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  • #133404
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    In all my decades, I’ve never heard of a Judge ruling that
    neither side can call the dead people ‘victims.’

    I mean, I can understand the defense calling them looters
    etc, if they have some credible evidence of that, etc,
    but to rule that neither side can call them victims
    is….something I’ve never heard of.

    w
    v

    #133408
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    In all my decades, I’ve never heard of a Judge ruling that
    neither side can call the dead people ‘victims.’

    I mean, I can understand the defense calling them looters
    etc, if they have some credible evidence of that, etc,
    but to rule that neither side can call them victims
    is….something I’ve never heard of.

    w

    Is that not the basis of an appeal if he gets off? Or can you not appeal when someone is found innocent? The double jeopardy thing.

    It just looks like the judge is stacking the deck for Rittenhouse from the beginning. I can’t even see how that’s allowable.

    #133409
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    Surely the prosecution can get around that, though, by referring to them as “fatalities” or “Killed person #1” or something.

    #133410
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #133783
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #133797
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Good point. In a sane world, the US government would triage all government contracts this way:

    First dibs for eco-friendly, non-profit WSDEs and Co-ops
    Second, for small eco-friendly, non-profits of all stripes
    Third, small eco-friendly for-profits.
    fourth, large eco-friendly for-profits
    Fifth, small non-profits of all stripes
    Last, and least, to be avoided unless there is no other choice: Large for-profit entities of any kind.

    Subsidies should go solely to companies that benefit society and the planet. Never to companies that produce products and services that don’t. Let them tough it out on their own dime.

    #133947
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #133796
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    <p dir=”ltr” lang=”en”>Excuse me. Freight rail is all privately owned. The government got out of it when they sold Conrail. Do you mean to tell us you’re going to give money to BNSF, Union Pacific, and Norfolk Southern to modernize their own tracks? https://t.co/WOmnDMU0nF

    — Jack’sHouseOfPancakes (@RegimeChangeInc) November 7, 2021

    <script async=”” src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js&#8221; charset=”utf-8″></script>

    Good point. In a sane world, the US government would triage all government contracts this way:

    First dibs for eco-friendly, non-profit WSDEs and Co-ops
    Second, for small eco-friendly, non-profits of all stripes
    Third, small eco-friendly for-profits.
    fourth, large eco-friendly for-profits
    Fifth, small non-profits of all stripes
    Last, and least, to be avoided unless there is no other choice: Large for-profit entities of any kind.

    Subsidies should go solely to companies that benefit society and the planet. Never to companies that produce products and services that don’t. Let them tough it out on their own dime.

    #133972
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #133981
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    It’s been found to be okay…

    #134399
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    I don’t know if this is “political,” per se, but here’s a thread of tweets I agree with.

    #134403
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Rutger Bregman’s excellent Humankind deals with the above. Latest science, studies, etc. etc on “human nature.” Came out in 2020.

    Studies have shown that the rich and powerful, whether or not it’s new to them, become arrogant and all too certain of their superiority, when they have that wealth and power. And because of that, far less likely to listen to opposing views. They’re even less likely to listen to nuanced takes on those views, plans, etc. Other studies mentioned show that just a change in the status of one’s car impacts the driver’s willingness to put pedestrians at risk, to force them to jump out of the way, etc. BMWs were the worst, apparently.

    The Neflix doc on Thomas Picketty’s Capital mentions a study of people playing monopoly. Simply granting certain players extra privileges alters their behavior. They become arrogant, lose natural inhibitions regarding basic civility, etc. They become far more ruthless.

    Rich people lie, cheat, and steal more than the non-rich.

    Throw in psychological studies regarding our unconscious, which seems forever at odds with our conscious mind, and you get a recipe for seriously effed up people.

    It seems pretty obvious that the problem is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Best way to reduce the impact of the rich and powerful is to dilute that power and wealth, end those concentrations, disperse that to the four winds.

    #134407
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    It seems pretty obvious that the problem is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Best way to reduce the impact of the rich and powerful is to dilute that power and wealth, end those concentrations, disperse that to the four winds.

