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July 2, 2019 at 1:21 pm in reply to: the circular firing squad: Sanders v. Warren supporters #102567
Billy_TParticipantQuick example of costs:
A chemo treatment — just one day for me — is roughly 30K. That money is going to have to be covered by Medicare for All, too. If they say no, we’ll have fewer and fewer places offering chemo, which likely will push up prices even higher.
To me, again, the answer is to decommodify all of it. The chemo drugs, the dispensing of those drugs, the facilities. Once it’s already set up as non-profit and public across the board, you’ve already gotten rid of the “competition” motive/laws of motion. There’s no reason to close up shop because you can’t make enough profit there. No one is in that sector.
And they’re not going to move overseas. Because pretty much the entire world already pays far less than we do now. They can’t escape to another profit wonderland, because America was basically it.
Gotta attack the pricing issue at both ends.
July 2, 2019 at 1:16 pm in reply to: the circular firing squad: Sanders v. Warren supporters #102566Billy_TParticipantI support medicare for all. But it’s not the entire answer to what ails us. And it’s a bad fit with a private, for-profit delivery sector, for (to me) obvious reasons.
As in, M4all is going to greatly reduce costs on the insurance side. Likely more than 30% in the aggregate. Which means trillions over time. But ever increasing prices on the delivery side will continue, and that creates a conflict for the funding side as well. That means higher and higher taxes to cover those increases, which our political system has rejected at least since 1964.
The answer, in my view, is to decommodify health care, period, on both sides. Take profit out of it across the board. Make it all non-profit and publicly held. Set up “free” health care clinics in every town possible, and pay doctors and nurses salaries.
Currently, NIH and other government institutions do the R and D for roughly 75% of our pharma, yet our system hands that over to the for-profit sector, and we the people end up paying for it twice . . . taxes and later purchases. How about keeping publicly funded research in the public domain?
Instant and radical cost reduction for pharma.
To make a long story short, we need to lower the costs of care itself, not just the insurance covering it. This can’t happen in a hybrid system of public coverage for for-profit care. It’s just a really bad match. The two sides of the equation have radically different interests, and they’re at odds.
Billy_TParticipantTo piggy-back on my last post:
We’re really at the point now that it makes no sense to try to convince the “other side.” It’s all about maximizing the moment of power we get, cuz it’s likely going to be short.
As in, kinda like you’re saying. Fuck the other side. When the side closest to our own philosophy gains power, we need to make sure they maximize their time at the plate and do the right thing. Swing for the fences. Don’t even try to compromise or cajole or coddle or appease the other team. Max out on opening up immigration and asylum, and spend all their time on making the case to Americans likely to agree in the first place. It’s just a waste of time at this point to try to convince people dead set against more brown and black people coming here . . . Nothing is really going to appeal to them short of ending all of it.
IMNSHO.
Billy_TParticipant…
But how to make that clear to the majority of Americans completely eludes me.
I’m betting you are far better at communicating this than I am. So if we’re both lost on this . . . . sheesh.
========================
Well, i no longer have any ‘desire’ to communicate with them, though 🙂 The system has done poked out the people’s eyes. Or poked out their brains, is more like it.
Anyway, there’s these big meta-issues like “The Nation-State” which we agree on. But history has run its course and we are stuck with what we are stuck-with. So, we must settle for ‘tinkering’ with the Corporate-Imperialist-Beast. Tinkering policies. With that in mind, and leaving aside the grand unfairness of the Nation-State….what would be a decent principle for immigration policy? Who should ‘get in’ ?
I have no fucking idea.
How bout…Ram Fans. No Viking fans allowed.
w
vI like your solution. I guess we were both traumatized by Joe Kapp, Carl Eller and Bud Grant, right? So it’s only fair!!
As for the folks who should be let in. If the issue is changing the minds of those who oppose immigration from the right, a quota limited to Norwegians would likely do it. Outside of that, set some crazy high bar for “skills” and “education,” which would eventually pizz off the same people once they find out how many “brown and black” people have those things. Cuz they probably think they don’t. So, again, I don’t know.
It used to be that advocates for “growth” could make the case, even to hard-core righties, that immigrants were absolutely necessary for that growth — which happens to be the truth. But in the age of demagogic victories, that doesn’t seem to work any longer. Trump seems to have them convinced that “growth” can magically occur without a growing population, which is all but impossible. Tax cuts and deregulation can provide temporary sugar highs, but they don’t last. “Growth” can’t be sustained by such tricks. A growing population is really the only way to sustain economic growth . . . which, of course, leads to other massive problems (primarily environmental). Another story altogether.
