Listen to a reading of this article:
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“No no you don’t understand, this US war is completely different from all the other US wars. See, the US is intervening in Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. We’re fighting a bad guy who is an evil dictator that loves war crimes and genocide. Not like all those other interventions.”
If the US proxy war in Ukraine was meaningfully different from other US wars they would be justifying it using different arguments, not the exact same ones.
The war propaganda is airing reruns.
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Western punditry is rife with op-eds arguing that the US needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they always frame it as though this would be something that happens to the US, like its own actions would have nothing to do with it.
If World War 3 does indeed occur, it will be because the drivers of the US-centralized empire continued accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to their inability to relinquish their goal of unipolar planetary domination.
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Pointing out the various flaws in historical attempts at communism does not address the problem that if we don’t move from competition-based models to collaboration-based ones we’re going to destroy all life on this planet in short order. We’ve still got to find a way to change.
Have issues with Stalin and Mao? Okay. Cool. Our competition-based models are still destroying our biosphere and shoving us toward nuclear war. Our survival still depends on moving toward collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem toward the thriving of all beings. Babbling about Stalin and Mao doesn’t magically change the fact that we can’t keep doing this thing where human behavior is driven by profit and competition.
Leaving aside that many problems with communism have been wildly exaggerated and others are the direct result of sabotage and economic warfare by the capitalist empire, those criticisms never address the problem that capitalism has no solutions for our current existential crises. So we need systems which can address those existential crises. I see no models with any hope of sustainability that don’t involve a radical transition from competition to collaboration at every level. We will either accomplish that transition or we will go extinct. It really is that simple.
People tell me, “Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it’s the best system we’ve seen.”
It’s literally killing us. It’s brought us to the brink of extinction by environmental collapse or nuclear armageddon. That’s literally the worst failure that any system could possibly achieve. When your back is against the wall and your choices are between radical change and extinction, you’ve no other options but to try radical change. That’s the juncture we’re at right now.
The status quo political establishment has failed as spectacularly as anything could possibly fail. We could have a world of peace, equality, justice, health and harmony, but instead we’re marching toward dystopia and extinction. It is entirely within the reach of human potential to have a collaboration-based civilization where everyone works together toward human thriving. Our rulers have delivered only competition-based systems which do the exact opposite. They failed the test. Time for something new.
It doesn’t get any more fail than “Yeah we’ve competed ourselves into a situation where there might be a nuclear war that ends literally everything any minute now.” That’s the most fail you can have while still being alive enough to acknowledge the failure. The facts are in. They failed.
A system that fails to that extent does not deserve to exist, and should not exist. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and if we can just shake each other awake from the propaganda-induced coma we’re all in we can force the creation of much better systems.
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Mass media propagandists work so hard to discredit The Grayzone because they know that tomorrow it could be their own emails getting published revealing corrupt collusion with western officials and intelligence insiders.
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Let yourself be happy. If you can’t do it for you then do it for the world. Refusing to let yourself be happy is just keeping that much happiness out of the world. It’s making it a worse place to live. Be happy.
Refusing to let yourself be happy just deprives the world of that much happiness. Refusing to let yourself be loved just deprives the world of that much love. Refusing to let yourself be at peace just deprives the world of that much peace.
Be happy. Not because you “deserve” it or any of that empty narrative fluff, but because the world is a hard place and any spark of happiness is sorely needed.
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113 responses to “Capitalism Has Failed As Badly As Anything Can Fail: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
In response to religion
It’s prose, but actually, its a special type of poetry, I could never actually see it myself, personally, but I learned the definition, the reasons, and how to recognize it, though, it’s been so long ago I forgot the name of the form; but you notice how though the rhythm is missing, the rhythm is there after each thought? That’s that special form of poetry.
Anyway, I gave your words a lot of thought and by doing so made a discovery of what I always knew, but could never synthesize as a coherent thought. God, the real god is all our hopes, dreams, aspirations, everything that makes us love and to love living; that is what god is, but the god we worship and obey in the so-called Western Tradition is a god killer, everything possible to crush our spirit, that god within each of us who love not just ourselves but others as well.
I almost knew it the first time I met you on the page; why as a ghost has no physical essence I loved your work from the very beginning, but god within you, constantly being assaulted, because there is no greater joy in our so-called Western Civilization than to kill gods. The very reason why to this very day Babylon is bad mothered, because, although it practiced capitalism it was primarily a socialist society and its rulers made sure that at the end of the day everyone, especially its workers had enough to eat.
That’s why we’re so much different from the rest of the world’s people, the greatest joy of life isn’t just about killing us but rather to make our lives so miserable that we take our own lives. Great Poem Caitlin. By the way something did happen yesterday, yesterday was supposed to be the beginning of the end, that external god that is born from many internal gods acting in harmony pulled one out of the hate with very little input of external energy.
Everybody we knew was lying about what was going on in Europe. What we didn’t know was that the real lie was a betrayal of the Empire and most of them had secretly made contracts behind the Empire’s back with Russia and China and provided for their people. This betrayal puts a giant knife into the Empire’s back; dare I say the Empire may never recover from this unless it changes its ways. That is the external god that we create with our internal gods. And, that in a nutshell is basically what all the crap that Christ was talking about, which brings up another issue.
