Socialism as a Primitive Coping Mechanism
Posted by CarolSeer2014 10 years, 3 months ago to Government
Socialism is the most materialistic, instantaneously gratifying politico-economic system in history. Capitalism is an economic and moral advance, because it not only celebrates individual choice, in free markets, but it works to ensure future growth in that it is the accumulation of capital for investment purposes. Any monies gov't takes from business for tax purposes is money not usable for investment in future growth and jobs. You wonder what has happened to our economy?
Government has been taking from the producers and giving to those who don't. No society can last for long with that idiotology. Even China is rethinking economics.
Government has been taking from the producers and giving to those who don't. No society can last for long with that idiotology. Even China is rethinking economics.
by Saul Alinsky
There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important.
1) Healthcare - Control healthcare and you control the people
2) Poverty - Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt - Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control - Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare - Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)
6) Education - Take control of what people read and listen to - take control of what children learn in school.
7) Religion - Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools
8) Class Warfare - Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.
To see what he actually wrote, which was mostly about tactics to further his nihilism, read his Rules for Radicals in this free pdf download: http://servv89pn0aj.sn.sourcedns.com/~gb...
And read Hilary Clinton's fawning college thesis on Alinsky, "''There is only the fight...' An Analysis of the Alinsky Model" https://nukegingrich.files.wordpress.com...
Not in Rules for radicals linked above and not in his 1946 Rules for Reveille that Rules for Radicals expanded and updated http://www.historyofsocialwork.org/1946_...
He ran his own training center for agitators, made a lot of public speeches of mostly demagoguery, and gave interviews, at least two major ones in Harper's and Playboy http://harpers.org/archive/1965/06/the-p..., but there is no evidence of the list in any of that either.
The list is not Alinsky's style and not the kind of tactics for here and now nihilistic chaos he emphasized. As bad as the list mostly is it is too long-term and abstract for the scope of Alinsky's typical interests of short term agitation through promoting hatred and resentment. He was a precursor to the 1960s violent New Left and was influential on their street tactics. He did practice #8 in the form of short term agitation manipulating everyone in sight including his own allies but with no plans for future permanent goals. He wanted heavy taxes on "haves" but didn't plan for how to get it beyond "somehow" from constant chaos. If he didn't want religion in schools and government he isn't alone and didn't promote it for socialism, which is unrelated.
If you don't have a source for him giving that list it should not be recirculated with credit to him.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/8...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/al...
Here's an article you should read:
Bogeyman: Fox News Attacks Progressives With Fantasy Version Of Saul Alinsky
http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/01...
Excerpt from a 1972 Playboy interview with Alinsky:
________________
PLAYBOY: Did you consider becoming a [Communist] party member prior to the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
ALINSKY: Not at any time. I've never joined any organization – not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as "that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right." If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide. The great atomic physicist Niels Bohr summed it up pretty well when he said, "Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question." Nobody owns the truth, and dogma, whatever form it takes, is the ultimate enemy of human freedom.
Now, this doesn't mean that I'm rudderless; I think I have a much keener sense of direction and purpose than the true believer with his rigid ideology, because I'm free to be loose, resilient and independent, able to respond to any situation as it arises without getting trapped by articles of faith. My only fixed truth is a belief in people, a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions. The only alternative to that belief is rule by an elite, whether it's a Communist bureaucracy or our own present-day corporate establishment. You should never have an ideology more specific than that of the founding fathers: "For the general welfare." That's where I parted company with the Communists in the Thirties, and that's where I stay parted from them today. [Playboy, March 1972]
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/al...
Don't tarnish the message by spreading paranoid nonsense.
Socialism is when the government controls the means of production.
Capitalism is when the means of production are privately held.
Then there's Fascism, where the means of production are privately held but controlled by the government.
So when you hear Useful Idiots proclaim Capitalists as being Fascists you know they haven't a clue as to what they are talking about. And by the way, which of those three would you say best describes the USA at present? No wonder the idiots are confused. We are no longer a capitalist society.
But as our English brethren say, I like to call a spade a bloody shovel. If more people pointed out that we've become a Fascist state, not because of Capitalism, but because of a lack of it, it might open a few eyes. Or at least start an argument.
I'm presently staying in a town of about 200,000 people, which doesn't seem to see anything wrong or weird about only having water every other day. The municipal water system (government-owned of course) doesn't have the resources to staff or run the systems 'every' day, so half the town gets water one day, the other half the next day. The people adapted by putting in 10 foot deep x a garage stall width & length sisterns under their driveways with their own water tower on every roof, so as soon as the water turns on, it full-flows into their underground tanks, then they pump it to the roof into their water towers to have water pressure.
So, there isn't enough resources to just maintain constant water pressure and reliably available (of course you can't drink the stuff anyway - only bathe with it), but its apparently ok to fill an underground swimming pool of reserve for every home as soon as it turns on...
Gotta love Socialism...
All the gas stations of PEMEX (Mexican regime-owned) and they are only full-service from what I've seen, but you have to get out of the car anyway and watch the guy clear the pump, and put in exactly what you ask for. If you are buying say 300 pesos worth of gas, but the last customer only bought 50, there is a very above average chance they will just start pumping at 50 and pocket the difference.
I've really been missing the good old fashioned card swipe at the pump & pump it yourself in the US.
I point to _The Unnatural Nature of Science_ by Lewis Wolpert (Harvard 1993). His thesis is that science is not common sense, but a close, exacting, demanding investigation that tests for truth. The Greeks invented science, once, and no one else before or since. Peter L. Bernstein in _Against the Gods: the Remarkable Story of Risk_ said that capitalism was impossible before the invention of the mathematics of chance. Merchants are common across cultures, but capitalism is unique to a time and place. For Ayn Rand, that Age of Reason also had to include a proper concept of _rights_.
