Can democracy survive capitalism?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by EarthSky, Mar 11, 2020.

  1. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You don't care that hundreds of thousands were killed by illegal action?

    Do you seriously think that you foot stamping has the same effect on democratic results as a billionaire convincing you how to foot stamp?
     
  2. struth

    struth Well-Known Member

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    What was illegal about it? Sure I care, it’s sad saddam lead his people in to that.

    not sure what you are rambling about here. Maybe you are easily convinced on how to think. I’m not..nor do I did any foot stamping

    also I was kind enough to answer all the questions you’ve asked me, I find it telling you can’t answer mine any merely deflect with, well foot stamping
     
  3. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Attacking a sovereign nation justified by a dossier of lies? Have a world with yourself. That sort of nonsense basically says government can do anything!

    That's the trouble, isn't it? You have been convinced by the billionaires that own your political system that you're incapable of questioning it.
     
  4. struth

    struth Well-Known Member

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    What was illegal about it? Why have you still not shown me proof it was all lies as well?

    certainly I’m perfectly happy with questioning my government, and people’s views etc I do it all the time. That’s why I am here
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Do you honestly think the Dodgy Dossier was based on truth? If it isn't, its illegal action by definition (as it was used to justify war)

    Then why don't you? Why aren't you worried that your politicians are paid for by billionaires?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2020
  6. struth

    struth Well-Known Member

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    I believe they were acting on what they thought was true. No that doesn’t make it illegal, we can go to war for whatever reason we want, congress violated on it and in fact everything is the Authorization Of the Use of Force was accurate

    I do question them, I know many are...Clinton clearly was, Obama was owned by Comcast for example, called them out on it all the time.
     
  7. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    That is the most naive thing I've ever read on this forum (and I've read a lot of right wing grunt). That it was fake was known by everyone.

    Sounds like you're sheep. Which billionaire told you to moan about Clinton and Obama?
     
  8. RodB

    RodB Well-Known Member Donor

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    It seems obvious that the politicians, not the capitalists, are the ones without honor.
     
  9. struth

    struth Well-Known Member

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    Then why did all the dems vote for it knowing it was fake? Was in the Use Of Force Resolution was known to be wrong?

    none, I didn’t like their policies because they didn’t benefit me, nor America, also I didn’t like Clintons close ties to Wall Steet and Obama being bought by Comcast for example. Why are the billionaires that own them ok with you? Why won’t you question them?
     
  10. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Actually there are very few places where actual socialism
    is practiced North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.
    Wealth disparity is meaningless. Most people here can't even accurately define wealth, (hint it isn't money). For instance if you own your own home you have more wealth than 95%if the people in the world.
     
  11. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Okay just to follow up, As I stated before Guatemala was considered the private fiefdom of United Fruit and was a very profitable enterprise under the American backed dictatorship before Arbenz was democratically elected on the basis of land reform and alleviating poverty. Far from being a socialist thug, Arbenz was an urbane, highly educated man with who genuinely tried to benefit his people before he was ousted in a CIA coup and then replaced by a real thug - an American backed one who made sure that American corporate interests would continue to rule the countries agriculture.

    As for Cuba, it was really just the same. United Fruit made vast profits on sugar-cane, mostly producing rum during prohibition. They paid Cuban labour pennies and had the American backed dictator Batista crush any opposition to American theft of the countries wealth. That was in the countryside. In Havana, organized crime groups - the real drug and gambling thugs ran the city under the protection of Batista and the American mafia.

    Castro wasn't even particularly communist until he was driven into the Soviet camp by the constant threats of invasion and assassination by the CIA and American mafia.

    So you see that your entire premise is wrong. Prosperity happens when economic activity grows and the populace has the money to by goods and services that the nation is producing. None of this is what happened under US backed dictatorships in both Guatemala and Cuba and in almost all Latin American countries who tried to distance themselves from American corporate dominance through democratic reforms and found themselves under attack under the guise of fighting communism but what really amounted to using any means to maintain American corporate dominance of the region and to destroy any government that resisted that dominance.

    This is all part of the public record. The CIA position is that it made mistakes in the past but the ends justified the means. For Latin America it amounted to rape of their lands, endless poverty, death squads and narco-states created by failed war on drugs and anti-communist policies.
     
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  12. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    And in the End Castro was as much if a thug as the people he replaced. As far as I'm concerned the great tragedy if the cold war was that we never found a spot to land in between the right wing thugs currently in charge and the wing thugs that replaced them shortly there after. Surely there had to be something better than this
    Choosing between Castro and Batista.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2020
  13. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    I agree. We are seeing this playing out before our eyes every day. Democracy seems to be dying a little more drip by drip every day.
     
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  14. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Fair enough. I tend to look at how the game was played and wait until the final whistle before snapping to judgement.

    But the self-congratulations of even the greatest empires of the past have proved illusory. And a lot of them existed a lot longer than yours has though I must say, I don't know that any have had the economic and military dominance that you have had over as much of the globe as the American empire has.

