Are You Leaning Far Enough to the Right to be Considered a Fascist? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Ustwo · 03-05-2008, 12:53 PM

Perhaps this is a good example of observer bias.

If the observer is 6'8" tall and thinks this is slightly taller than average, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion abnormally short. He may be worried something is wrong with these people, perhaps they had poor nutrition as children, or were poisoned, after all how could they be so short compared to his only slightly taller than average height.

If the observer is extremely far left, and thinks he is only slightly left of center, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion, right wingers and right wingers will be far right wingers.

I'll love to comment more but I have to go to my Bund meeting.

Willravel · 03-05-2008, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Perhaps this is a good example of observer bias.

If the observer is 6'8" tall and thinks this is slightly taller than average, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion abnormally short. He may be worried something is wrong with these people, perhaps they had poor nutrition as children, or were poisoned, after all how could they be so short compared to his only slightly taller than average height.

If the observer is extremely far left, and thinks he is only slightly left of center, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion, right wingers and right wingers will be far right wingers.

The center is relative, but if the center keeps moving that has to be noted. The center in 2003 was a lot different than the center in 1973. I'm sure you're aware of that. You're a pseudo-libertarian but also somewhat friendly to the NeoCon philosophy, and I'm a libertarian socialist. Where the fuck does that put us? We're both close as far as libertarianism and far because I'm far left and you're far right. The center between our philosophies wouldn't be the actual center, but a center towards libertarianism, sorta.

Perhaps it's the oversimplification of what center really means that has everyone confused.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I'll love to comment more but I have to go to my Bund meeting.

I go to Bond meetings. They're like Bund meetings, but they're not Godwins.

powerclown · 03-05-2008, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

We're both close as far as libertarianism and far because I'm far left and you're far right. The center between our philosophies wouldn't be the actual center, but a center towards libertarianism, sorta.

whiskey tango foxtrot?

loquitur · 03-05-2008, 03:23 PM

will, you're a civil libertarian, but not a libertarian. A socialist can't recognize the sort of strong economic and property rights that libertarians do and still be a socialist.

Willravel · 03-05-2008, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

will, you're a civil libertarian, but not a libertarian. A socialist can't recognize the sort of strong economic and property rights that libertarians do and still be a socialist.

You sprung the trap I set for someone else.

Spoil sport.

roachboy · 03-05-2008, 03:51 PM

Quote:

A socialist can't recognize the sort of strong economic and property rights that libertarians do and still be a socialist.

samcol · 03-05-2008, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

MMMM Red Grouper!

debaser · 03-05-2008, 04:10 PM

I thought I smelt something awry...

powerclown · 03-05-2008, 04:50 PM

Will's a kipper, not a fryer.

loquitur · 03-05-2008, 06:44 PM

nice red herring there, roachboy. gut it, scale it, put some salt on the fillets, grill them and you'll have something tasty.

actually, in Amsterdam they sell it raw at street kiosks, with chopped onions. Yum.

roachboy · 03-05-2008, 07:23 PM

i thought it was nice too.

but truth be told, it reproduced as a much bigger fish than i imagined. a reverse fish story. so it's kinda like following with alot of exclamation points!!! a point that didn't need them!!!

anyway:

you gots to get your head out of american paranoia about the old left.

socialists (democratic socialists, french socialists etc.) aren't terribly radical politically, particularly not in terms of property claims/rights. they just work with a different conception of capitalism--a (to my mind) sane(r) one that assumes that markets left to themselves cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds and that the state should adjust for these effects. some of these adjustments involve wealth transfers---but these are matters of political consent and the arguments for them are utilitarian as well.

there's a debate to be had about this--an old school one---but it's about how actual markets function and whether it makes sense for their long-term functioning that the social system be maintained.

to turn it onto "respect for property rights" is the red herring.

you must have been arguing on libertarian grounds---arthur darby nock and all that---but those grounds are at best eccentric.

aside:
it's a tiresome quirk of tfpolitics that anyone can say just anything about words like socialism. over and over and over it happens. i call it the ustwo effect, when i bother to call it anything.

samcol · 03-05-2008, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

aside:
it's a tiresome quirk of tfpolitics that anyone can say just anything about words like socialism. over and over and over it happens. i call it the ustwo effect, when i bother to call it anything.