Jesus, I believe now was just another puppet of the Empire, like Hitler was, but spreading a message of love so that the plutocrats would have a more controllable society. ” Bringing in the Sheep”? Oh yes the narrative was to be that your reward comes after death; unfortunately for them the message resonated so well with the masses that the narrative escaped into the wild and became a severe threat to the wealthy and hence a Church had to be created and all our tithes collected every Sunday went to the wealthy and that’s how they became extremely wealthy. That’s why most of us hate life and why that silly old story about a messiah coming to save us might come true because it’s a trick of the mind.
nothing here but us chickens
Capitalism has had a very good run, since the 1700s has increased prosperity, technology, and health for millions of people, while considering environmental destruction and harm to others as “economic externalities.” All said, capitalism was objectively a big step up from the brutish and short lives that most led before it.
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We should really throw a big retirement party for capitalism, letting him know he did a beautiful job advancing us beyond where we were before. Then we can build what comes next.
~
Jonathan
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‘TED CHRISTIAN / NOVEMBER 3, 2022
Nonsense. Google all you like. Line up all the people in the world from richest to poorest, best to worst, most to least sane. You will have every gradation in between. And not to get technical but it’s called a binomial distribution. And I think I’m grabbing the tail here.’
Congratulations on the dumbest comment to date.
I can line up all the people in the world from tallest to shortest but that does not make them all women.
I can rate all the buildings in the world by square footage, but that does not make them all retail outlets.
You are an idiot.
You are not grabbing the tail, you have your head up your tail.
Are you denying that Psychopaths exist?
Are you denying that Sociopaths exist?
Do you have nothing better to use your time than in making ridiculous trolling comments?
PS. Binomial merely means two terms, in the real world polynomials with more than two terms vastly exceed simple dichotomies, but I do understand that you cannot comprehend such complexity.
Oh PJ. Go to the Wikipedia page on binomial distributions. I learned French math from Chinese professors. Sort of, anyway. And, OK, “tail” was a reference to the tail of a distribution. This term might be on the Wikipedia page. And if my explanation about a continuous distribution was over your head, as apparently it was, it was certainly inadvertent (accidental). Maybe it’s me. Maybe I just can’t dumb it down enough for you. Let’s split the blame.
I fully understand continuous distribution as evidenced by my examples, obviously you do not understand polynomials.
You want the world to be simplified to the point that you can comprehend it. Looking only at a single attribute and believing that this fully describes reality.
News Flash !!
The world is complex.
No I will not share the “blame”. My comment was clear, truthful, and added to understanding. Yours was out of context and deceptive.
You got called out and your ego is bruised.
Live with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution
I’ve written polynomial curve fitting and convergence algorithms. I expect I’ve literally forgotten more about math than you know, and I don’t think I’ve forgotten all that much. And I’m pretty sure a bruised ego doesn’t involve raucous laughter. And besides which in my continuing effort to dumb this down enough for you, you’re the either/or person accusing someone of oversimplification.
And yet you fail to address my comment regarding society in any way.
A rather poor troll is what you are.
Change the subject and raise straw-man arguments. When that fails, resort to ad hominem.
Sad.
Peter Kropotkin wrote a book in 19th Century titled “Mutual Aid, A factor on Evolution”. He went to study different species and pointed out that those species who build lives around collaboration between its members tend to be more successful in surviving that species that evolved more individualistic…think about a honey bee nest, ants, or big herds mammals like bisons…Darwin has been grossly misinterpreted by reducing his theory to “survival of the fittest, and Kropotkin has been sadly forgotten…
Capitalism did NOT fail. The intellectual animal called man did. Greed is the problem and no matter what ism people put faith in to save them from the ills of this world it will fail. America has allowed a few greedy bastards to run us into the ground, start wars and take for their own greedy needs. Some same communism 2.0 will be the ticket this time around, I call BS! They have just as many greedy corrupt bastards as America. Look at most of the world and access who runs the show, greedy banksters and corrupt politicians no matter what ism. No matter what model is presented it will be useless without accountability and enforcement.
That’s a the crux of the biscuit. The first requirement of a system is that it be able to maintain itself. If it can’t, its merits are irrelevant.
Shoulda spotted you for a zappatologist right off
A follower of Frank Zappa? Someone who studies shoes? Do I zap stuff? Google isn’t getting anything.
And Capitalism can’t. It is based on infinite growth on a finite planet. Only the stupid would assume that will continue to work. 🙂
“Only the stupid would assume that will continue to work. ” Maybe they are just uninformed. Washington is adept at propaganda that misleads.
the essence of capitalism is greed. the owners don’t use the means of production to fulfil the people’s need, they use them to generate profit. no matter what accountability and enforcement you try to implement, capitalism’s focus on profit will find ways to subvert and override it. accountability and enforcement will be commodified and bought and sold (for a profit) like everything else.
Are you from some freedom institute? So, man is inherently flawed and no system will ever work? Or if man can become good, then any system will work? That’s the bullshit logic of libertarianism. Capitalism would work if man was good and not cronyistic. Jesus would help with that, no wait, the preacher was caught again with a gay hooker. The rich will do what they will and the poor will do what they must. Systems do work. The capitalist system works great. It accumulates capital and with it power. It created a wonderful empire serving corporate profit by resource extraction and war. There have always been problems, but we call them externalities, off the books, out of sight and mind. You have to break 99% of the eggs to make billionaire omelettes, don’t you know.