    My wife and I took the unusual step of sitting down in front of the TV while we ate dinner last night, and when I turned on the TV, it was on CBS because I watched the end of the 9er/Hawks game earlier. It was during 60 Minutes, and whatshername was interviewing a Chinese economist about China’s moves to limit wealth, specifically some billionaires who had to cough up money to the government. You can see the skepticism from whatshername, who also interviews some Hoover Institute wealth apologist, and you can just see the Overton frames out loud. The idea that wealth concentration is good because those accumulators are the geniuses who make all the wonderful things in the world. You know.

    But the whole thing made me a fan of China suddenly. I mean…I haven’t given the whole thing much thought, other than to observe that China is ascending, and will soon become the world’s superpower as the US continues to decline, but…these Chinese horrors all sound pretty good to me.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/xi-jinping-china-capitalism-60-minutes-2021-12-05/

    #134426
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    I read the transcript. The video seemed to stop early.

    A few observations: Stahl likely makes eight figures, and works for people who make nine or more. She isn’t going to tell the truth about capitalism, which is why she seemed intent on trashing China’s attempt to rein in its evil.

    Capitalism killed off “free markets” on the way to becoming world hegemon — violently, thru slavery, genocide of Native peoples, and the mass theft of their lands and resources. I wish people would stop using that term as a synonym for it.

    There is nothing capitalism produces than can’t be produced by a non-capitalist mode of production, and for far less, and with far better pay for the rank and file. It baffles me that so many people think that if we replace capitalism with economic democracy, suddenly all innovation dies and we’re living in caves again. Actually, the vast majority of innovation due to capitalism has been in the realm of squeezing more profits from workers, not in production of beneficial goods and services. Those have always come from the public sector.

    No extra value is ever added by paying management or ownership hundreds of times more than the rank and file. In fact, and this is too obvious, all of that money hoovered up to the top radically reduces values for consumers, and dramatically suppresses rank and file wages. A company that pays its workers roughly the same amount, and its team leaders and management slightly more, has a ginormous amount of extra cash to invest in higher quality production, wages, etc. etc.

    Every Bezos, Gates, or Musk is a horrible drag on the economy, on productivity, on consumer value, on wages, and inequality kills overall consumer demand, not to mention morale.

    America has got to be the most gaslit nation in history, especially when it comes to capitalism, and we weren’t always that way. We used to know it was a terrible, immoral system. People just figured, “Well, we’ve got to make the best of it, right?” But roughly from Reagan on, that common sense/fatalism was replaced by a kind of religious devotion to a lie. No major party has the guts to tell the truth about it, tragically.

    #134427
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    I read the transcript. The video seemed to stop early.

    A few observations: Stahl likely makes eight figures, and works for people who make nine or more. She isn’t going to tell the truth about capitalism, which is why she seemed intent on trashing China’s attempt to rein in its evil.

    Capitalism killed off “free markets” on the way to becoming world hegemon — violently, thru slavery, genocide of Native peoples, and the mass theft of their lands and resources. I wish people would stop using that term as a synonym for it.

    There is nothing capitalism produces than can’t be produced by a non-capitalist mode of production, and for far less, and with far better pay for the rank and file. It baffles me that so many people think that if we replace capitalism with economic democracy, suddenly all innovation dies and we’re living in caves again. Actually, the vast majority of innovation due to capitalism has been in the realm of squeezing more profits from workers, not in production of beneficial goods and services. Those have always come from the public sector.

    No extra value is ever added by paying management or ownership hundreds of times more than the rank and file. In fact, and this is too obvious, all of that money hoovered up to the top radically reduces values for consumers, and dramatically suppresses rank and file wages. A company that pays its workers roughly the same amount, and its team leaders and management slightly more, has a ginormous amount of extra cash to invest in higher quality production, wages, etc. etc.

    Every Bezos, Gates, or Musk is a horrible drag on the economy, on productivity, on consumer value, on wages, and inequality kills overall consumer demand, not to mention morale.