The same can be said about capitalism on tfpolitcs. It's not capitalism when the corporations and government work in collusion. It's not capitalism when the government awards subsidies and bails out failing corporations.

Willravel · 03-05-2008, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

The same can be said about capitalism on tfpolitcs. It's not capitalism when the corporations and government work in collusion. It's not capitalism when the government awards subsidies and bails out failing corporations.

Corporatism and capitalism are linked, though. I won't be a socialist zealot and say that all capitalism leads to corporatism, but it can.

As for socialists being property disrespecters? As rb said, we're not all extremists. We simply believe in economic equality of a certain degree.

Ustwo · 03-05-2008, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i thought it was nice too.

but truth be told, it reproduced as a much bigger fish than i imagined. a reverse fish story. so it's kinda like following with alot of exclamation points!!! a point that didn't need them!!!

anyway:

you gots to get your head out of american paranoia about the old left.

socialists (democratic socialists, french socialists etc.) aren't terribly radical politically, particularly not in terms of property claims/rights. they just work with a different conception of capitalism--a (to my mind) sane(r) one that assumes that markets left to themselves cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds and that the state should adjust for these effects. some of these adjustments involve wealth transfers---but these are matters of political consent and the arguments for them are utilitarian as well.

there's a debate to be had about this--an old school one---but it's about how actual markets function and whether it makes sense for their long-term functioning that the social system be maintained.

to turn it onto "respect for property rights" is the red herring.

you must have been arguing on libertarian grounds---arthur darby nock and all that---but those grounds are at best eccentric.

aside:
it's a tiresome quirk of tfpolitics that anyone can say just anything about words like socialism. over and over and over it happens. i call it the ustwo effect, when i bother to call it anything.

Ok lets rephrase it for you, a radical.

Libertarian ideals are not compatible with western democratic socialism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

As for socialists being property disrespecters? As rb said, we're not all extremists. We simply believe in economic equality of a certain degree.

Which means you believe in the confiscation of property by government means for redistribution.

Libertarianism, not yours.

Willravel · 03-05-2008, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Which means you believe in the confiscation of property by government means for redistribution.

No. In a perfect world there wouldn't be central government at all. People would live in small communities which center equally around two main organizations:
1) Education and study
2) Business
Each person would have a vocation and an area of study, be it scientific, artistic, historical, philosophical (etc...). The hierarchy of labor would be similar to council communism, or a worker's democracy, and the educational hierarchy would be determined by levels of expertise. Labor would assist study and study would assist labor.

I can't tell you what this system is called, because it's my last name.

Do you see any redistribution of goods there?

Edit: Oh, and it's also a work in progress.

roachboy · 03-05-2008, 08:32 PM

Quote:

you must have been arguing on libertarian grounds---arthur darby nock and all that---but those grounds are at best eccentric.

i meant what i said.
your paraphrase doesn't capture it, ustwo.

loquitur · 03-06-2008, 06:39 AM

will, a form of what you described did actually exist in history. It was tribalism. You're apparently advocating a non-blood-based variant of tribalism. The big difference is that your'e positing its existence without hierarchy. But the basic community you're advocating is similar to a tribe. Good luck.

Roachboy, please don't attribute paranoia to my understanding of socialism; I'm not attributing any nonpositive attributes to your view of free market capitalism. Paranoia has nothing to do with it; I just don't understand socialism as anything other than the preference to use government to regulate economic behavior and plan economic activity, rhetorically supported by platitudes about the masses and equality. It's a preference for centralization and uniformity, backed by government power (i.e., from my point of view, coercion). It can be used with a heavy hand or not; it can be benevolent (and in most Western countries it is); but there is no denying it necessarily involves restriction of the economic liberties of its citizens, and replacing them with mandates from above, nor is there denying that it involves some serious circumscription of property rights.

