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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
ha ha haaaa! i snorted.
no, not really-- i meant it. people from rich countries spew all manner of sanctimonious leftist dogma at the same time that their consumerism creates the very inequalities they decry-- then their armies go sweep up the mess. half of this board is into fashion (sweatshop central), another half is into their various electronic gadgets which require rare minerals from warn-torn africa, & so on & so forth, consumerism in one hand and a "down with the man" banner in the other.
people buy something and they are "congratulated" instead of receiving condolences on their newly acquired burdens. there's even a thread here where people tell "what they bough today." whatever...
personally, i'm actually trying to consume less & use less shit every day. not because i'm a hippie, but because owning too much crap is uncomfortable. but i did originally come to amerikkka to partake of the feast-- ha! even though i'm against it. what can i say. i'd rather not be killed.
anyway, check this out, it's funny:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008...-corporations/
wait, wasn't feudalism doing that before there was capitalism? i'm pretty sure those castles weren't built by the lords that ruled them.
when have you ever had a society in which the powerful do not draw their power from the less powerful?
kings, emperors, warlords, aristocrats, apparatchiks-- draining the blood of slaves, indentured servants, vassals, commoners, citizens-- time and again societies organize themselves as pyramids. we're hierarchical beasts as far as our DNA is concerned (it's mostly DNA, rather than social programming, that builds the brain).
i'm not saying i support exploitation, but it looks like it's always going to be there-- of course, it's fun to decapitate aristocrats, but that only lasts for so long. there's always a new elite to supplant it. i guess if we keep killing them eventually they will thin out. good luck there. |
all I can honestly say is AMEN! You know I sincerely said some Rosary prayers last night because I felt so guilty for accidently leaving the sprinkler for an hour wasting more water than a hundred people would drink in a day. Its not about destroying capitalism, its about become religiously conscious consumers. We need to know how much resources our products consume, we need to know how much people are exploited for our prices to be competitively low..
after all it has been written,
"Be careful not to bite and eat one another, lest you be consumed by each other!" Apostle Paul
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Originally Posted by dale_gribble
i'd rather have a dictator or some other shit running this country as long as they didn't pretend they weren't doing it..
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Thats my point exactly. Its all the same facade year after year, Obama.. Bush.. Clinton.. Bush.. Reagon.. Carter.. what the fuck is all the difference? Obama's deficit is Bush's deficit.. Bush's military situation is Clinton's military situation.. It is a chain of mistakes, the names are only symbolic to keep historical reference, the individuals are powerless to control the forces at work.. If americans would get honest with themselves like other people in the world, and accept the myth of democracy to be rosy painted authoritarian system, perhaps we might stop depending on the big govt and focus on our tangible, local efforts instead of being so distracted, spun and brainwashed by politics.
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Originally Posted by knox
well, then, mr.bradley, that's when we try to imagine a middle term with the lesser of evils.
and as for the record industry, they had plenty of time to reinvent and save themselves, they chose not to, so fuck them.
nobody is really complaining, except for lily allen.
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Don't let the paranoia fool you, the record companies are not going anywhere. Sales may be down, but the record companies still make billions of dollars. Just because the pie is sliced more, does not make it smaller.
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Originally Posted by demonrail666
That's all perfectly true but then those who blindly attack capitalism as some all-evil political monster don't see it as a progression out of those earlier (with the exception of apparatchiks) modes. Marx, as you know, was a massive believer in the merits of Capitaliism, he just didn't see it as the historical end point that many of those on the Right seem to (Fukuyama's whole 'End of History' thing, for example). Whether Marx was right in suggesting that a full working through of capitalism was crucial to providing the conditions necessary to support a progression into socialism is, of course, massively debatable, and has indeed been debated not just within centrist politics or the Right but even factions within the Left itself.
The problem with things like the anti-capitalist movement seems to be that it has no real vision of anything that might replace capitalism beyond some half-digested anarchism or, more usually, some sort of 'friendlier' capitalism. It's as though the movement itself can't really envisage an end of capitalism so has had to reconcile itself merely with trying to restrain it - 'ye olde Keynesian liberalism', as PBradley mentions already.)
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The only reason the left has to be so extreme in its rhetoric is because the right is so frighteningly insensitive to helping each other out. Social services, welfare, even public education are constantly attacked by the Rightists of all political systems who believe that the poor should fend for themselves, failing to understand that if you let the problem fester, it will inevitably find its way to your country clubs and gated communities. Ironically, rightists want less government, public services even education, but seem quite comfortable expanding military, police and prisons, all strict tools and economy of authoratarianism and aspects of totalitarian states..