Boiled down? Probably a really tough quota, with seriously tough standards on skills and education. That might do it. But I think the folks who are against immigration have moved beyond tinkering. All too many are calling for an end to “legal” immigration, period, not to mention what they see as illegal.
Billy_TParticipantSo, basically, borders are arbitrary inventions, primarily based on military and/or economic conquest. Dying to defend them is pure insanity, IMO. Keeping impoverished people out is insanity. Keeping out people fleeing from the worst kinds of oppression is insanity.
But how to make that clear to the majority of Americans completely eludes me.
I’m betting you are far better at communicating this than I am. So if we’re both lost on this . . . . sheesh.
Billy_TParticipantSo, i just kinda try to think of whats “fair” in a first-grade sorta way. What would be a ‘fair’ immigration policy? And i just dont know. One of the big complicating factors for me iz — i dont know what to do with the whole meta-idea of “a National State”. I mean just the whole idea of having a ‘nation’ is problematic for me. Ya know. Borders and all. Its all an invention. Can anything be ‘fair’ after you’ve created a nation-state? So, i cant even get past that 🙂
I just dont know how to even ‘think’ about a ‘fair policy’ involving the question of who gets into the country and who has to starve/die/be tortured etc.
Its kinda like if we were in a bomb-shelter after an atom bomb went off — and people were pounding at the door….well what would be ‘fair’? Who gets in?
Really good metaphors for this, WV. The bomb shelter, etc.
And the just released IG report puts this into focus. Appalling, disgraceful conditions on the border. AOC is right to call them concentration camps:
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/07/01/us/01reuters-usa-immigration-conditions.html
As for borders, nation-states, etc. I think we both see the US as an empire. So it gained its borders via massive bloodshed, including genocide of native peoples, endless breaking of treaties, and on and on. Just finished David Treuer’s recent history, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, and it broke my heart all over again. Any history of empire is going to make calls to “border security” look absurd, given what came before.
Also reminds me of Yuval Harari’s book, Sapiens, which was like a Rosetta Stone for me in a sense.
https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens/
He makes the excellent point that these things are fictions . . . nation-states, religions, capitalism, money, etc. We humans have perhaps a unique ability to create fictions and coalesce around them. Harari’s theory is that this is how we survived as a species, because it enabled larger groups to form and pursue newly “common” objectives.
Billy_TParticipantA caveat to the comments above: Europe has seen more than a few leftists who ended up governing pretty much as conservatives. So I’m not talking about in name only. I mean actual leftist governance, not caving into the powers that be, as Syriza did.
Actual, aggressive, effective, non-compromised programs to make life better for everyone, with no one left behind. Not “progressive” in name only, etc.
IMO, that’s the best way to combat the reptile brain — currently, with systems as they exist right now.
Billy_TParticipantI also think none of this “works” if governments do the right thing for citizens in the first place. The table isn’t set for this kind of revolt and scapegoating of the Other, if there is a vigorous, effective program to fight inequality and actually improve the lives of everyone.
It only works when moderates, centrists and conservatives are in power, because they’ll inevitably do just enough to prevent actual, full-scale revolutions, so they protect their own masters, the donor class, the super-rich, etc. etc.
In short, a truly “leftist” program for the citizenry is going to take oxygen away from far-right attempts to stoke hatred against immigrants, etc. It’s not going to catch fire when the needs of every citizen are being met (or close to that), and their aspirations seem within their grasp.
Only when they aren’t.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
IMO, you pretty much answered your own questions. But I’ll throw in my own two cents.
It’s a combination of true believers and those who exploit true believers. True believers see those “hordes” as a direct threat for a host of reasons, most of which they can’t really pinpoint or articulate. Economic, cultural, a sense of the “rightful race” being dominant and how those “hordes” from the South threaten all of this. That’s always been exploited by fascists and reactionaries in general . . . and, by a certain portion of the oligarchy, which sees immigrants as a great scapegoat and distraction from their own endless screwing over of the very people feeling “threatened.
Ironically, part of the oligarchy really wants an endless stream of immigrants. Of course, not for noble reasons. But as cheap, exploitable labor. So they do battle with the part that loves manufactured scapegoats and distractions from the oligarchy itself.