If you believe, as I do, that humans should be free to follow their individual muses, so long as it does not harm others, then that should logically include their economic muses. Pecunia non olet.

roachboy · 03-06-2008, 07:10 AM

loquitor: again if i strip away the libertarian eccentricites that shape your rhetoric, i can see that we're maybe not so far apart--but why should i have to do that if the idea is to have a debate or discussion? over and over it comes to the same thing--a little fight over who gets to control the rhetoric. we can agree that socialism departs from an understanding of capitalist markets--and maybe even that this understanding derives from the history of actual markets as opposed to their self-regulating floating-all-boats metaphysical duplicates (see? there it is already.) more neutrally--we have no agreement about which capitalism to look at in these debates---i prefer looking at historical capitalism, you know, the stuff that happens and that happened in the 3-d world---i dont know if you do--from your arguments here it doesn't sound like that.

if there is no agreement about what is even meant by capitalism--in that i talk about historical forms and you talk about "self-regulating markets" or whatever---but in general, you seem to like ideal-types--then there is no argument, there's just a differend.

i say that most democratic socialist arguments about wealth redistribution follow from the way they see markets working historically and the implications of this for the social context they operate in---you don't acknowledge the premise and then repeat stuff about "violation" or "circumscription" of property rights.

this is metaphysics.
but even in mideval metaphysics, debate was possible because there would be agreement that there is a debate because people would be talking about the same thing.
term switching--which is all that is happening here--i go one way, you another--isn't debate.
we keep doing this too.
it isn't interesting--and it cant be much more interesting for you.
so what are we talking about?
i am not interested in fictions like hayek's markets--simply because in hayek's work THEY'RE FICTIONS.
so if you want to talk about socialism==or democratic socialism---you have to abandon talking in terms of fictions as your point of departure.

or we can just do something else.
the world is big, this is small.

Willravel · 03-06-2008, 08:18 AM

Liq, what I described IS a form of socialism. Do you see centralization? Do you see government? Did you see anything about economic liberties?

Of course not.

loquitur · 03-06-2008, 08:25 AM

no, I don't see that as socialism at all. I understand you call it socialism, but you could call it "binky" just as easily. I don't know anyone who would recognize that as socialism. It's a tribal-style organization, and I don't see how it could help but be nontechnological (but that's a discussion for another day).

Will, if you want to call that socialism, you end up with anything communitarian being called socialism, including religious war parties, fascist dictatorships, Shakers, the Jim Jones group, etc etc........ It's like what Orwell said in the piece I linked up above - the word ceases to have a meaning by being applied indiscriminately.

host · 03-07-2008, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanxter

exactly

seems i'm surrounded by media writers...

being a repub, i'm repulsed by my party and going obama...

i'm sick of the repub arrogance
i can't stand that whiney spoiled brat bitch
so i'm going the lesser of the evils

but to get edited because someone doesn't like my approach to a user's non-stop abuse... yes, abuse... of this forum, after having been warned more than once upsets me... seems the liberal party travels far and wide

Hanxter, I don't think you have a full appreciation for what REAL "abuse" is.

It is ironic that you post "seems the liberal party travels far and wide".

The following describes and documents "abuse". If anything, I have posted
too feebly and infrequently in protest and opposition to this law breaking, unprecedented failure of leadership, and betrayal of this oath:

Quote:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...sls/index.html
<hr size="1" color="#cccccc">


<h2>Shocking new revelation: Unchecked government powers get abused</h2>


Yet another report detailing widespread abuses by the FBI of its surveillance powers demonstrates the overarching truth about government power.


Glenn Greenwald

Mar. 06, 2008 | One year ago, the Inspector General's Office -- the independent audit arm of the DOJ -- issued a <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703b/final.pdf">lengthy report</a> (.pdf) detailing that the FBI, for the years 2003-2005, had used "National Security Letters" (NSLs) to gather information on thousands of Americans <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/18/nsl/">in violation of the law</a>. Pursuant to the Patriot Act, "NSLs" permit the FBI and other federal agencies to obtain all sorts of invasive information from telecoms, Internet and email providers, even health care providers and the like without any judicial warrants or any other oversight of any kind. 