All of that is to say that science, reason, empirical tests, falsifiability, rights, individualism, and capitalism are all of a piece. They are unique to our time and place. They are not "common sense."
(The WEIRD People here: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/W...)
Western Educated Industrialized Rational Democratic ... and not at all very much like anyone else in the world.
Capitalism entails the use of our gift of foresight and intelligence to provide an atmosphere wherein people can take care of themselves.
Socialism enables the demagogues and those attracted to power to obtain that power by appealing to the fears of people. You are seeing it in America now. The only "common sense" in Socialism, is the advantage it gives the power brokers. It makes me sick. Abuse of power easily being the greatest evil in the world.
Still it is each individuals choice. Be part of some Borgish collective or be free? Although, socialists don't want you to deciding that for yourself.
It's easy to get carried away with our emotions sometimes.
The ultimate STATIST government in history becomes a little more free while the greatest of the Free States becomes much less so.
With such a dichotomy it is easy to over-react.
But they have FAR, FAR to go before they'll even begin to approach our freedoms. -
And we have far farther to fall before we feel the fist of a quasi-communist state.
Even on simply economic factors.
Try opening a business in China without Political Blessing. Try finding a free bank.
Not saying 1984 hasn't arrived - not saying everything is hunky-dory.
Just sayin'.
Again, no-one is more aware of the decline of our civilization than I.
I'm just saying China is not better. By any measure. Not by a long shot. Not so long as the political structure is still... COMMUNIST!
Even with what Capitalism they've allowed to slip in, they could never be any better than the worst of the SOCIALIST states we fear descending into.
They understand capitalism and are grabbing it by the horns.
I'm not sure how much of our debt China holds, but as an accumulation of capital for investment purposes, that would certainly qualify.
As for OUR freedoms, if we don't acknowledge the losses we've so far suffered, we may not be able to change the road we're on.
The economy is doing great, save for a few bumps in the road. People are eating less junk food and purchasing more goods online, rather than in stores. Unemployment is improving, and the fed is unwinding QE. I'm not happy with fixed asset yields being so low, so hunting for yield is still a challenge.
What do you think about the companies doing tax inversions? And what do you think is wrong with the economy?
Financial repression can make it seems that way for the short term, yet history shows that a little before the fed stops forcing rates down things begin to go wrong, get worse and...
The music has not stopped yet and the limited number of chairs simply remain in close sight. Most players are ready to jump just before it does. Not everyone will get a seat.
The Fed plans to end QE in October. If you really think the market is going to go down after that event, wouldn't you short it? Or are you not confident that it will actually go down?
Some time after the ending of QE, the fed will stop forcing rates down to zero. The market will start to go down more than it has in years, before that happens.
I don't short the market and I don't violate individual rights. That's just the kind of person I am.
My fear is that once that happens inflation is going to take hold - slowly at first and then building until it becomes the 800 pound gorilla that cripples our national spending infrastructure. The problem with any welfare program is that it is unsustainable. It is like an avalanche that sweeps up everything in its path and leaves devastation.
And if we have learned anything from the riots in Missouri, it is that when that happens there is going to be rioting like that all over the US.
If you have faith in the Fed, you don't
that is my fear too. I wish the gov't would take action immediately, not wait until it becomes a crisis.
We're living in an amazing time and place for economic opportunity. It's hard not to notice all the amazing new technologies, often technologies that help connect producers with customers, appear every year.
If you have depression, though, you naturally come up with tortured logic to make things seem bad, at least until something bad really happens.
It goes like this. "Loose monetary policy is barely holding together the economy. It's causing everyone to raise prices w/o loosing business except for you and me. The nominal price of everything is going up, except for anything you and I happen to make or own.
We would never invest local businesses b/c everything's going to worms in our area. We would never take a long position in equities for the same reason. We wouldn't hold instruments of debt, either, b/c of rate risk. We wouldn't take short positions in equities b/c instead of a market generated by supply and demand, we envision villains working against our interests. If we buy a put, write a call, or just sell short, they conspire to tap us out. We won't sell puts, buy calls, or just buy long, though, for similar reasons. We'll just sit in the corner, rock, and tell ourselves that all the businesses and people succeeding and helping more customers all the time must be somehow cheating, not actually providing value to paying customers."
-1
From an article in SkyNews Sep '13: But while the scale of the bond-buying since the financial crisis has boosted recovery by driving interest rates to record lows, it has left financial markets addicted to the low-cost credit and investors worried about the effect of turning off the taps.
The money also helped push banks and other investors towards risky investments in emerging markets, where the prospect of tapering had resulted in huge withdrawals from currencies and stocks.
Where to begin.
Life is filled with absolutes, Emp, and I'm pretty sure you hold many absolute views. I know I do.
As for the rest... DA-YUM. REALLY.
No real reason to refute it point by point.
You see the same world I see - but you see THAT.
There is only one question I really want to ask.
It's "inappropriate" but it's the only question that could change my mind about carrying on this conversation.
Are you young?
If you are young you might still be able to question beliefs that have yet to ossify.
If you are not young, well... who have you ever known to change their worldview half-way through life?
But surely we could simply discuss our divergent views, you might say.
Yeah we could both recite our litanies, but what real discussion, what real UNDERSTANDING, is possible with a grown person who looks out into this world and sees an economy that is doing "GREAT"?!
(Jeesus, not even "fine" or "good" but "GREAT"!).
Nah, I'm good. Later.