Trump is one more demagogue in a long line of demagogues, gifted at whipping up fear and hatred of “the Other,” for his own political gain . . . and as shield for his oligarchic buddies.
June 29, 2019 at 12:00 pm in reply to: the circular firing squad: Sanders v. Warren supporters #102462Billy_TParticipantBilly:Spent some time earlier this year visiting Montana and South Dakota. In Montana we spent considerable time where the Battle of Bighorn (“Custer’s Last Stand”) took place. There is a monument inside the area dedicated to the great tribal leaders who lost their lives also during the battle. Quite moving. The entire battle took place over several miles which I had not known beforehand. In South Dakota we went to the monument to Chief Crazy Horse and also listened to several lectures on how the government broke many promises made to the Lakota tribes in order to bring an end to hostilities. All in all quite a moving experience. I’m no fan of reparations but we did destroy an entire culture and way of life. If you haven’t already I think you would truly enjoy going there.
Thanks, W,
I need to visit those places, definitely.
The book reminded me of something important. We didn’t just screw over the Indians a few times in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was ongoing. The book details decade after decade of this, on into the 1970s. When I finish it, I’ll have the story up to the present . . .
Usually, when you go into “negotiations,” both sides end up with something they want. In the case of Indians versus the US government, that rarely happened. They’d go from having a few million acres, to a few hundred thousand, after one of these sessions. With rare exceptions, they kept losing more and more, while being told they would greatly benefit each time. And, of course, they were also told this would be the last time they had to move, etc. “This is your land forever” never meant forever. Usually, just a few years.
Have to go see those places. Thanks.
June 29, 2019 at 9:57 am in reply to: the circular firing squad: Sanders v. Warren supporters #102454Billy_TParticipantQuick note on the book:
The vast, vast majority of it, of course, is about Native Americans — the author generally uses the term “Indians,” and explains why early on — focusing on broken treaties, wars, internal strife, endless laws crushing Indian sovereignty, etc. etc. It’s not about LBJ or non-Indian life in general. But he does provide the larger context, and does that really well. It’s basically his answer to Dee Brown’s classic . . . part homage, part update, part attempt to show the resiliency of American Indians . . . which he thinks Dee Brown failed to do for the most part.
I’m about 400 pages into a book in the 455 page range. Very good overall.
June 29, 2019 at 9:51 am in reply to: the circular firing squad: Sanders v. Warren supporters #102453Billy_TParticipantHope all is well, Mac.
On Waterfield’s comment: I wish Sanders would say that. He’s not. But he’d be correct if he did. Though it goes much deeper than that, IMO.
It’s the system itself. And by that I don’t mean “neoliberalism.” I mean capitalism. Because any economic system in the form of economic apartheid is going to cause horrible things to happen, including massive inequality. That’s just baked in. And all the efforts to mitigate this amount to a waste of time and energy. Why try to endlessly reform a horrible system when we could replace it with one that doesn’t need all that reform in the first place?
Am reading a very interesting (though uneven) history of Native Americans, by David Treuer: The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, and there are a host of takeaways so far. One of them is the endless efforts to try to offset the effects of our economic system, which turn us all into Sisyphus, rolling that boulder up the hill. He talks about LBJ and the War on Poverty, and I thought, trillions spent to undo the impact of a system designed to concentrate wealth at the very top . . . is absurd.
Get rid of the system itself, go with one that DOESN’T do that, and you don’t HAVE to keep “redistributing” overly concentrated capital, only to see your efforts wiped out by the next administration, etc.
No Dem or indie is talking about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. That includes Sanders. Perhaps they know they can’t. Perhaps they know they’d be shot if they did . . .
???
Billy_TParticipantDoes anyone understand how salaries and the cap work in the NBA?
I’m no cap expert in any sport, but I think I get the basics of the NFL. The NBA confuses me.
Apparently, the Lakers end up with almost ten million more in salary cap room if they delay this trade until late July. If it happens when New Orleans want it to happen — early July — the Lakers lose nearly 10 million. This means they won’t have enough space to sign a “max” free agent like Leonard.
So, I’m wondering: Can LeBron offer up part of his salary to give the Lakers more room? Or is that against their labor agreement? If memory serves, an NFL player can do this. But no pundit is talking about it happening for the Lakers . . .
Thoughts, anyone?