Last year's IG report <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/09/fbi/index.html">documented thousands of cases</a> where the FBI abused the extraordinary power of NSLs -- the FBI made false statements to obtain the information, did so where the information had nothing to do with any pending investigations, obtained far more data than even The Patriot Act allows, etc. The Report emphasized that there were likely many more abuses it was unable to document because the FBI had failed to comply with Congressional record-keeping and reporting requirements (requirements which President Bush, in a signing statement issued when he signed the Patriot Act, <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/09/fbi/">declared he had no obligation to follow</a>). The information about Americans obtained by the FBI through these NSLs is <a href="http://www.correntewire.com/the_bush_panopticon_six_degrees_of_domination_from_the_patriot_act">stored permanently</a> on vast federal data bases which tens of thousands of people both in the public and private sector can access. 

A new report to be released this week by the IG, as confirmed yesterday by FBI Director Robert Mueller, details that these abuses <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030500463.html">continued unabated throughout 2006 as well</a>. It seems there are a few brand new lessons that we can perhaps draw from these revelations: 

(1) If unchecked power is vested in government officials, they're going to abuse that power; 

(2) If government officials exercise power without real oversight from other branches, they're going to break the law and then lie about it, falsely denying that they're done so, insisting instead that they're only using their powers to Protect Us; 

 (3) Allowing government officials to engage in surveillance on American citizens with no warrant requirement ensures that surveillance will be used for improper ends, against innocent Americans. 

Who could have guessed? How come nobody warned us about the dangers of "unchecked government power" and the need for checks and balances? 

* * * * * 

Examining what the Bush administration and Congress said about concerns over NSL abuses -- prior to the time the IG Report revealed the truth -- is highly instructive. Maybe there are some lessons to be drawn when it comes to current concerns over granting more unchecked spying powers -- such as, say, the ability to eavesdrop on Americans' conversations and read their emails without warrants. 

 Ever since the Patriot Act was enacted, Russ Feingold had been almost single-handedly (at least among members of Congress) <a href="http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2005/12/13/update_on_the_patriot_act/">trying to warn of the potential for abuse of NSLs</a>. Finally, a couple of months prior to the time the Patriot Act was to be renewed in early 2006, Feingold got some help in his crusade, when The Washington Post's Barton Gellman published a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html">superb investigative article</a> which detailed the FBI's increasingly frequent and broad use of NSLs, and surveyed the obvious dangers from these unchecked surveillance instruments. 

What did the Bush administration and their Congressional enablers -- desperate to have the Patriot Act renewed without change -- do in response to the Post report? They just lied, emphatically denying that there was any real abuse of NSLs and insisting that the Feingold/Gellman concerns were exaggerated hysteria. That hysteria, they argued, could not possibly justify limiting the powers of the Patriot Act or placing checks on NSLs because the need to stop The Terrorists was far more important, and besides, there was no real evidence that NSLs were being improperly employed. 

Then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter <a href="http://www.politechbot.com/docs/specter.patriot.121305.pdf">wrote an extraordinary letter</a> (.pdf) -- two months after publication of the Post article -- citing the special knowledge and expertise he has as Chairman, insisting that there was "no evidence" that NSLs were being abused and thus demanding full renewal of the Patriot Act. Here's what Specter -- at exactly the time the FBI was massively abusing its NSL powers -- wrote; just marvel at this: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R8_1Kapfl_I/AAAAAAAAAks/NsOLPLOtRrM/s1600-h/specter.bmp"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R8_1Kapfl_I/AAAAAAAAAks/NsOLPLOtRrM/s400/specter.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174624056172845042" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R8_1RqpfmAI/AAAAAAAAAk0/UVVz6Kq9Jjg/s1600-h/specter1.bmp"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/R8_1RqpfmAI/AAAAAAAAAk0/UVVz6Kq9Jjg/s400/specter1.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174624180726896642" border="0" /></a>Identically, the DOJ -- after the Post article on NSLs was published -- repeatedly insisted to Congress when it was debating re-authorization of the Patriot Act in November, 2005, that the claims in the Post story about NSL abuses were false. As but one example, the DOJ sent <a href="http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/22107leg20051202.html">a letter</a>, from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Sensenbrenner, accusing the Post of presenting a "materially misleading portrayal" of the FBI's use of NSLs. 