“The capitalist system works great.” If it did work great, as you stated, then, and if not coerced, exploited, and lambasted, majority populations in the world would gladly coalesce with the United States. However, the majority populations of the world are speaking out against the United States, overtly, and through their demeanor: BRICS+, SCO, Germany’s recent dialogue with China, Saudi Arabia’s recent interest in joining BRICS as a member. The United States’ ‘brand’ of capitalism hasn’t delivered the goods to the vast majority of Americans. The US’ ruling class, however, has delivered the goods to their cronies (e.g.- corporations, donor class, dynastic interests…). The US is just spending its time grappling with maintaining dominance, and their repressive corrupt world order– e.g.- sanctions, regime changes, proxy wars…Why not get on board?
Hey man I’m all for capitalism, it’s the corruption that’s destroying us. If we clean up DC and get back to the basic’s we can prosper. There are too many bonafide criminals sucking the life out of of us. Yes the intellectual animal we call man is flawed. Some are greedy bastards and some are the finest of folk. Hence when they get their grubby fingers in the cookie jar they can’t help themselves and they take take take. That’s the accountability and enforcement angle, having the ability to shed light onto the termites eating away at our foundation is becoming a pipe dream. The capitalistic system works great, although not perfect it’s a damn good system.
You have no right to mass land acquisition but that which you give to yourselves with your little laws and market games. All capitalists are statists that go around calling everyone else statists. Capitalism was, is, and always will be murderous, greedy, and restrictive.
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Property is restriction, not freedom. Capitalism will always shut out others with crony games and laws, and increasingly with barbed wire fences and POSTED: No Trespassing signs. That’s its purpose.
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People are now less free to walk over open wilderness than ever before in human history or prehistory, because of this property fetishism and “freedom.”
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Capitalism is a great system, sometimes, to those who buy in and want to, but not to anyone else. All those who use the word ‘freedom’ to describe it are liars because of that, which is why ‘liberty for all’ has been replaced with ‘individual liberty’ to the ardent capitalist. Liberty for all? Nah. Liberty for me. All men are equal, but some men are more equal than others, and deserve more planet Earth…sounds familiar.
People are now less free to walk over open wilderness than ever before in human history or prehistory, because of this property fetishism and “freedom.” Not too long ago, one could camp out (with no fee) relatively easily. Not today. Capitalism/privatization leads to inequality and monopoly. Without intervention, only a small minority of egotists will own everything on the planet. You’ll be subject to their arbitrary rules and regulations. With capitalism/privatization combined with egotism, “Too Much is Never Enough.”
Hi, P-diddle. I refuse to do the skinny comment thing, so replying to myself here. They used to say in the US, all the time, “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” That line, curiously, disappeared when nearly every Republican pronounced themselves ‘libertarian’ in the early 2000s and then kept voting Republican anyway. Wonder why it vanished?
Think also, that when you say people could camp without a fee, you’re talking either state/public parks, or privatized grounds that were gratis. Private lands? That forest right there? That beach? (Apologies to Oregon) It was always owned, and you either get permission, or camp au sauvage, ninja style, and risk getting a shotgun slug.
America is well on its way to criminalizing the homeless, who are admittedly often criminals to survive. Who do they prey upon? The most impoverished Americans who still have housing, because tha’s where the homeless are gated by police.
some might argue that corruption is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. as mentioned earlier accountability and enforcement are up on the market (for a profit). nothing in capitalism inherently requires fairness, humanity, morals or democracy and the like. it is an economic system that favors and works for a minority and at expense of the majority. if necessary capitalism will buy the notion of ‘corruption’ and redefine it in a way in which it does not interfere with profitmaking.
“It is an economic system that favors and works for a minority and at expense of the majority.” By capitalism’s inherent design, specifically referring to wealth inheritance transfer, inequality and monopoly are fostered. This leads to inequality and monopoly. Consider the current inequality in the United States (2 or 3 individuals own the equivalent wealth of the bottom 50%) Capitalism, the US’ brand, is rotten and obsolete. The majority populations of the world agree (see: BRICS+, SCO, desire for multipolarity…) The transition is underway, and the US can’t stop the momentum (not even with their belligerent, chauvinistic ideology).
“No matter what model is presented it will be useless without accountability and enforcement.” You got it!
Why Capitalism Fails
Excerpt: Capitalism permits inheritance, the command transfer of private property to a designated new owner upon the death of the previous owner. And therein is the flaw: inherited wealth isn’t earned by its owner, yet it leads to a class segregation of men that has nothing to do with how much wealth they have earned; i.e., nothing to do with how much or how well or how significantly they have worked. The possession of wealth in amounts much larger than that of the average person, in turn, conveys a decisive advantage in the pursuit of more wealth. The advantage conferred by being rich increasingly overshadows every innate human virtue, eventually even intelligence. The initially tight correlation between wealth owned and wealth earned slackens and then disappears. https://nationalvanguard.org/2015/07/why-capitalism-fails/
I’m not sure if the label ‘capitalism’ adequately describes our current ‘system.’ What we have, ultimately, is communities, or polities when writ large with hundreds of millions or billions. And ‘capitalism’ does not exist in a vaccum, rather being a part of those societies which are the context in which such a ‘system’ operates.