Billy_TParticipantI think the Lakers gave up too much, too. Ingram and Ball are both potential all-stars, and the 4th pick this draft is worth a lot. But Davis puts the Lakers in the playoffs next season, and Ingram and Ball might not. And almost wouldn’t put them in the conference finals. The chemistry wasn’t right…the talent mesh, I mean…from what I read because…I don’t know about that stuff. So they weren’t complementary to LeBron. Davis is, I guess, and so is Kuzma, whom they kept. And the Lakers still have cap space for another star, and they just became a more inviting destination because whoever signs that deal may very well play for a championship. If that happens, the price the Lakers gave up is worth it. If they sign Walker, they have a 2-4 year run at a banner.
Agreed.
I know I’m a heretic . . . but before this trade happened, I was actually in favor of trading LeBron. Obviously that was not gonna happen. But I think the Lakers could have gotten a boatload for him and set things up for a longer run later. Again, I prefer that.
Another thought I had as amateur GM: trade up in the draft for Ja Morant. Give Memphis — I think it is — #4 and Ball for #2, draft Morant, and work hard to bring in the best available free agent. I think Morant has much more upside than Ball, is a crazy good athlete, and could make LeBron even better. It might even lure Kawhi Leonard to the Lakers instead of the Clippers.
Anyway . . . the key now is to bring in shooters. Which is what they should have done last season. It’s easier said than done, of course. But they’re going to have to surround the big two with guys who can stretch the floor and open up the rim for AD and LeBron. Without dead-eye outside guys, good defensive teams can at least reduce the inside game, even with those two superstars in the mix.
The West is now wide open.
June 16, 2019 at 12:10 pm in reply to: Examining the National Review’s “Against Socialism” issue #102194Billy_TParticipantAs mentioned before, my science reading isn’t up to par. I’ve generally chosen other subject areas. But I did recently read — checked out from the library, so I can’t refer to it here — Richard Wrangham’s fascinating The Goodness Paradox.
He deals with, among many things, the Domestication Syndrome, and builds upon theories going back to Darwin at least.
Boiled down (and oversimplified), he thinks Homo Sapiens worked to get rid of alphas, over time (starting roughly 300,000 years ago), and this altered us as a species. Made up less reactively violent, but more proactively so, perhaps. The proactive part primarily in the service of culling the herd of those alphas and those considered dangerous to the community. The latter taking the form of systemic, “official” culling in part.
He also talks about wolves to dogs, and the experiments done on minks by a Russian scientist and its aftermath. The latter, due to the very short duration of mink generations, showed marked differences between minks chosen for relative tameness and acceptance of humans, and those who fought them. Domestication seen in real time, which meant physical changes too. Facial features, smaller bodies, less bone density, less difference between males and females.
A really good book, accessible to non-scientists like me.
Billy_TParticipantI think the Lakers gave up too much for him, but it may well end up working for both teams.
To me, the only player in the NBA I’d give up the house for is the Greek Freak. But, again, this may well lead to a title for LA.
That said, this wouldn’t hurt the Lakers as much as it does if they had made smarter decisions the last few years. They’ve let good players walk, like Randle and Lopez, and got far too little back for Russell and Lou Williams, and I think the Zubac (sp?) trade was dumb. Going further back in time, they have a habit of trading a good bit of the house for older vets like Nash, who end up hurt, and make the necessary rebuilding next to impossible. So they’re kind of stuck in the loop of needing more vets to offset the loss of draft picks, etc. etc.
Lakers fans seem not to want to deal with rebuilding at all, and feel entitled to championships on a yearly basis. Personally, I’m fine with the process of building one, instead of renting it. I prefer the draft process, basically.
Should be a very interesting year in the NBA.
June 15, 2019 at 8:12 pm in reply to: Examining the National Review’s “Against Socialism” issue #102184Billy_TParticipantOn the “human nature” thing. Capitalist cheerleaders need to be careful throwing that one around as a supposed reason why socialism can’t work. Since capitalism concentrates power in the hands of the few, so the the few can concentrate capital and own everything everyone else makes on the job . . . those negative traits they talk about will manifest themselves in far more dangerous ways than under socialism. By definition.
Good to see you posting BT.
I am going to use what I quoted to springboard into a thing of my own. It’s a variation on your take. I agree with your post, just feel like adding my own 22 cents.
One of the keys to keeping any ideological world frozen in place, is this idea that there IS a (singluar, eseentialist) “human nature.”
There’s a long and short version of this and I am going with the short version.