As a result of the vehement denials of abuse by the DOJ and Chairman Specter, the Congress -- a few months later -- <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/patriot.act/">overwhelmingly renewed the Patriot Act</a>, complete with the same unchecked NSL powers. A year later, the IG Report was issued documenting that the abuses which the DOJ and Specter vehemently denied were, in fact, massive, widespread, and perpetrated over a period of three years. Yesterday, we learned that these abuses extended unabated into a fourth year (2006)

. click to show

When the IG Report was issued last year detailing the NSL abuses, this is what <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/09/AR2007030902356.html">The Washington Post reported</a> about prior DOJ denials:<blockquote>The findings by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were so at odds with previous assertions by the Bush administration that Capitol Hill was peppered yesterday with retraction letters from the Justice Department attempting to correct statements in earlier testimony and briefings. [AG Alberto] Gonzales and other officials had repeatedly portrayed national security letters as a well-regulated tool necessary for the prevention of terrorist attacks.</blockquote>But by that time, it was too late and it no longer mattered. Those false denials to the public by the DOJ and Specter gave Congress the cover it wanted to renew the NSL powers under the Patriot Act. Today, of course, we hear that there is no need to worry at all about warrantless surveillance because the Bush administration and Jay Rockefeller assure us that it is "a well-regulated tool necessary for the prevention of terrorist attacks." 

 * * * * 

Apparently, as it turns out, the mere fact that government officials -- even the really upstanding ones in the Bush administration who Fight the Terrorists and the independent, trustworthy U.S. Senators like Arlen Specter -- deny wrongdoing and assure us that their powers are being exercised in secret only for our own Good -- to Protect Us -- doesn't actually mean that this is true. Maybe the only way to ensure that vast surveillance powers aren't abused is to have something like an independent check on how those powers are exercised -- a check from, say, one of the branches other than the one exercising those powers. 

It's understandable that our Congress hasn't yet decided that this is necessary because the whole "checks-and-balances" concept is quite new, just a <a href="http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm">couple hundred years old</a>:<blockquote>TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places</blockquote>And then there was this <a href="http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=12">new exotic theory</a> that recently emerged:<blockquote>I shall undertake, in the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.</blockquote>After the IG published its March, 2007 Report detailing the FBI's abuses of the NSLs, all sorts of dramatic speeches were made in Congress. This was all outrageous, a horrendous abuse of power, something that would not be tolerated! 

Five months later, in August, 2007, the same Congress passed the Protect America Act, which gave the President vast new powers to spy on the telephone calls and emails of Americans without warrants or any oversight. This week or next, they're going to make those same powers permanent, while killing the only remaining mechanism for finding out how the Bush administration for years secretly exercised those unchecked spying powers -- the pending telecom lawsuits. 

At some point -- many, many years from now -- there will be some report issued by an executive agency or a Congressional Committee finally describing the nature of the illegal spying programs implemented by the Bush administration and detailing all of the abuses. And the same members of Congress who looked the other way and then voted to legalize these programs will express all kinds of outrage and surprise. If we vest unchecked powers in government officials to spy on Americans, they'll abuse those powers, all while falsely denying that they're doing so? Who could have known?

What further abuse of power would these federal officials have to implement and preside over before we recognize the trappings of a neo-fascist transformation, if we aren't there yet?

Don't Rockefeller, Reid, and Pelosi seem like people who are acting as if they have sold out to this "putsch" or been co-opted by yet undisclosed threats of violence against themselves and their families?

Pacifier · 03-07-2008, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

The hierarchy of labor would be similar to council communism, or a worker's democracy

You mean something like a "Räterepublik"? (translated as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_republic">Soviet Republic</a>" in Wikipedia, which is too focused on Soviet Russia IMO)

Willravel · 03-07-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pacifier

You mean something like a "Räterepublik"? (translated as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_republic">Soviet Republic</a>" in Wikipedia, which is too focused on Soviet Russia IMO)

The Soviets fucked it all up. Marx was left behind pretty quickly back then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

no, I don't see that as socialism at all. I understand you call it socialism, but you could call it "binky" just as easily. I don't know anyone who would recognize that as socialism. It's a tribal-style organization, and I don't see how it could help but be nontechnological (but that's a discussion for another day).