You can’t keep the same confused, corrupted societies but fix them by changing the ‘system’ which operates within them. We separated Church and State, we beheaded or castrated the Monarchs which join sacred perception with secular societies and expect abstract ‘system’ like ‘communism’ or ‘capitalism’ to provide the basis for sane societies?
No. These concepts are phony from the get-go. Our system in the West isn’t capitalist it’s oligarchist, autarchist, plutocratic whatever. It’s rule by the few of the many, and those few are sociopaths. I call the West’s current system a ‘pathocracy.’ If we had a sane, compassionate society then ‘capitalism’ within it would probably work fine without any corruption or environmental pollution. But we don’t.
It’s the terrain that needs to be cleaned up, though, not the pathogens. We have no means of doing this at this point.
Things are going to get much, much worse ….
don’t you agree that most people today live in a society where the means of production are privately owned and operated for private profit? aren’t oligarchs and plutocrats private owners of the means of production?
“Don’t you agree that most people today live in a society where the means of production are privately owned and operated for private profit? aren’t oligarchs and plutocrats private owners of the means of production?”
I agree; and this fact has extracted most of the fun out of living in the United States (wars must immediately be replaced with amusement parks.)
But this happens with unrestrained or poorly restrained capitalism. And capitalism inherently gravitates toward the inequality of wealth and power that allows those w/more wealth & power to structure the details so they can acquire more of both. For a short time, we moved away from increasing inequality out of fear that communism or revolution would occur, but immediately the same forces began regrouping. We have seen their influence since the 1980s, in restoring the same means of concentrating power and wealth.
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Capitalism only works when markets are free. Then natural law prevails- supply and demand. However, habitat and natural resources must be protected and prevented from being exploited by greed. It’s definitely a balancing act.
free markets turn the monopoly on violence into a commodity that can be captured and will be used to nullify any ‘natural laws’ of supply and demand.
Who let you in here? You informed rationals are all alike.
Oh goody, another libertarian. Natural law is made up by people justifying markets as a sacred concept. If you agree that habitat and resources must be protected, then markets cannot be free. You must also then agree that you’re not using reason. The thesis that capitalism would serve the citizenry if it only pure and not sullied by cronyism is a faith based tenet and not falsifiable. America is the country of Real Estate Jesus and freedom fries.
Jerimiah Wrighte xplains the gailure of gov’ts.
https://twitter.com/allgasnobrake83/status/1587844368148357123?s=51&t=55AUiGUXNr8obHgwGznYTQ
How many times have we heard the tired old mantra ‘ XYZ isn’t perfect but it’s the best we have / can get’ used for capitalism, democracy, and numerous other so-called ‘systems’ that are used around the world – all notable for the total lack of efforts to improve them?
Even supposed ‘progressives’ don’t call for major reform, instead sticking to safer ground of calling for minor tweaks that don’t upset too many people in the deep state.
These days anyone calling for genuine radical change is branded a dangerous extremist deserving of ‘cancellation’ and total silencing.
I’ll cut to the chase. As you have pointed out, our current system of “getting things done”, ie: money/politics/religion, has failed miserably. Our only way for a future is to devise a new way of getting things done that can operate completely decoupled from said m/p/r. We need a system that can simultaneously analyse, implement, and maintain the new technologies necessary to rehabilitate a decimated planet, maintain current and future critical infrastructure (space-based systems, air traffic control, energy, world food distribution, etc.), AND provide a meaningful, peaceful existence for an entire planet (not just the parasite class).To attempt to create such a system from scratch would be insurmountable.
Surprisingly, such a system, world-wide in scope, technically capable, able to operate OUTSIDE money, politics and religion, already exists! With a few tweaks, the US military could serve as a template for a new Global Administration System.
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Capitalism: the mandated purchasing of copious quantities of useless cardboard at stupendously exorbitant costs to provide ostentatiously opulent lifestyles for a small minority of infinitely egotistic dastardly organisms.
Capitalism has not failed yet but is failing. It still has quite a bit further to go before collapse.
When the food runs out (it’s already getting more expensive) there will probably still be people saying “it’s not really capitalism’s fault”. If we don’t change course, the missile silos and golf courses might outlast us.
You’re wrong here, though you often nail it in outlining how everything government does turns to crap, like a reverse Midas touch. We haven’t had capitalism in a very long time, anywhere. This isn’t capitalism that’s failing you. Government involvement in the economy has failed you now, has failed repeatedly if you look and read, and will fall again and again, like with your “enlightened socialism” … you are cheerleading for something even worse, even more corrupt.
Come into the light, Caitlin and Tim! Government must shrink, not grow!
Capitalism has one overriding, over arching feature. For me to win, you must lose and pay ‘rent’ while doing so. Fiat money in capitalism means turning non existant money into something of value merely by borrowing it and going into debt. Capitalism only makes sense to those who write it’s rules.
“Capitalism only makes sense to those who write it’s rules.” Yes, and they write rules that: maintain dominance, are unfair, protect from liability, promote the interests of the corporation– at the expense of the working class.
Capitalism is government. Ownership of Planet Earth in ‘private’ property sections is government, period. It was procured with government genocide & slavery in the first place, and all capitalists want to own the planet and subject everyone else to their ownership rules and money games, which sounds a whole lot like government to me. The Market (insert angel voices) is government. Bosses are government. Landlords are government.