Just summing up what we know from a lot of different sources, human beings are genetically determined to be culture bearing animals. So we are “incomplete” at birth and get filled in with specific cultural practices, values, ways of thinking. Meaning–“human nature” is variable, inherently. Not necessarily at the individual level but as a species that lives in different cultures and different histories. A good example of this–all societies, at all times, have and have always had “rules” and values guiding what counts as acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior. EXCEPT–if you add up all the different societies, past and present, you end up with lots of “rules” that contradict one another. So for example some societies simply did not have any kind of homophobia. ETc. etc, etc. So leaving biology out of it (though even that can be tricky), while there are a lot of human universals, they are EMPTY universals. EG. all societies practice child care, but what counts as child care and how it’s done and by whom and in what ways changes across the globe and across history.
Back to capitalism and human nature.
ANY TIME someone tells you they are basing things on a universal, essentialist, identifiable, timeless “human nature” they are selling something. Namely, they are selling A VIEW of human nature. Notions of “human nature” are just quite simply ideological programs. They can’t BE truths–the closest we have to truths on that is that “human nature” is deeply culturally variable and to one extent or another changes across history.
So it’s not “capitalism is based on human nature.” It’s “capitalism defends and justifies itself by making certain kinds of claims about human nature.”
The hardest part about this is that the sellers believe what they’re selling. It’s not tricks or conspiracies. It’s the well-meaning “truths” of the faithful.
….
That’s well said. Especially this:
So it’s not “capitalism is based on human nature.” It’s “capitalism defends and justifies itself by making certain kinds of claims about human nature.”
You know a lot more about the science than I do, though I’ve studied a bit about it here and there. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to talk in terms of “human nature” per se, because we can’t really observe it without the “nurture” aspect in place. Or larger societal “systems” and their effects.
Nature/nurture are always coupled. We can’t separate one from the other to study, or create control groups, so how do we really know their individual impacts?
My own guess is that most humans “naturally” seek cooperation and meaningful social interaction, not struggle, and that we “naturally” have genetic traits that enable this, or we wouldn’t have survived. IMO, it’s only a very small percentage who really want to be Caesars and Napoleons or billionaires, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to put them in the “sociopath” category, in general, with exceptions. So, yeah, capitalism really works well for that small percentage. Not so well for the vast majority of us who’d rather get along with one another, make love not war, etc. etc.
Would be interested in reading more on that subject from you and others. Will check back tomorrow.
Hope all is well . . .
June 15, 2019 at 5:25 pm in reply to: Examining the National Review’s “Against Socialism” issue #102173Billy_TParticipantI recently purchased and read the Wilde essay, along with a few others in a collection.
Beautiful and Impossible Things
He was a libertarian socialist, like Chomsky. But the essay in question really doesn’t deal all that much with the subject. I’d call it “idiosyncratic” in sections, not “silly.” It’s really about his dislike for various cultural mores in the England of his day, with a sidelong glance at how these can be improved through socialism. But he doesn’t go into specifics.
It’s worth reading, but it’s not a good example of “socialist” thought per se.
June 15, 2019 at 5:19 pm in reply to: Examining the National Review’s “Against Socialism” issue #102171Billy_TParticipantThanks, Zooey.
Lots of great takeaways so far for me. Almost finished with the essay.
On the “human nature” thing. Capitalist cheerleaders need to be careful throwing that one around as a supposed reason why socialism can’t work. Since capitalism concentrates power in the hands of the few, so the the few can concentrate capital and own everything everyone else makes on the job . . . those negative traits they talk about will manifest themselves in far more dangerous ways than under socialism. By definition.
Greed, selfishness, mine mine mine!! etc. etc.
And it’s not socialism that requires angelic altruists to make it work. It’s capitalism. How else would the folks on top be expected to “make capitalism work for everyone”? The capitalist system incentivizes hoarding, selfishness and rewards greed at the top. It actually punishes generosity and sharing among the holders of capital. Nice guys finish last, etc. etc.
Capitalist cheerleaders seem blind to the logic of their own arguments. If they really were worried about “human nature,” they’d end their support for the system they love.
Billy_TParticipantAhead of the finale, a Game of Thrones quiz, from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/quiz/2015/apr/11/game-of-thrones-quiz
Billy_TParticipantTo me, it boils down to this:
An agenda that concentrates on one’s “share” of the 1% sustains the existing system of oppression.
