppressed, or do they have it under such tight control that these memes only hit the collective consciousness when they are allowed to?
    What is the purpose of your presence?

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    Quote Originally posted by donk View Post
    I noticed it (the idea of socialism not so bad) getting meme-ed on the facebook.

    Which means any "truth" to it will be promptly twisted, if it was not in fact purposely rolled with out with the twist included.

    That is, if the idea that humans are communal, that succeeds as a species working together (rather than the extreme "value" of individualism program we grew up with as Americans), is already weaponized, or soon will be.

    Do you think is a "whack-a-mole" type situation to those who control, where empowering "truths" pop up despite the intent that they be suppressed, or do they have it under such tight control that these memes only hit the collective consciousness when they are allowed to?
    I think that it's yet another diversion -- a decoy. They've noticed that US Americans are starting to get fed up with both parties of the bipartisan system, so now they're trying to introduce a third direction as a controlled alternative. It's probably already just as corrupted from the get-go as the Republican and Democrat vantages are.

    Never wait for any change in policy to come from the politicians themselves, my friend, for it is by definition suspect. True change can only come from the grassroots, through a peaceful rebellion of the people themselves against the corrupted power brokers. Think of Mahatma Ghandi and how he continued to resist the British without ever once picking up a weapon. He paid for it with his life, but his people stood by him all the time, and the British had to let go of India eventually.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    And the second biggest danger lies in the collectivist thinking, where individuality and individual needs become irrelevant in favor of the collective.
    I have a feeling that the rights of the individual are still deeply enough ingrained in Americans at this time that this part wouldn't fly yet.

    I agree we need something radically different, and not different in a way that benefits "them," but that takes their power away. One thing I can think of that doesn't seem to far off, would be the introduction of "free energy" units. Though the energy still comes from somewhere, the "somewhere" will either be magnetic energy or cold fusion or some other kind of energy drawn straight from the "air," so to speak. So much has been done in these areas already, to develop a box you sit in your basement that will power everything in your house 24/7 with no additional expensive, but it won't come out until TPTB are beaten into allowing it to come out. This alone with make every household more independent, do away with energy bills, and go a long way towards putting down big oil and the energy cartels.

    And with energy this available, greenhouses during the winter will only cost whatever it takes to build them.

    The only societies known in modern history to ever have come close to the ideal were those of the Native American tribes. They lived in perfect harmony, both with the land and with each other. Until the White Man came, of course.
    Some tribes did. Others attacked the peaceful ones often and took their land and possessions. The Hopi are a great example of how the rest of human society could be, though.

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    Beautifully written discussion. Thank you all. Henrik Palmgren of Red Ice Radio has some excellent commentary about socialism in Sweden and how it has turned into a control mechanism. It definitely seems to pacify and hook people. Then the government says "gotcha."

    "The Swedish political elite have plans to build a new city, funded entirely by Swedish taxpayers, to accommodate the massive wave of incoming immigrants. This radical plan also proposes the confiscation of summer homes and the conversion of old historical buildings and churches in order to facilitate the arrival of new immigrants. Meanwhile, Sweden's welfare system is plummeting as politicians suffer from Stockholm syndrome, trying to be a "humanitarian superpower." Native Swedes have been chosen to carry the weight of the world, sacrificing themselves on the altar of multiculturalism."

    I am not aware of any system that addresses collective and individual needs. They all seem to turn people into slugs content with slavery versus sovereignty.Personally I like what Gandhi says below.

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    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    And the second biggest danger lies in the collectivist thinking, where individuality and individual needs become irrelevant in favor of the collective.
    I have a feeling that the rights of the individual are still deeply enough ingrained in Americans at this time that this part wouldn't fly yet.
    Oh, you can bet that it will never fly, even if only because socialism in the United States will never be allowed to rise to the forefront. The US American population has been indoctrinated and conditioned far too long with The Red Scare™ for them to be willing to embrace socialism. The only reason for socialism popping up now is -- as I said -- that it's a decoy. Divide et conquere -- divide and conquer. It's merely becoming a meme so that US Americans would have another tail to chase.

    Europe is different in that regard in that socialism has had its chances here -- as part of the democratic system -- but modern-day European socialists are not actually socialists anymore. They call themselves socialists and they bear the socialist flag and they sing The Internationale, but they are actually more a kind of facsimile of the US Democrats -- including the very libertine morals. They are all for free trade -- albeit regulated, with a big bureaucratic apparatus hanging overhead. The only time they ever act as if they really are socialists is when they're part of the opposition, rather than of the ruling coalition.

    Quote Originally posted by bsbray View Post
    I agree we need something radically different, and not different in a way that benefits "them," but that takes their power away. One thing I can think of that doesn't seem to far off, would be the introduction of "free energy" units. Though the energy still comes from somewhere, the "somewhere" will either be magnetic energy or cold fusion or some other kind of energy drawn straight from the "air," so to speak. So much has been done in these areas already, to develop a box you sit in your basement that will power everything in your house 24/7 with no additional expensive, but it won't come out until TPTB are beaten into allowing it to come out. This alone with make every household more independent, do away with energy bills, and go a long way towards putting down big oil and the energy cartels.

    And with energy this available, greenhouses during the winter will only cost whatever it takes to build them.
    The problem here is that this sort of thing can never kick off unless everyone does it. So long as it's still a minority, the power brokers are going to continue doing what they've always done, and arrest the few dissenters. Look at what happened with the Occupy movement. Grand military display against a bunch of peaceful protesters. And where is Occupy now? It's gone underground, like Anonymous. The only reason why Anonymous is still considered a nuisance to the power brokers is because Anonymous goes farther than peaceful protest. But even they don't make any big difference.

    And at this point I'm actually starting to wonder whether the whole Anonymous movement in itself isn't some form of distraction, and possibly even part of the problem-reaction-solution dialectic.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Interesting conversation. Those types of gov’ts may look good on paper but the reality is that they promote something called “learned helplessness”.

    "Learned helplessness, as a technical term in animal psychology and related human psychology, means a condition of a human person or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected. Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

    Those who are running the show, more often than not, pander to beliefs of weakness, helplessness, where people end up as weak, helpless, and apathetic human beings because the controllers reward them for being that way.
    Last edited by Roisin, 7th August 2015 at 18:11.

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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post

    And at this point I'm actually starting to wonder whether the whole Anonymous movement in itself isn't some form of distraction, and possibly even part of the problem-reaction-solution dialectic.
    the fact that they chose guy fawkes as a figure head who historically was a vatican agent bent on stopping the protestants is a pretty big clue on that account.

    really we are social creatures who never got far by being a bunch of individuals who refused to work together, however, enforced socialism from an external authority structure can never work, true socialism is born in the hearts of each individual who then becomes a source of benevolent and compassionate assistance to others without being coerced into doing so....
    if it is external and coerced then it is just repackaged fascism....like all the other systems in place currently.

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