Will, if you want to call that socialism, you end up with anything communitarian being called socialism, including religious war parties, fascist dictatorships, Shakers, the Jim Jones group, etc etc........ It's like what Orwell said in the piece I linked up above - the word ceases to have a meaning by being applied indiscriminately.

You need to read up more on council communism. It's absolutely socialism. Eliminating social class, no state, community ownership of the means of production, workers councils; all of these things are at the heart of socialism. It's labor in it's purest form, and you say it's not socialism?

loquitur · 03-07-2008, 10:08 AM

what you just described is similar to Marx's end-state communism.

Willravel · 03-07-2008, 10:30 AM

Yes, it is, but have you ever told someone you were a communist? How did they look at you?

It's a flavor of socialism, though, which is undeniable. Just as communism and socialism are very closely related, end state (or the final step) of Marxism and my evolving idea of what things should be like share many attributes with socialism. It's why I used the term libertarian socialist. I'm a socialist who doesn't believe in big government.

host · 03-07-2008, 11:03 AM

Goodness, me...thank god for our own corporatist government, they'll save us! What a wonder it is to live in the greatest country on God's green earth, where we enjoy free and unfettered markets, unless they go in the wrong direction of where the oligarchy have placed their bets....

If you know you know what you're talking about, and you've been posting on this thread, raise your hands!

Quote:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...s-utterly.html
Thursday, March 06, 2008

Financial System Broken - Markets 'Utterly Unhinged'
Bloomberg <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWh0AFtXC9rk&refer=home">is reporting Mortgage Markets 'Utterly Unhinged'</a>

...."Everything is telling you the financial system is broken," Simon, whose Newport Beach, California-based unit of Allianz SE manages the world's largest bond fund, said in a telephone interview today. "Everybody's in de-levering mode."

The widening spreads prompted speculation <h3>the government may step in to support securities</h3> guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said Tom di Galoma, head of U.S. Treasury trading in New York at Jefferies & Co., a brokerage for institutional investors. The Treasury Department said the rumor isn't true.

"The Fed can't really save the mortgage market," di Galoma said. "As they keep cutting, mortgage rates aren't going lower."...

Stocks and residential properties have unlimited price increase potential, but the government is expected (forced ?) to intrude to limit the downside...and the excesses are never removed, and the "managed" economic system is not what you KNOW it is.....so WTF is it?

....a new police state update:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030503656.html
National Dragnet Is a Click Away
Authorities to Gain Fast and Expansive Access to Records
By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 6, 2008; Page A01

.....Intelligence-Led Policing

The expanding police systems illustrate the prominent roles that private companies play in homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. They also underscore how the use of new data -- and data surveillance -- technology to fight crime and terrorism is evolving faster than the public's understanding or the laws intended to check government power and protect civil liberties, authorities said.

Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans.

Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles as national security sentinels......

.......Same Data, New Results

Authorities are aware that all of this is unsettling to people worried about privacy and civil liberties. Mark D. Rasch, a former federal prosecutor who is now a security consultant for FTI Consulting, said that the mining of police information by intelligence agencies could lead to improper targeting of U.S. citizens even when they've done nothing wrong.

Some officials avoid using the term intelligence because of those sensitivities. Others are open about their aim to use information and technology in new ways......

.....Miranda, the Tucson police chief, said there's no overstating the utility of Coplink for his force. But he too acknowledges that such power raises new questions about how to keep it in check and ensure that the trust people place in law enforcement is not misplaced.

"I don't want the people in my community to feel we're behind every little tree and surveilling them," he said. "If there's any kind of inkling that we're misusing our power and our technology, that trust will be destroyed." ......

Chief Miranda, the info in my preceding post makes it clear that "the trust" is already destroyed, and by the president and FBI.

Nothing in the above article addresses a means for individuals to attempt to remove inaccurate information about themselves from the data banks.

Most of you won't see a grave problem with the emerging neo-fascist, corporatist police state we're already living in, until you are too afraid of your government to post your concerns on a public forum like this.