Yes, it’s obviously the case that women and minorities are discriminated against when it comes to climbing the ladder, and a host of other things. But doesn’t it make a lot more sense to do away with the ladder itself? If there is no ladder to climb, no pyramids to support, no neck-breaking hierarchies to fight through . . . the distance between genders, ethnicities, etc. etc. is already radically shortened.
We could have perfect “equity” between all those categories, but as long as we maintain hierarchical structures, we’ll always have massive inequality overall. We’ll still have a ginormous difference between top to bottom, obviously.
And another negative side-effect: The “natural” agents of positive change, currently, are women and minorities. The ruling class wants to co-opt them and turn them away from being agents for change, and into agents to support the existing structures. The “lean in” and “know your value” movements feed into this, at least unwittingly.
Billy_TParticipantPredictions, anyone?
Of course, I’m very likely to be wrong on this, but what the hey.
Arya goes after Daenarys for her last assassination. She succeeds, but Drogon retaliates and kills her, then flies off into the sunset.
Jon refuses the throne. Sasha wins the Game of Thrones. Last scene: we see Sasha enter King’s Landing with a small retinue, determined to rebuild the city. Tyrion is her Hand. Brienne her protector.
Off the top of me head, can’t think of any other essential loose ends to tie up. I think the last episode did most of that for all the “secondary” characters and their arcs. If it were the LOTR, of course, it would be orcs.
Thoughts?
Billy_TParticipantHave to say there was a lot of expected action.
By any chance do you mean UNexpected there? Let me know, that’s a quick n easy edit.
Yes, I meant “unexpected.”
Thanks in advance.
Billy_TParticipantI liked the episode — from an aesthetic point of view. And, as usual, the production values were high. Though, it’s damn hard to make every shot work when buildings are collapsing. Even the best filmmakers have moments of, well, cheesiness. Big blocks falling all around without serious physics in play. But that’s minor.
There were, however, plot holes, and some of the actions by this and that character did not seem to grow organically out of past episodes. Once folks have had a chance to see it, and we can dispense with “spoilers” etc. etc. . . . hope everyone will toss in an opinion or two.
Have to say there was a lot of expected action. I didn’t see things playing out like this in general. That’s a good thing, mostly, but “bad” in parts as well, IMO.
Billy_TParticipantIt’s obviously waaay too soon to really assess any of this, and I know I’m jumping the gun months in advance, but . . .
I love the Henderson pick. Yeah, it would have been nice if they could have gotten him later, but at that point in the draft, the pickins for game-changing backs were getting slimmer and slimmer, so I wouldn’t have risked it.
McVay should be able to use this kid to great effect, and I’m betting he’ll find a way to drive opponents nutz. Gurley, no doubt at this point, knows he has to share time, and will be all in. Not so sure he would have been prior to this season. But now? Yeah, he knows he can’t carry the entire load anymore.
Again, too soon to tell, but I love the pick under that qualifier. Same with Long and Scott. Great “value” for both of them, plus “need and fit.” Like the Edwards and Gaines picks too, though was hoping for a bigger DT. Gaines does seem like he’ll give the Rams his all, and opposing offensive lines won’t like him much. Tenacity can be very annoying.
Billy_TParticipantWell this is the evil beauty of the system. Things ‘dont register’ with the public.
Its not an accident that some things ‘register’ and some things ‘dont register’.
Do we even NEED a CIA? The question ‘doesnt register’. Does the US interfere in ‘elections’ all over the globe? The question Doesn’t ‘register’. Are the Dems and Reps essentially the same on power issues? Doesnt register. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
The big issues ‘dont register.’
What ‘does’ register? Sports, Malls, Gadgets, Fashion, Entertainment, Dem-Rep issues, The National Anthem, Prayer in Schools, Demons-of-the-Month (Iran, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Muslims, Commies), etc, etc, etc.
Its a madhouse.
There’s obviously resistance. Mainly misguided resistance. But also some ‘informed resistance’. Such as the folks on this board. But….aint nearly enuff ‘informed resistance.’
Ah well.
What would be better…a planet with humans or a planet without humans?
w
vYour last question, of course, depends upon who’s asking. If it’s Mother Nature, I’m betting she’d say “Without.”
Lotsa great points in your post before that. But this morning I saw the flash point of Iran is on the table again, and this is scary. Venezuela is ongoing, of course, and we’re being gaslit about it. But it looks like the Trump administration, led down the road to hell by Bolton, is seriously eying “regime change” in Iran.