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I just love the idea of my capitalist neighbor upstream poisoning the river with impunity, too. No regulations, ever, but we all have to respect ‘private’ property, uh, voluntarily, so I guess I’ll just have to drink this nasty water downstream and cope with my new disease complexes. Great idea! So voluntary, too. Can’t you feel me volunteering with every word of this post?
“No regulations, ever, but we all have to respect ‘private’ property.”: No Trespassing, No Loitering, No Drinking, No Smoking, No Parking, No Running, No Skateboarding, No Swimming, No Hunting, No Passing, No Turning, No Camping, No Fires, No Fishing, No Picnicking, No Boating, No Purchase Necessary, No Littering, No Trapping, No Entrance, No Exit, No Firearms, No Animals, No Public Restrooms, No Stopping, No Turn on Red, No Jaywalking, No Shoes…No Service, No Diving, No Polluting, No Refunds, No Returns, No Hiking, No Engine Braking, No Dumping, No Soliciting, No Fly List, No Poaching, No U Turn, No Driving on Shoulder, No Shirt…No Service…
‘capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.’ i think that’s the system in which most people exist today, not?
We now live with grotesquely corrupted descendant of capitalism that more strongly resembled planned-economy socialism than capitalism. We even have the shortages that often have historically happened with planned economies now!
yes, but you acknowledge that most of us exist in an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit? and this :’We haven’t had capitalism in a very long time, anywhere’ is somewhat hyperbolic? (if you have shortages in a planned (or unplanned) economy, the planning mustn’t have been very good, imo).
“Government must shrink, not grow!” The term, “government” is a concept. It’s really about the human beings that direct this concept. And in the United States, where predatory capitalism is the paradigm, these human beings (the ruling power to be specific) are ruthless egotists. Therefore, it is not the government that must shrink, it is the belligerent ideology and chauvinistic behavior of the human beings that must shrink, and not grow. The US must begin to cooperate with the world; their brand of capitalism is dysfunctional, corrupt, and unsustainable.
Exactly. Rudimentary. Flam! Paradiddle diddle.
Splash/Crash/Boom/Resonate..
We must return to the good old days. When was that exactly. I forget.
I believe the OP might be referring to the times before the Emancipation Proclamation. You know, human beings traded like chickens as private property, with fewer gov’t rules about it and all. We should return to child labor too, in addition to chattel slavery and 60-hour weeks. Get those kids into the mines and coal ‘em up a bit, for freedom.
A few days ago, I saw this older magazine with a picture/advertisement on the front. It illustrated a man, in his 20s (with the drab-green military uniform and cap (with scrambled eggs on brim-AF commander type), and a smiling youthful lady with shoulder length curled and waved hair. Right behind the pictured man and woman was a B-25 Bomber. And right there on the front-page cover was a text message: “The Good old Days.” I remember thinking at the time: more war time propaganda/bullshit to manufacture consent and patriotism for the war. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually had “the good old days” (it’s just marketing designed to close us). Every year seems the same: difficult to find a job/career that pays a livable wage; sometimes can’t afford to fix the car; don’t have time for nice family vacation (you might get fired if you take off); family member gets cancer, and you have to pay 20% of cost; you are generally always in debt. The “good old days” all seem to be the same to me: endless wars, and endless excuses from our non-representative representatives…
Good God what utter bullocks you froth. Libertarianism is what Liz Truss tried to impose, and you see how damaging her historically short tenure was as PM! You are spouting the same nonsense that Reagan and Thatcher did, you’re an effin’ Tory.
Bingo! The less authority DC has the better. They have overstepped their authority a long time ago and shame on America for not holding our representatives accountable. DC is a cesspool of greed. Time to flush the toilet.
“Shame on America for not holding our representatives accountable.” America can’t do anything, because America is an abstract concept designed by people. The people must hold the non-representatives (well, they do represent the corporations, the donor class, and clones…) accountable.
“Government involvement in the economy has failed you now, has failed repeatedly if you look and read,”
“Everything government does turns to crap.”
Government is only an abstract concept. People constructed government from the concept. People control the concept of government. Therefore, if the government has failed us, people have failed us. People have allowed themselves, through coercion, greed, or ignorance, to become co-opted through bribery/graft. Once bribed, they must adhere to establishment protocol, or face ouster, be primaried out, or worse. The system is intentionally designed to function this way (to maintain power for a small minority of profligates). It is glaringly evident that you omitted this important fact from your essay. Either you inadvertently excluded this detail, or you intentionally did due to your objective: to deflect from the fact that corrupt capitalism, privatization, and monopoly are root causes for US’ economic/political decline. The US, as overtly demonstrated (with evidence—GFC, Covid response…), is a failed state. Even the majority populations of the world have recognized this through their behavior (e.g.- BRICS+, SCO, derision from Turkey, China, Saudis, Russia…), and are turning their backs on Washington and advocating multipolarity; or at the very least have strongly expressed a desire for self-determination and non-interference with their internal affairs (by Washington). You suggest, from your statement above, that we should “look and read.” Why don’t you take your own suggestion? Moreover, you said, “everything government does turns to crap.” Who turns what to crap? Who does the turning? What is this ‘crap’ you speak of? Your premise is frail, incomplete, and seems misleading.
You are welcome to respond objectively and in good faith. If not…well, then don’t.
