quote:
Okay, this is at the point now where I'm going to tell you, LTJ, to pretend that Stephen Gordon doesn't exist - which means never EVER addressing his posts, either directly or talking about him in the third person - because you seem to find it impossible to address him or talk about him without attacking him.
...so being smug, patronizing and condescending okay, getting pissed off at smug patronizing and condescending people not okay.
Personal attacks are not okay. Especially when there has been a pattern of it for months on end.
However, I should have made it clear that I would like the avoidance to go both ways. So that means that I'd like to see Stephen avoid LTJ too, which means not responding to his posts nor referring to him in the third person.
I'm just trying to figure out a way to stop this constant bickering by two valuable members of this forum. I can't think of anything else. Suspensions don't work. Warnings don't work. Nothing works.
What would you do if you were the moderator? Pretty easy to criticize, not so easy to be the person who gets all the complaints and has to find a way to deal with them.
personally I find apologists for global capitalism and corporate imperialism rather tedious so I tend to avoid them myself. I really don't need to here more opinions of this type, I am unable to turn on a radio,t.v. open a newspaper or even walk out the door without being assaulted by a barrage of incessant screams of the dominant ideology...THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. It is sometimes pleasant to believe there might be some sort of sanctuary perhaps that is naive.
engaging in conversation with one of the high priests is like talking to an evangelical christian a pointless and frustrating waste of time.
Inclusiveness might be a nice idea but the reality is including some usually means excluding others
Okay. So, what? Anyone to the right of Lenin is out?
I'm a fairly moderate New Dem - on some issues I'm to the right of the party on some i'm to the left. Am i out?
Who do you think should be allowed to come play?
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
So that means that I'd like to see Stephen avoid LTJ too, which means not responding to his posts nor referring to him in the third person.
Fair enough.
quote:
Okay. So, what? Anyone to the right of Lenin is out?I'm a fairly moderate New Dem - on some issues I'm to the right of the party on some i'm to the left. Am i out?
Who do you think should be allowed to come play?
Do you think its impossible to imagine or discuss an alternative without being constantly reminded of the never ending wonders of global capitalism?
Certainly I do. And I think if you set the parameters of a discussion i.e., a thread entitled "Alternatives to Capitalism" or somesuch I bet that it would be respected.
That's kind of how it works, I suppose. We try to tolerate each other and our divisions and try to make something work between us. If this were an explicitly anti-capitalist board by mission I would likely not contribute; been to those sites, man, they make babble look like a tea party.
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
[b]Do you think its impossible to imagine or discuss an alternative without being constantly reminded of the never ending wonders of global capitalism?[/b]
Your statement is very nebulous.
Do you consider global capitalism to be a monolithic philosophy? What do you include under that philosophy? all trade and all banking?
Some say capitalism became dominant with the rise of the stock exchange. Would you ban people from buying stocks of companies on other continents?
Capitalism isn't a philosophy.
Who's talking about banning anything? I'm sure N.R.K. wouldn't lose any sleep if you decided to buy some stocks.
Personally, I follow oldgoat's approach. If a person has justice and love in their heart, we have common ground, and we can work with that. I don't spend much time with anyone else. Usually I don't have disputes with people who have fundamentally different outlooks than me--they usually come in mindset. For instance, when discussing social justice or policies with lawyers and mathematicians who see the world in a very different light, but no less compassionately than I do. But with common ground, I find I can explain my point of view no matter what leftist theory they come from.
People like the Mikhail, I find, aren't really interested in changing minds or finding consensus anyway. They're more interested in machismo and posturing, scratching as high as they can on the oak tree to mark their territory. They want to be right, not better. I have to admit, that's an activity I sometimes find all too attractive, but it's ultimately a dead end.
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Capitalism isn't a philosophy.Who's talking about banning anything? I'm sure N.R.K. wouldn't lose any sleep if you decided to buy some stocks.[/b]
Iґm not comfortable reading that much into her position. All she said is that sheґs for alternatives to global capitalism. I donґt know how you went from that to saying sheґs probably fine with people owning international stocks, a trait of global capitalism after all. Perhaps youґve seen some other posts of hers I have not seen or that I am failing to remember.
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Personally, I follow oldgoat's approach. If a person has justice and love in their heart, we have common ground, and we can work with that. I don't spend much time with anyone else. Usually I don't have disputes with people who have fundamentally different outlooks than me--they usually come in mindset. For instance, when discussing social justice or policies with lawyers and mathematicians who see the world in a very different light, but no less compassionately than I do. But with common ground, I find I can explain my point of view no matter what leftist theory they come from.[/b]
So you must likely disagree with Anne Frank?
[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Whaa? How do you infer Coyote's disagreement with so disparate a figure from mathemagicians and such?