Trump’s top intelligence and military advisers held unusual meeting at CIA on Iran, officials say
Current and former officials said it is extremely rare for senior White House officials or Cabinet members to attend a meeting at CIA headquarters.Generally speaking, when a reporter gets a call from someone within an administration, with a tip like this, it’s bad news. Cuz the tipper — basically, a whistleblower in a sense — is damn worried.
The other possible reason is “spin” for the administration. But, given the subject, that doesn’t look like the case here.
Billy_TParticipantMy daughter, on the way to school this morning, told me that she doesn’t expect to live past 30. That’s when the shit is hitting the fan, she said.
I said, no, that that’s the point at which the damage is inevitably going to create mass migration, unlivable hot spots on the planet, drought, famine, and so on. But that the planet wasn’t going to completely DIE in 12-15 years.
She’s pretty sure she’s dead.
Those are the conversations my kids and I have.
Risking a major understatement, that must have broken your heart to hear that. Unless it’s not the first time. If it’s an ongoing discussion, I guess you’re kinda prepared. But . . . I imagine the first time you heard her say that . . . oh, man.
Billy_TParticipantRight. To say nothing of the deleterious effects of capitalism. Not only homelessness, wage slavery, and so on, but lying to the public about side effects of this and that, and the promotion of greed as a higher value than compassion, and etc. etc.
Agreed. I mentioned it elsewhere, but Martin Hagglund’s new book, This Life, seriously expanded my thinking on the subject. I was already firmly in the anticapitalist camp, but he gave me new directions to pursue.
A key one for me is this: We don’t even seem to question why we produce what we produce. It doesn’t seem to register with people that production for profit is sheer madness. Those aren’t Hagglund’s words. He’s far more “measured” than I am. But it’s a good deduction from the book . . .
How does it make any sense whatsoever that we accept personal profit, personal wealth creation — which will always be limited to the few — as the rationale for the entire economy? Why not produce for need, for the common good, to solve actual problems, and to free up time for all of us instead?
Why is it not so abundantly clear and obvious that producing things to get rich is sheer lunacy for a society? What a moronic bases for an economy! It guarantees class divisions, conflicts and suffering for the masses, and can’t help by harm the planet. If the goal is more and more money for a tiny sliver of society, the rest of society necessarily loses out, as does our supply of natural resources.
Again, I just don’t get how anyone but the rich can support it. It baffles me.
Billy_TParticipantI forgot to mention the socialist firefighters who stopped the Camp Fire 1/4 mile from his house 6 months ago after it destroyed the entire town of Paradise.
Public sector fire and rescue is a great example. Not only is it far more efficient to pool our resources and act for the common good, it’s always going to be far less expensive. And if you go by who pays, fires would end up consuming everyone anyway . . . the paid up and those who haven’t. Fire isn’t gonna follow propertarian rules.
Pretty much all goods and services would be far more efficient if we used that model. Nearly everything we use, we use infrequently. Sharing these items, and the cost, would radically increase our standard of living and lower our cost of living.
And the few things we don’t want to share — like clothes, individual food and fluid servings — would still be less costly if we produced them as communities in the non-profit mode. There is literally nothing that can’t be done, using a non-capitalist production mode, for less, and with less waste.
Billy_TParticipantOf course, there are “socialist” ideas and programs that have been implemented in pretty much all “liberal democracies,” as Zooey mentions above. But because capitalism is still the economic engine, the furthest those programs take us on the political spectrum is to “social democracy.”
Ironically, righties who scream against “socialism,” because they see it as “government control of everything,” would actually favor “socialism” over “social democracy” if they really understood the differences. They’d still hate both of them, of course. But “socialism” isn’t “state control.” It’s not “nationalizing” industries. It “socializes” them instead, which means “the state” is bypassed for direct ownership at the community level and the shop room floor.
Doubly ironical, actual socialism makes “small government” possible. In fact, it makes centralized government close to irrelevant. Their own beloved capitalism actually makes Big Gubmint a permanent necessity, forever and ever, world without end. Take Big Gubmint out of the picture, and capitalism dies in seconds, and it never would have gone global without “the state” in the first place, primarily through obscenely brutal and bloody military conquest.
In short and in general, I find media coverage of the topic, and our so-called “national” debates, absurdly ignorant, slanted and grotesquely limited in scope.
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