Libertarians are coming out of the woodwork. Libertarianism is a faith based philosophy. So, doofus, we shrink the government so it’s a smaller corrupt entity and we give the excess taxes back to the taxpayers, then they can buy what the government provided from corrupt capitalists. We kind of do that now with most things. What should we add? Fire and police? That shrunken corrupt government would still need to run the military in case any damn commies would attack our freedoms. Wait, most of our taxes go to the military right now. It doesn’t seem like the light to me. It seems like the stupid. False alarm, Cait and Tim.
The question is not whether not Capitalism has failed us, the question is what do you replace it with?
It’s very easy to criticize Capitalism, it’s quite another to propose a system that replaces it. So what do you propose? Do you have an economic system you like? Do you support Participatory economics that economist Michael Albert advances? Or the system that Yanis Varoufakis describes in this book Another Now.
If you truly want change and want it to happen now, you need to discuss what that change is going to be and how it will happen. Hoping it will happen, does nothing.
Start with Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” then move on to his “Equality” sequel (both free on the net). This Victorian novelist was light years ahead of contemporary thinkers in describing in vivid detail a viable alternative to capitalism. No one else comes even close including the great Marx, who was long on deconstruction of what is, short on construction of what might be.
Thank you for the book recommendation.
In the short term anarchy. Then the survivors put together a fair social system that lasts until the new psychopaths start corrupting it.
“New psychopaths start corrupting it.” Here’s a theory. Why not upgrade our old psychopaths with new psychopaths, just prior to system corruption? In theory, we should have a perpetually non-corrupted system. In fact, we are always saying that everything is made in China; but we could now say that psychopathic upgrades are: “Made in the USA.” Heck, we’re back in business! Boy howdy…
The future looks like this though…
Washington’s plan to break up Russia
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57317.htm
And it looks like the warmongering psychopaths will fight for it until their last breath.
Expecting them to do otherwise is like expecting a hyena to become vegetarian.
And if everybody else dies with them in that endeavour? Well… the more the merrier :o)
“And it looks like the warmongering psychopaths will fight for it until their last breath.” Unfortunately, it looks like a calamity looking for a place to happen. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Why couldn’t they have their last breath before fighting for it?
Nothing offers the world far more better prospects for peace and prosperity than the emerging multi-polar order. By all means, it is best for east and west to go their separate ways as history has proven that by merging, world peace is never possible as there will always be a tendency for dominance by anyone of the two. This also should give formerly colonized countries total freedom from colonial tentacles, for them to prove that, given the chance, they can govern themselves with success.
Germany pushes back against the US by talking to China (11/2/22):
Excerpt: The US wants to politically dominate Europe, including Germany. It seeks for Berlin to be a lapdog who uncritically follows its foreign policy agenda. Therefore, the US has long raged against open German foreign policy towards both Moscow and Beijing. It funds think-tanks to aggressively lobby Berlin to follow transatlantic goals, an overt form of foreign influence in the country.
https://www.rt.com/news/565744-scholz-germany-us-china/
Nice article on Propaganda:
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“Take the hatred of Russia promulgated by the U.S. government. It is more than a century old. Few Americans know that the U.S. invaded Russia in 1918 to try to stop the Russian Revolution. Today’s U.S. war against Russia is nothing new, yet many people buy the daily lies about the war in Ukraine because it is a habit of mind, part of their taken-for-granted-world.”
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https://www.greanvillepost.com/2022/11/01/self-destructive-social-habits-loneliness-and-propaganda/
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Using the current in vogue social habit, I’d say the quote is ‘perfect’.
Yes. The USA: home to endless war and propaganda.
OK, Here comes the word according toSt PJ.
Collaboration cannot work. The reason is simple.
90% of the population are good well meaning non-violent people. For them collaboration is simple, appealing and workable. It doesn’t matter what colour they are, what religion they are, what culture they are or what country they come from, they will get along fine with pretty much anyone, they will share their excess and help the old, the young and the infirm. They are the kind of neighbours you wish you had.
9% of the population are sociopaths. They have no conscience, no empathy, no altruism and no sympathy. They are endlessly greedy, endlessly acquisitive and endlessly looking for ways for ways and means to take what others have produced. They feel no guilt, they never feel sorry for their actions although they will apologise equally endlessly when caught stealing, lying and defrauding the those around them, they do not mean it as they cannot for the life of them understand why you are complaining. To them the world is filled with clever people like them and fools and suckers who were created to be fleeced.
Then there is the 1%. The psychopaths. They actively enjoy causing pain and suffering. The Megeles and the Lindy Englands, the torturers and the serial killers. You can call them evil, wicked, sick, mentally deranged, you can blame their parents, their society, their genetics or God. The fact is that they can and will harm any person or being that they think they can get away with.
Our western society believes that sociopaths and psychopaths can be “cured” or at least “Medicated” to overcome their “sickness”, it can’t. They believe that re-education and love can beat the natural nature of these people,it can’t.
The nature of the 90% is to allow these “poor”individuals time to become like us which of course we expect them to want, but they don’t, they like being sociopaths and psychopaths. It gives them huge material and psychological advantages. They are not going to willingly change.