    America has got to be the most gaslit nation in history, especially when it comes to capitalism, and we weren’t always that way. We used to know it was a terrible, immoral system. People just figured, “Well, we’ve got to make the best of it, right?” But roughly from Reagan on, that common sense/fatalism was replaced by a kind of religious devotion to a lie. No major party has the guts to tell the truth about it, tragically.

    I agree with that. I coulda said it myself, but I would have said it in an angrier and less coherent way.

    #134430
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    I don’t know how old this is. It may be from today. If so, then there AOC’s flame has not been completely extinguished, as I have believed it to be for quite some time now.

    #134433
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Great response from AOC, Zooey.

    I don’t know the exact percentage, but judging from total numbers of American businesses with employees, this is probably close: Roughly 99% of the people in this country are NOT capitalists. Employees and sole proprietors are not capitalists. They may think they are, but they aren’t. It’s a bit like NFL fans who think they’re NFL players. Um, no.

    An analogy to show the difference:

    1. You build custom chairs for a living, with your own two hands. You don’t have any employees. You do the initial craftwork, the sales, the transport, the accounting yourself. Everything. You’re not a capitalist, even if you live in a capitalist society.

    2. You hire people to build those chairs for you, and you appropriate the surplus value they generate as if you did all the work. You are a capitalist. M-C-M.

    It’s not even really a matter of how much money you have, though “capital” is generally defined as money in excess of what you need to pay your bills, your debts, your necessities, so you no longer need to work for others. But you still have to employ others and appropriate the surplus value. It’s still a matter of using that capital to purchase labor power (as a commodity) to produce commodities for money.

    Pre-capitalist economies are usually some variant of C-M-C. Commodities sold for Money to buy other Commodities, etc.

    I love AOC.

    • This reply was modified 3 years ago by Avatar photoBilly_T.
    #134436
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Quick caveat:

    There’s an argument to be made that people who use capital to make capital are capitalists too. Those who skip right over the “make commodities for money” part of M-C-M, at least in a sense. But they trade stocks in companies that still produce commodities for money, so they’re not really escaping the M-C-M equation. Crypto-traders come closer to bypassing the C in M-C-M, cuz they’re almost literally just trading money for money. Though the trading structure itself requires workers, commodities, etc. etc.

    To make a long story short, “capitalism” is the most elitist and exclusive “club” the world has ever known, when it comes to economic systems. It’s appalling how capitalists and their PR folks have managed to convince so many people that it’s “natural” and supposedly benefits everyone. It’s appalling that I saw so many “farmers for Youngkin” signs this past election. Youngkin was the CEO of the Carlisle Group before he entered the race.

    #134441
    Avatar photoBilly_T
    Participant

    Some further elaboration/refinements:

    A person with plenty of capital could start a business, hire employees, but turn it into a non-capitalist enterprise, and rather easily.

    Democratize the company. Relinquish control and the ability to appropriate the surplus value. Worker-control, instead, over the who, what, where, why, and when of production. Share the surplus value equally. Non-profit co-op or WSDE, etc.

    Ironically, a Gates, a Bezos, or a Musk could do this easily, and still retain billions. They could set up truly non-capitalist enterprises, or go even further. Purchase islands, say, and set up an entire non-capitalist economy there. Or do this on large swaths of land inside America and elsewhere. Individual artisans, family farms, home production — the way it used to be. Plus scale up if needed to company size.

    Far better still: A nation would set that up via democratic processes. No plutocrat or oligarch in the mix at all. Public monies for public benefit, controlled entirely by the public. We the People, directly.

    I think Americans would end up loving this far beyond the current setup, and would vote to make it the social and legal norm. To me, that’s the way to make the transition non-violently, democratically. Start with public sector creation of non-capitalist, non-profit, publicly owned enterprises. Show they’d result in far more benefits for society, far lower prices for consumers, and far better rank and file compensation. That’s guaranteed, if there’s no private sector boot on their neck.

    #134489
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    Thread

    #134505
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    #134506
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    #134527
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #134613
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    #134620
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    #134983
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    #135106
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    #135111
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    #135215
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    If ya scroll down to the ‘Jimmy Carter calls for boycott’ tweet,
    you’ll see even worse news:

    #135430
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

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