Look at What Happens to Peaceful Protesters in the States

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by CatBuilder, Sep 24, 2011.

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  1. bntii
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    bntii Senior Member

    "Few doubt that it was the actions of the rich and the super-rich, the 1%, that created the crisis. But sadly, debate has not yet been translated into action...This is why we need the Occupy movement and the staunch actions of the trade unions – why we need protest and demonstrations and activisim"

    Few doubt.....
    The author would have been closer to the truth if he intoned that 'Few understand' what created the crisis and fewer still understand that action which could be of benefit in these times.
     
  2. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    unfortunately I'm forced to agree, few actually seem to realize that what sent our economy into a tail spin was two wars we had no way to pay for and some really bad policy lobbied for by the banking industry to allow for the loan scam that resulted in the worst of the crooks surviving and what few honest banks there might, and I stress might, have been going under.

    on a whole other note a short excerpt from that link I provided earlier

     
  3. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

  4. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    If you sit on your @ss, you have your crack down.
     
  5. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    he he he! :D

    Good to see a little humor injected.
     
  6. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

  7. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    and people wonder why I want to retire to a boat.
     
  8. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Yes, we should cut all ties to un-civilization.
     
  9. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

  10. Dave Gudeman
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    Dave Gudeman Senior Member

    Spent the holiday working on the boat and didn't get much time to websurf. How come when you are working for yourself you don't have as much spare time as when you are working for someone else?

    My argument was that you are comparing an idealized utopian anarchy to a real-life fascist state and that is is this apples-to-oranges comparison that makes you think that anarchy and fascism are opposites. Of course an idealized utopian society seems like the opposite of a real-life dictatorship. However if you compare idealized anarchy to idealized fascism or real-life anarchy to real-life fascism, you see that they are actually not only similar, but closely related.

    You made some disparaging comments about this argument, but you never explained what it is about the argument that you disagree with.

    The original meaning of "capitalist" referred to an owner of capital. The term "capitalist" to refer to an economic system originated during the time of Marx and the term was largely popularized by Marxists.

    How about the elected politicians and bureaucrats who actually, you know, rule? I call it a "class" because the perquisites have become practically hereditary. And it does also include people in high-level positions in the private sector, education, non-profits, and other areas where the right political connections can get you a cushy high-paying job.

    As to mere captains of business, finance, and industry --they typically don't make laws and regulations that I have to obey upon penalty of having a swat team break down my door in the middle of the night, shoot my dog, force my wife and kids to stand around in their sleepwear while they trash the house looking for contraband, and then drag me off to prison in my pajamas for a quick booking and cavity search before throwing me in a tiny cell with brown-stained broken toilet and a violent felon for a roomy.

    That's just the beginning of what the ruling class can do to you if you don't follow their rules --and it does happen to innocent Americans. If you don't want to follow the rules of your apartment management company, you have to move to another apartment. If you don't want to follow the rules of your bank, you have to look for a loan elsewhere. If you don't want to follow the rules of the big corporation that employs you, you have to look for another job. Sure, those things can all be a lot of trouble, but they don't involve a cavity search.

    And, sure, massive corporations don't have the incentives to compromise with small customers. That really pisses me off sometimes. But it's not in the same category as the small cell decorated with stained toilet and felon. It would be nice if, once, someone who is on the side of bigger government to control those evil corporations would at least acknowledge that big government comes with some big dangers.

    People who think corporations in America have a lot of power just have no realistic grasp of what power is. It comes of living all of your life in a very safe country where so few people get railroaded by the authorities that most of us don't personally know anyone it has happened to. But the authorities are the ones with the real power. They are the ones who can ruin your life.

    All of this Occupy chest-beating about "corporations" is intended to distract you from the real danger by making a boogie man out of a relatively powerless group that no one really likes. It's the same tactic used by the Nazis by blaming problems on the Jews. Which is interesting, considering the number of anti-Semites in the Occupy movement, and the number of people who still associate "bankers" and "finance" with Jews.

    As to defending "captains of business, finance and industry" I have done no such thing, all I've done is try to point out who the real villains are. I generally don't like big corporations. I try to avoid doing business with the most dominant companies and buy from smaller ones instead. In this thread I have criticized not only the ruling class, but also all of those captains of business, finance and industry who conspire with the ruling class to extract tax money from the government or regulate their way to success.

    The ruling class didn't just let our financial institutions get away with thievery and incompetence on a massive scale --they positively encouraged and supported it because they were getting a cut of the action. Then when it all came crashing down they bailed out the front men like Goldman Sachs on the condition that they would be the fall guys and take all of the blame so the public could be kept ignorant of how it all really happened.

    I'm speaking metaphorically, of course. I don't believe that there was any explicit conspiracy, but there sure was a lot of money invested in the Obama campaign by Goldman Sachs and there sure are a lot of people in the Obama administration who worked for Goldman Sachs --including lobbyists, despite Obama's promise not to have lobbyists in his administration. And for all of Obama's tough talk about evil corporations, the federal government has sure been good to Goldman Sachs under his administration.
     
  11. IMP-ish
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    IMP-ish powerboater

    Looking at the length of your posts in this thread, how much more free time could you possibly have :p :p :p
     
  12. Dave Gudeman
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    Dave Gudeman Senior Member

    Little-known fact: Obama's failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war.
    So if we had two wars we had no way to pay for, wasn't it a little bit irresponsible for Obama to not only continue the two wars but add a massive new spending increase that cost even more than one of the wars?
     
  13. Dave Gudeman
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    Dave Gudeman Senior Member

    You have no idea how much time this is taking away from my more important duties like saving the world from the evil dragon in World of Warcraft.
     
  14. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    Excuse me? Where did I compare an idealized utopian anarchy to a real-life fascist state? I did no such thing, and I don't see how you could even have squeezed that out of anything I wrote. Instead, you "pared down" the definitions of anarchy, leaving only the secondary definition involving a utopian society, then attributed your actions to me.
    I repeat: it's an argument against something I didn't say. I simply gave you standard dictionary definitions to show that anarchy and fascism are polar opposites, rather than the synonyms you've been using them as. You're the one who zeroed in on 'idealized' anarchy vs. 'real-life' fascism, by throwing out all the definitions of anarchy except the one you wanted. You've been going off on tangents ever since, trying to convince me that being opposites is really the same thing as, um, you know...being the same thing. Give it a rest.
    If you're going to use Wikipedia for a source, read it more carefully. You'll note that it points out usages in the modern sense before Marx and apart from Marx. And strangely enough, if you look up 'free enterprise' (the term you prefer) in Wikipedia, it redirects to an article about capitalism -- an article which clearly differentiates between the normal and accepted meanings of the word, and Marx's differentia specifica.

    In other words, it's only your own personal prejudice that leads you to associate the word primarily with Marxists.
    I'm not even going to tackle most of that; I'd be writing all night. But I would suggest that despite your claims, the American ruling class is not our politicians, but the people and corporations behind them -- who provide the money which puts them into office and keeps them there.

    Like those horrible policemen who've apparently been mistreating your dog, trashing your home and marching you off in your pj's, politicians are generally just the instruments of power.
     

  15. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

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