The only successful society will be a return to the stocks and ducking pond (and witch smeller) for the sociopaths and the gallows for the psychopath. This cannot happen when everyone has a “democratic” voice, as the sociopaths will manipulate the narrative and the vote to their advantage. It cannot happen in a society that reveres and promotes materialism and competition. It cannot happen in a society that already has an established reward system for sociopaths and psychopaths.
The economic “ism” doesn’t matter, the political “ist” doesn’t matter, the only things that matter are the ethics and the morals (not sexual mores, they are irrelevant but the ‘do no harm’ morals).
Such societies arise (very seldom), being small and last only for very short time.The reason they do not last is because the 90% are too soft, kind and altruistic to kill off the ‘paths at the very first sign.
Sad but true.
I think the principal flaw in this line of reasoning is the same as for communism, the false notion that people can be discreetly divided into categories like rich/poor and altruistic/sociopath/psychopath, which is actually not the case. This jumped out at me reading the Communist Manifesto. There actually isn’t a lot of either/or in the universe, including the human part of it. There is no bright line between Samaritan and psycho, rich and poor. Humanity and its members are ever changing continua.
i don’t think communism divides people into categories. it describes the categories that exist and ultimately wants to do away with the divisions (‘classless society’).
I can provide thousands of sources to confirm the distinct and absolute division between behaviours of “normal”, sociopath and psychopath.
I can provide evidence that the underlying mental state does not change but that the behaviour can be masked.
Can you provide any evidence that ” the false notion that people can be discreetly divided into categories like rich/poor and altruistic/sociopath/psychopath, which is actually not the case. ” is based on fact?
Of course you can’t. You are wrong. Yes, there are various levels of altruism, greed and evil, just as there are variations in weight, height and skin colour but that does not mean that Asiatic race, the African race and Caucasians are all ‘mere’ variations on homo sapient and cannot be differentiated.
There is a huge dividing line between Samaritan and psycho, the fact that you and millions of others refuse to acknowledge this is what is causing the the current social collapse.
PS. you are wrong about the Communist Manifesto too.
Nonsense. Google all you like. Line up all the people in the world from richest to poorest, best to worst, most to least sane. You will have every gradation in between. And not to get technical but it’s called a binomial distribution. And I think I’m grabbing the tail here.
“And I think I’m grabbing the tail here.” Doesn’t this comprise some of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy objectives while on the Lolita Express?
I give. And I give. And I give …
Starting new thread to respond.
I’m not communist, but the common online capitalist arguments against it are always BS. Some faves:
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You’ll see the “100 million victims” number 100 million times online, without talking about the considerably higher murder toll of just the UK and US alone, both countries full of bloodthirsty morons that think they’re brilliant. And the 100 million figure is famously cooked to begin with. They don’t care.
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“We’ve tried communism and it didn’t work!” always comes from the mouths of people who never tried communism and worked actively against it. Every country that tried was a tyrannical hole to begin with, courtesy of monarchists and capitalists, which is why they each had a revolution, and they all ended up with dictators and pyramid systems, which is indeed an argument that needs exploring. “We’ve” only tried it in the last century, though. None of the ‘commie’ countries produced ownership by the proletariat. The USSR and Cuba came closest to success.
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The US is a clear failure, held together through violence, money games, lies, consumer banality, advertising (propaganda), victim blaming, and total atomization of the public. It is a nightmare to live here, and not easy to escape, for all the ‘love it or leave it’ talk. No matter what, you have to buy in to US capitalism to buy out of it, which is just buying freedom from slavery to any non-capitalist. I was born without my consent, being a baby and all when it happened, and the moment I was, I had ‘US Citizen’ branded to me like cattle. Stepping off a plane in Denmark does not make me a Danish citizen, either. The rules for citizenship and work visas, in nearly every country, favor money pigs and tech bros over everyone else. Elon Musk could buy Danish citizenship easily, if he doesn’t already have it.
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Capitalists all lie about ‘statism,’ because even the most ardent AnCap is a statist, the moment he claims ownership of any part of planet Earth. “You can’t walk through that forest, because I claim to own it” is statist, and not one of these bitches could debate me on that point without looking like a moron publicly. They are all liars, and are trashing the whole planet up, while charging you top dollar for the privilege of living on it.
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“Capitalism has produced more prosperity than any other system” – I love this unquantifiable nonsense, especially considering the colonial slavery and kill count. There are more people on the Earth, which means “more prosperity.” It also means more slavery and murder. More litter, pollution, and nasty idiots everywhere.
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“You live better than a king did 400 years ago!” No, I don’t, and nobody but me gets to decide what ‘better’ means for me, which they hope I won’t notice. I do notice, sorry. Liars.
Predator capitalists know their system is rotten, because they are rotten. They are only slandering opponents to protect their money, power, and feigned prestige.
Yep. It’s gross. They’re all sales and marketing freaks, so they have to sell capitalism itself, non-stop.
“It’s gross.” Yes, it is. Capitalism can’t afford to be decent.
You draw a false Manichean dichotomy between competition and collaboration. What you think of as a competitive economic system is actually for the most part collaborative, and collaborative systems have competitive aspects. And if you want to think collaborative systems can’t be destructive watch a swarm of army ants. There’s nothing inherently self limiting in either collaborative or competitive behaviors, nor is either necessarily more or less efficient. Competition doesn’t mean violence, and war requires massive collaboration. Be skeptical of simplicity. Maybe read “I, Pencil”.
very christian. i looked up ‘I, pencil’ and it seems to be everything i expected.