I'm lost.
First of all, N.R.K is male. Second, Apples, you made the strange and apropos suggestion that since N.R.K was anti-capitalist, he would care whether people bought stocks. Which is rather like asking if you're allergic to fish, would you order halibut?
Third, I'm the literature student, and I have no idea what Anne Frank has to do with anything. I'm sure there's something there though, perhaps you'd like to elaborate?
LTJ: "For a Canadian history, Ms. C. might want to try "Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century", by John Ralston Saul."
One of the books that made me lose faith in Canadian literary tastes. Wasn't it a best seller? Could my knuckles have been any whiter when I read that book? Mordecai Richler wrote better history than Saul ever dreamed of attempting.
Back to the topic at hand. I find that talking politics, or economics, with anyone is a frustrating experience IF you are attempting to change someone's thinking more towards what you consider proper. Remember when The Guardian tried to get people in Ohio to vote specifically - or strongly suggestively - not for Bush in 2004? The reaction was swift.
Anyhow, if anyone wants to talk with a redneck, often synonymous with right-winger, I'm open to PMs (but not PMS).
The suggestion was for "those who want or need a history lesson that doesn’t get taught in school." Saul's book certainly fits that description IMO.
What was your issue with it, Farmpunk?
quote:
[b]For simple history, it's gotta be Howard Zinn. I’m in the middle of reading A People’s History of American Empire, his new graphic adaptation of his book A People’s History of the United States. Excellent for those who want or need a history lesson that doesn’t get taught in school. There isn't one for Canada as far as I know. [/b]
I think those who claim to be card-carrying supporters of the Republican Party are somewhere around 36% of voters in the U.S. So I think self-described right-wingers are actually in the minority even in the last bastion of far right conservatism in the world in that country. An estimated 80% of Americans know their health care system, the most privatized in the world is broken and needs fixing. One of every two doctors in the U.S. is now for some form of socialized medicine. And neither of the two prospective cosmetic leaders will give it to them. As Noam Chomsky said recently, U.S. voters have become irrelevant in the scheme of things.
As for capitalism itself, JK Galbraith said that notion of U.S. economy went out of vogue in the 1930's.
And Canada's is a fake "G8" economy. Our fearless leaders have tied our economic fortunes and national security to a dangerous empire whose cold war era extravagance and time for living off the credit of other nations is in decline. It's no wonder to me why some number of Albertans and Quebecois desire to break away and form a real country on their own. Canadians have never had real leadership in Ottawa.
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]I'm lost.First of all, N.R.K is male. [/b]
Oops. Checked his profile, mea culpa.
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Second, Apples, you made the strange and apropos suggestion that since N.R.K was anti-capitalist, he would care whether people bought stocks. Which is rather like asking if you're allergic to fish, would you order halibut?[/b]
My central point was that being against global capitalism is nebulous. As an example of this nebulosity, Iґm interpreting that as against international stock transactions, whereas you see the link as strange and apropos.
How do you define global capitalism?
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Third, I'm the literature student, and I have no idea what Anne Frank has to do with anything. I'm sure there's something there though, perhaps you'd like to elaborate?[/b]
Some of her most famous words,
I still believe that all people are fundamentally good at heart.
And you were saying you had common ground with people,
quote:
If a person has justice and love in their heart, we have common ground
which sounds like good in their heart? So assuming you donґt include everyone in that category, you must disagree with Anne Frank.
[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
Ann Frank spent her last days as a slave labourer for the corporate-sponsored military machine and fighting for her life against typhus. It's a bad example for pro-kapital side.
Apples, that's pretty tortured so far as logical leaps go. And the point goes miles over my head, anyways.
quote:
How do you define global capitalism?
The concentration of wealth into the hands of a primarily Western economic elite through trans-national corporations supported by extra-territorial legislation, as well as treaties that subvert national sovereignty and national democratic movements.
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
[b]The concentration of wealth into the hands of a primarily Western economic elite through trans-national corporations supported by extra-territorial legislation, as well as treaties that subvert national sovereignty and national democratic movements.[/b]
Colonialism and exploitation exceed the invention of the stock exchange and systemized for-interest banking that have made private ownership viable on a large scale. I bet they will outlive it as well.
I donґt see what great positive can arise from lumping all that one views as evil about the world under the umbrella of the term ЁcapitalismЁ.
quote:
American Heritage Dictionary
cap·i·tal·ism (kāp'ĭ-tl-ĭz'əm) Pronunciation Keyn.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Would global capitalism then not be people owning things across the world?
·············
Definitions matter.
[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]
quote:
I donґt see what great positive can arise from lumping all that one views as evil about the world under the umbrella of the term ЁcapitalismЁ.