    The question is can it survive it's own hubris to rule as long as say Rome or even England? I am not so sure given it's current political decline.
     
  15. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    My feeling is that it is going to take another great economic or military crisis to shake the world out of it's complacency - and I don't think it's going to be pretty.

    With the environmental problems we are facing and the military weaponry we have at our disposal all it takes is one shock to bring the whole stack of cards crashing down.

    Look what is happening over a virus outbreak that is not even that pathogenic?

    I don't know if you ever heard Henry Wallace's "Common Man" speech but your post reminds me a lot of what Wallace was saying:



    He made the speech in counter to Luce's "American Century" speech that same year.
     
  16. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Yes. I agree. There will always be a tension between labour and capital in a capitalist system. The question is, if we are to maintain a capitalist system - which I am in no way saying may not be the best way to go - how do we achieve a balance between capital and labour that brings the best benefit for society as a whole? Societies with high levels of inequality are inherently unstable and unjust ones that are usually profoundly autocratic. One only need look at Czarist Russia or the Ottomans after Suleiman to see how quickly these can be overthrown once the decline begins.

    Well, I agree with you that bad character is being promoted today and accepted - even glorified today.

    I disagree that there is no role for government in helping to provide an educated populace with a strong understanding of civic responsibility and a working knowledge of ethics.

    Mostly our education system is turning out unthinking robots for what is left of industry and greedy little managers who only know how to further the financialization of our economic system.

    People decry the humanities in school but I think the loss of critical thinking that leads to glorifying bad behavior as displayed by the current leadership is a direct result of the privatization of what was once public education as a tool for creating unthinking drones to corporate oligarchy. And this did not happen by accident.

    My take anyway.
     
  17. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    You don't think they go hand in hand?
     
  18. spiritgide

    spiritgide Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Think of it this way. If all the people you dealt with kept their word- did what they said they would do, said no upfront when they weren't going to follow through, saw no need to weaken others or take from them unfairly- how do you think you would get along?

    Now there are a lot of people like that in the world. Many of them are very wealthy, because such people can build partnerships and make a lot of great things happen quickly and smoothly. To be part of that- you have to be one of them. I don't mean rich, I mean a person of similar character. I eventually learned to read character in people quickly and accurately, and changed both my business and personal life to just walk away from people who lacked those qualities. Best thing I ever did, both for my personal happiness and peace, and for the benefits to my business. I get along because I associate only with good people. I don't do business with companies I don't trust, regardless of them being cheaper- because I value the trust more than the lower price, and in the long run it becomes the better buy.

    It's a form of discrimination- nothing to do with race, religion, etc- all about character and honor. IF nothing else worked- a lot of people would be learning how to do this.

    We have crooks in life, from ordinary people to business people to politicians- because we tolerate them. Quit doing so, and they will cease to be there. To do that, all you have to do is raise your own standards instead of letting society tell you what to think.
     
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  19. RodB

    RodB Well-Known Member Donor

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    Fair point, but time in existence is not determined by economic ideologies. Totalitarianism governments can last for centuries and it has nothing to do with socialism versus capitalism or any other system. All things being equal I think socialism has a better chance at longevity because it is totalitarian. But its economic power and its benefit to the average person will be less because socialism is basically a non-growth economic system. There is no reasonable comparison between the economic might of the US with any other country's economy, and our economic power stems from 10% happenstance and 90% free private enterprise..
     
  20. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    He's dead, of course.

    If you're calling him an idiot, that makes you very much one.

    Likely his words of wisdom make you very uncomfortable. Pity.
     
  21. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    Marx is dead and burning in hell, he was an idiot too

    Anyone promoting collectivization is an idiot no matter how smart they are.
     
  22. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Got it Robert--everybody is an idiot except for you and Donald Trump. :lol:
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2020
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  23. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    Nope just greedy people who insist on having a share of what is not theirs. Which is all communism/ socialism is.
     
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  24. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    Your post serves as a fine example of what I've often alluded to in many of my posts regarding socialism. Many (perhaps most) Americans are victims of Cold War propaganda, which intentionally blurred the differences between socialism & communism. Basically, they lied, & most Americans believed the lies. Today, that propaganda still dominates American views on socialism. Your post above proves that. Americans don't realize that socialism has no more in common with communism than capitalism does. But Cold War propaganda was very successful, & it's difficult to impossible to counter it today, using the facts. The blur between socialism & communism is so strong & deeply embedded in the American mind, there's no room for truth anymore, except in the young, who weren't around to be victimized by that propaganda.

    I'm saddened to see that you are another victim of Cold War lies. I wish there was some way I or others on this forum could dig deep inside & reach your rational core with the facts & show you the other side of socialist ideas. Everything that exists has its good & bad, its light & dark, its strong & weak points. Socialism is no exception, any more than capitalism is. Seeing this truth is far better than becoming lost in propagandist dogmas. You have my sincerest condolences. :cry:
     
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  25. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    Union of soviet Socialist republic

    Communism and socialism are the same thing. And they are bad

    Cold war propaganda was dead on right and proven so in every case..
     

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