I’m actually a nonpracticing Zen Buddhist, and expectations make an ex out pect and ations.
i think libertarianism is just a capitalist distraction.
Excuse me for seeing the pencil’s point of view.
that’s alright, maybe you’re lucky.
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‘Competition-based model’ is inaccurate. Description as an ‘exploitative-based’ model reflects reality.
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On the Grayzone you can find, “Dennis Kucinich: where are the pro-peace Democrats?
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I recommend it. Corporate capitalism has both American political parties in thrall.
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https://thegrayzone.com/2022/10/29/dennis-kucinich-where-are-the-pro-peace-democrats/
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With both parties in thrall of the military industrial complex voices of peace as as rare as buffalo on our American great plains.
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Dennis K is a man with morals stronger than the corporate pressure trying to turn him into a drone.
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I quote Dennis from the GRAYZONE:
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“Do you think Americans know where, how this started? No! Do they understand what happened in 2014 when when the U.S engineered a coup and overthrew the Ukrainian government. Do they understand that that that it was the U.S that was helping to fund efforts
that ended up in Russian-Speaking Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country being killed? No!
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And please visit my website for Putin’s Valdai speech. Leave a comment too pic a pic and respond to a email is all you have to do.
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I’m so in sync with your thinking lately. I watched a few old Madonna videos last night (no idea what possessed me) but that one line “Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free..” and I thought, if we all just made ourselves dance more… feel light and free, it’s a portal into the wilding of our souls, shaking off the colorless technocratic chains of dullness. So, dance all that anger and fear out of your energy field, conjure happiness.
“A radical inner transformation and rise to a new level of consciousness might be the only real hope we have in the current global crisis brought on by the dominance of the Western mechanistic paradigm.”
– Stanislav Grof
Great post – thank you. Arguing the “benefits” of Capitalism over other economic models, is like engaging in a game of Russian roulette in which you claim to be “winning” because you somehow believe your gun has fewer bullets in the cylinder – even as you squeeze the trigger over and over!
I have started calling it “KILLER” kapitalism…
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Crime and profit: Why prison is good for business in the U.S.
The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world. It’s the third most populous country worldwide, with over a billion fewer people than India, yet its total prison population is over four times larger. The American incarceration rate is even more dramatic. Thirty-four of its states have a higher incarceration rate than any country other than the U.S. Overall, there are over 4,100 companies that aim to directly profit from the prison industry. They include private prisons, private companies with overpriced commissaries and telephone services, and those using underpaid or even unpaid prison labor in their supply chains.
U.S. criminal justice officials claim that prison labor programs offer job skills to inmates that help prepare them for life on the outside. But the U.S. still has one of the world’s highest recidivism rates – 76.6 percent of prisoners are rearrested within five years. Since 2010, 48 companies have spent a combined $17 million on lobbying as well as financially supporting federal and state candidates, major party committees and ballot measure committees. And 44 of them have revenues from the prison industry only. The top two on the list, GEO Group and CoreCivic donated heavily to Donald Trump during his presidential campaign in 2016. Less than a month into the Trump administration, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded a six-month-old Obama directive aimed at curtailing the use of private prisons. More prisoners mean more contracts and more opportunities for profit, which contributes to higher political spending, and that in turn leads to support from the government to build a sentencing system that cages more people. That’s how the cycle of the prison-industrial complex circulates – and who it benefits.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-03-02/Crime-and-profit-Why-prison-is-good-for-business-in-the-U-S–18317m2A5Tq/index.html
Capitalism has us at each other’s throats, as we destroy the planet slowly by ecocide and/or instantaneously by nuclear war. Nevertheless be happy. Surely it’s true that we should refuse to be broken and immobilized by the sorry state/fate of the world, but I don’t think that happiness is the right word to capture that inner victory, as difficult as it is necessary. At this crucial point, we enter the religious realm in the broadest sense, the various ways handed down to us, or fashioned individually from experience, to be “in but not of the world.”
“Nevertheless, be happy.”: neocons leave no stone unturned in their attempts to undermine this; but we must press on…
You bring in ‘religion’…And I keep asking, IF there is a god, where has he/she been all this time while all this misery is happening. Sleeping on the job?
I bring in religion in the broadest sense. The problem of theodicy, for theistic religions, has always been there to grapple with. I suggest that this problem only arises in a religious context, nature itself being neither good nor evil. Asking your question is to grapple religiously.
St Augustine explained that God is outside of time. Neurologists say time is generated by our brains.
Nothing is God’s fault.
We have to create a better world in our mind before we expect things to improve.
Psychologists found that it only takes your decision to become happy.
The only way to counter wars, propaganda and any kind of wrong is to choose to be happy.
The main question I have to ask is why does Caitlin believe we have a “capitalist” economy or system? There is today no aspect of our politico-economic system that is not now controlled by the unaccountable regulatory bureaucracy of the American Administrative State. It is the preeminent example of the triumph of ideology over reason or practicality. Our emerging transportation (“supply chain”) driven economic crisis is a case in point.
because the bureaucracy is run by the corporations it regulates.
Regulatory capture has replaced democratic regulation of corporations with rule by corporations.
“The horror is that America changes all the time, without ever changing at all.”– James Baldwin
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