I don't believe I used the word "evil" in my definition. But is global capitalism evil? In its present incarnation where economic and political rights are concentrated into very few hands, and where exploitation is a critical component, and where environmental degradation - even to the point of jeopardizing human societies on a global scale is a by-product, then I think it is probably a very bad thing. No one argues, for example, the benefits of cancer.
quote:
Would global capitalism then not be people owning things across the world?
It sounds so quaint like someone owning a Royal Dalton figurine. What could be wrong with that?
First it isn't people. It is a small number of people known euphemistically as investors. Their rights, investor rights, trump all others including aboriginal, civil, labour, and environmental.
They have at their disposal state violence and para-militaries, operating under the cover of the state, to employ brutal violence in order to advance their interests.
With their ownership of "investments", they also own, or at least have the freedom to do as they wish, the global commons including the atmosphere, the oceans, fresh water, soil, the minerals, and the fruits of the earth's systems.
The rest of us on a daily basis have our rights - to live freely as citizens of the earth and to take freely from (and return to) the earth - undermined and curtailed until we must turn to corporations, the front organizations of the global capitalist elite, for every aspect of our survival and have it withheld unless we conform to the system that spreads like, well ... a cancer.
[ 07 July 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
What FM said about globalizing "capitalism" The only thing I might add is the fact that the "new" Liberal capitalism works in reverse to Adam Smithian capitalism for creating competition. Washington consensus, IMF and WTO tend to pave the way for multinational corporations to move into countries and destroy local competition for delivering goods and services. World Bankers themselves have questioned the methods of measuring poverty. One billlion living on a dollar a day as opposed to two dollars in various other countries is a rough measure. Three or four dollars a day in another country may not be all that much better if they're spending a quarter of daily income on free market water, and maybe 80 percent of income goes toward shelter and nothing left for proper nutrition. In fact, billions of human beings are still desperately poor.
And now the writing is on the wall for commodities based capitalism, Soviet in size MNC's want their share of public services: health care, education, and to commercialize child daycare. Those three services represent over $6 trillion dollars in public spending worldwide. And their intentions are to monopolize those important services.
Bush's political support base in the U.S. consisting of a powerful group of Pentagon capitalists, pharmaceutical companies, big sugar, and some large percentage of business handled by big insurance companies have little to do with the free market and relying more on lobbying for government contracts, and-or, lobbying and bribing politicos in order to prevent more efficient and cheaper socialized medicine. Since the 1930's and 40's, laissez-faire capitalism was displaced by a system of socialism for the rich - "Keynesian-militarism" - or upside-down socialism for the rich in North America.
quote:
Originally posted by 500_Apples:
[b]
Colonialism and exploitation exceed the invention of the stock exchange and systemized for-interest banking that have made private ownership viable on a large scale. I bet they will outlive it as well.[/b]
You appear to be invoking an old and popular argument. I have read that Victor Perlo's [b]"People's Capitalism" and Stock-Ownership[/b] is a very good reply to this particular argument. You can get it for $10.00 [url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/1809770]here[/url] but I'm going to try the library first.
I can tell you that I wouldn't take my definition of capitalism from any dictionary, let alone an impostor like the New American Heritage.
"People owning things across the world." Heh. I guess so.
Capitalism is an overarching, invasive and insidious system of exchange, ownership and exploitation. It is dependent on the commodity, which as Marx shows, isn't really "people owning things" so much as "things owning people." Look up "reification" if you want more of an explanation. It reduces relationships between people to relationships between things.
This also means that the emergence of the image, or spectacle as a cultural force is directly linked to capitalism. The image that kills the thing--and encourages alienation and separation between people in an increasingly mediatized and spectacular culture while historical context and meaning disappears. See: Alphonso Cuaron's [i]Children of Men[/i] (2006).
And as a matter of fact, it could be argued that colonialism cannot exist without capitalism, because it is a necessary prerequisite for capitalism and capitalism naturally follows from colonialism. Mercantile colonialism didn't emerge until 1650 in Europe, which is really when capitalism started to take hold as a global force.
If you want to know where these ideas come from, you should read the first chapter of [i]The Communist Manifesto[/i], which is available online, and is a marvelous and exceedingly well-written piece of literature.
quote:
Mikhail asked: ...my question is: how can one explain concepts and simple history to people with such limited mind frames?
Unless there is a need to do this as opposed to a desire to be chatty, say, at a cocktail party or with a co-worker, I don't bother to explain anything to anyone who I think hasn't got a foundation in the basics of history, economics, and politics. I might plant a seed here and there via comments or suggestions but an all-guns-blasting discussion with a person who sees the world so differently than me---nope, I don't have time for it.
If you find yourself feeling lonely because of this you need new friends who think more like you do.