SirSeymour · 03-07-2008, 11:32 AM

Reading through this thread has reminded me of the philosophy the head of the Pol Sci department had when I was in college. He considered the political spectrum less linear in nature and more horseshoe shaped. In this fashion, the more one moves to either extreme, the closer one actually comes to the opposite extreme.

host · 03-07-2008, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirSeymour

Reading through this thread has reminded me of the philosophy the head of the Pol Sci department had when I was in college. He considered the political spectrum less linear in nature and more horseshoe shaped. In this fashion, the more one moves to either extreme, the closer one actually comes to the opposite extreme.

The lack of attention to detail on the other end of the horseshoe is clearly demonstrated here, no need to post any of it, if you already "know what you know", and assume that all of the other "regular" people all know, too....

Baraka_Guru · 03-07-2008, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Yes, it is, but have you ever told someone you were a communist? How did they look at you?

It's a flavor of socialism, though, which is undeniable. Just as communism and socialism are very closely related, end state (or the final step) of Marxism and my evolving idea of what things should be like share many attributes with socialism. It's why I used the term libertarian socialist. I'm a socialist who doesn't believe in big government.

Marx noted, however, that socialism would have two phases: the lower phase, also known as "socialism," and a higher phase, "communism." The latter would be the ultimate good society benefiting all mankind. In the lower, socialist phase, the whole society would own its productive forces, or the economy, but work would still be valued and paid differentially and distribution of the society's goods and wealth would not yet be equal. To reach the higher, communist phase, two requirements had to be met. First, the productive forces of society, restricted by the capitalists in a vain attempt to prop up their profits, would be liberated, and the economy, hugely expanded by modern scientific and technological inputs, would become capable of producing "a superabundance of goods." This enormous output would permit everyone to have whatever they needed. Second, in counterbalance, an individual's needs would be limited and sensible, because society would develop, through education and by example, "a new-type socialist person." Reoriented individuals would desire only what was truly necessary to sustain life, eschewing ostentation and waste. They would also contribute to the socialist society altruistically, applying their work and varied talents to the common welfare. With the superabundance of goods and the new socialist individual, society could then be organized on the principle: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." Thus, communism would mark an end to coercion, want, and inequality.

-From "Communism," Russian History Encyclopedia.

Ustwo · 03-07-2008, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Reoriented individuals would desire only what was truly necessary to sustain life, eschewing ostentation and waste. They would also contribute to the socialist society altruistically, applying their work and varied talents to the common welfare. With the superabundance of goods and the new socialist individual, society could then be organized on the principle: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." Thus, communism would mark an end to coercion, want, and inequality.

I think Darwin should have had a word with Marx

The_Jazz · 03-07-2008, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

The lack of attention to detail on the other end of the horseshoe is clearly demonstrated here, no need to post any of it, if you already "know what you know", and assume that all of the other "regular" people all know, too....

host, have you ever considered, you know, NOT being a bully? Because those few times that you deign to come down off your mountain to communicate among us regular folks, you actually provide lots of good insight into complex problems. But if your just going to make snide remarks at those who don't march in lockstep with you, the ranks of those who identify as "host ignorer" are going to continue to grow.

Baraka_Guru · 03-07-2008, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I think Darwin should have had a word with Marx

Yes, I'm sure Darwin would have loved to spend more time studying altruism in humans and other primates.

roachboy · 03-07-2008, 12:18 PM

at the risk of being pedantic, the splitting of democratic socialism off from more revolutionary-oriented ways of thinking about/using the term happened just before world war 1 within the German SPD--the debate was basically over how important the creation of stock was for marxian economic theory, that it meant for the idea of concentration of wealth/increasing immiseration of the working class as the overall dynamic of capitalism and by extension whether revolution was a short-term possiblity or not. the SPD position (edouard bernstein) argued that revolution was an eventual goal but wasn't going to happen any time soon so tactically that meant integrating into the normal operation of capitalism and working to improve the material lives of working people was a good idea. the revolutionary wing didnt think that a good move, so they (around rosa lumxbourg) didn't go along with any of it. that's how the spd and kpd split. that's the big dividing line between democratic socialist and revolutionary areas of the workers movement.