This is my personal daily formula for survival in the real world. I have a different approach when I'm trying to be an activist and want to encourage debate. That's usually something I plan to do in advance, like attending a political rally. But I'm not a walking agitation machine every moment of my life, I pick and choose where I can be most effective.
There is a book on Canadian History/NAFTA that I found fascinating - but I had to read it in small doses because it disturbed me a lot!! Worth the effort!
"The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionisn" by David Orchard
[url=http://www.davidorchard.com/online/fight/fightfor.html]http://www.davido...
quote:
Originally posted by jayell584:
[b]
"The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionisn" by David Orchard
[url=http://www.davidorchard.com/online/fight/fightfor.html]http://www.davido...
I'll have to read it. I see Orchard's book was published in the U.S.
In his book "The Vanishing Country: Is it too late to save Canada?", Hurtig mentions that Canada imports more book titles than any other country in the world, including twice as many as the U.S. on a per capita basis. Well over half the books sold in Canada are produced outside the country by foreign publishers. Over 80 percent of magazines on our newstands are foreign. Over 80 percent of all CDs sold in Canada are foreign, and over 94 percent of film distribution revenue goes to non-Canadians. About 95 percent of screen time in Canadian theatres is devoted to foreign films.
And since 2005, Canada's has become a hewer and drawer economy, once again. This is true even though Brian Baloney promised that free trade with the elephant would deliver [b]"Jobs! Jobs! Jobs![/b] to Canadians. So far Canada has the second largest low wage, non-unionized and lowly skilled workforce in the developed world next to the USA.
I've never found natural scientists to be rightwing...I'd say they fall more on the left than right side in my experience.
Interesting - I think there must be correlations between people who choose careers in money and end up getting rich, I don't believe that's an accident. Or folks who choose the military for a career and end up enjoying killing. People gravitate towards what interests them, is my theory. But there are no absolutes in the social sciences and the ideas I've presented above are rather simplistic.
Heuristics like stereotypes are only quick and dirty techniques for thinking though - they shouldn't substitute for thinking.
Evidently, this thread was from back in the day when the intellectual bar was set much higher. I can't tell you how intimidating it was.
I've never found natural scientists to be rightwing...I'd say they fall more on the left than right side in my experience.
Apparently people like Theodore Kaczynski were distressed over this. He realized that there were lefties all around him and loitering in U.S. universities in general. The right are generally critical of academics.
Interesting - I think there must be correlations between people who choose careers in money and end up getting rich, I don't believe that's an accident. Or folks who choose the military for a career and end up enjoying killing. People gravitate towards what interests them, is my theory. But there are no absolutes in the social sciences and the ideas I've presented above are rather simplistic.
There have been surveys and statistics churned out. Money is a factor in choosing what careers they pursue. Paydays are what motivate a lot of people whether they are engineers or career criminals in banking and finance. Some engineers just like tinkering and will do it whether for charitable causes or where the money is, like the military and private enterprise. Doctors and nurses less so. They mostly have to really like people in order to do what they do.
You must have met different doctors fidel. I know many who dont like people, just money.
Or see it as puzzle solving and never ever consider the human factor
Almost everyone I know are apolitical or disgusted with it entirely. No one mentions anything to do with politics in social settings, with the exception of an occasional visceral remark offered up by someone in passing to more pleasant conversations. My partner votes NDP however; a habit passed down through her family apparently. We never discuss politics either, and for good reason I've found.
Money is a factor in choosing what careers they pursue. Paydays are what motivate a lot of people whether they are engineers or career criminals in banking and finance. Some engineers just like tinkering and will do it whether for charitable causes or where the money is, like the military and private enterprise. Doctors and nurses less so. They mostly have to really like people in order to do what they do.
As an English Literature graduate student, I can't relate to doctors or nurses like that at all. I chose my career solely for the imminent and inevitable fame and fortune.
That's interesting Fidel it must be a fright to control all those conditions. These are good reasons not to trust stereotypes. I can see cash being a concern for many occupations but that may be more of a reflection of the instrument and the cohort. And I'm still not convinced a military engineer is in it for the tinkering, esp if he can choose a non military occupation of the same wage and benefits - I guess I find that finding 'very surprising' - I know the military is sought after in the US for the benefits. I think there's something about joining the military and the police that gravitates to tall authoritarian institutions. But I'm willing to be corrected. Hopefully I'll meet some liberal minded military at the NDP convention and we can talk about childcare for single mothers (which I think is in Canada's economic interest).
If only it was THE right winger in my life.
I might be able to write the article
"How To Be Happy and Avoid Eruptions with the Nutbars in Your Life."
Rule # 1: forget about "talking" about it. Life is too short.