so democratic socialists are different---it is not the same understanding of the word that you see in, say, pannekoek or the council communist tradition.

they---the two understandings of the term "socialism"---have nothing really to do with each other. not since 1910 or so. that split is also a reason why the russian revolutionaries started calling what they were trying to instituted "communism" which had nothing to do with what marx had in mind--to the extent that he spelled it out (which he kinda hinted at, but didnt really spell out---there were a riot of others--especially early, like 1848, who spent all their time working out alternative possible arrangements--utopian socialists, saint-simonians, blah blah blah.)

one of the problems with the left as it turned out is that terminologies were tossed about in a closed universe and everyone tried to elaborate their positions by taking over the same words.

but its 2008.
the democratic socialist tradition is huge everywhere except in the political backwater of the united states.
it isn't new, it isn't a surprise: the nonsense you see here about the term is a simple reflection of parochialism.

============================================

note: baraka--that reads like old-school diamat.
that is a particularly crude understanding of marx, not that it matters any more.

SirSeymour · 03-07-2008, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Second, in counterbalance, an individual's needs would be limited and sensible, because society would develop, through education and by example, "a new-type socialist person." Reoriented individuals would desire only what was truly necessary to sustain life, eschewing ostentation and waste. They would also contribute to the socialist society altruistically, applying their work and varied talents to the common welfare. With the superabundance of goods and the new socialist individual, society could then be organized on the principle: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." Thus, communism would mark an end to coercion, want, and inequality.

This is the part of communism that dooms it to failure. Even those leaders of the world's greatest communist powers refuse to give up their lives of luxury and privilege to be just another "worker" in cause of the greater good. You sure did not see Mao or Lenin or Castro living in simple state supplied apartments or standing in line at state stores with the common populace.

Willravel · 03-07-2008, 01:44 PM

Baraka hit on why I'm a socialist. The only way to get from capitalism to communism is via socialism. I support socialism now and call myself a socialist because eventually I will be a communist.

SirSeymour: there are no leaders in communism. Not really. That's why it's failed before. Some weak people can't let go of capitalism; they're unable to live by what they preach. Me? It is, in my opinion, a more perfect way of being, therefore it seems reasonable to me that I would help to try and bring it about. I bring it about, and then I become just another worker. I'll answer questions if people ask, but I won't hold any place of power, nor do I want it.

Mao, Lenin, and Castro were flim-flam men. They used the promise of what I seek in order to herd the sheep.

SirSeymour · 03-07-2008, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

there are no leaders in communism. Not really. That's why it's failed before. Some weak people can't let go of capitalism; they're unable to live by what they preach. Me? It is, in my opinion, a more perfect way of being, therefore it seems reasonable to me that I would help to try and bring it about. I bring it about, and then I become just another worker. I'll answer questions if people ask, but I won't hold any place of power, nor do I want it.

Mao, Lenin, and Castro were flim-flam men. They used the promise of what I seek in order to herd the sheep.

Then you are a better man than I and I mean that in the most sincere way. I have worked hard to develop the skill set I have and to be compensated accordingly. I would resent being part of a communist state where I was expected to give according to my ability so that others could have according to their need when they did not work as hard as I did to start with.

I guess it might be ok if everyone's motives are pure and everyone is giving the same effort but if that were not the case I would stop trying as there would be no incentive to work as hard as I do.

Willravel · 03-07-2008, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirSeymour

Then you are a better man than I and I mean that in the most sincere way. I have worked hard to develop the skill set I have and to be compensated accordingly. I would resent being part of a communist state where I was expected to give according to my ability so that others could have according to their need when they did not work as hard as I did to start with.

I guess it might be ok if everyone's motives are pure and everyone is giving the same effort but if that were not the case I would stop trying as there would be no incentive to work as hard as I do.

Contribution is incentive. A socialist/communist puts society and humanity as a whole above the interests of the individual. It's about equality. The sacrifice, as you correctly state, is that those who work for self do not generally get ahead in a system geared toward common good.

If one is a doctor under a capitalist system, one receives a lavish salary. If one is a fruit picker in a capitalist system, one receives barely enough to live on. Communism is, simply, that all contribution is rewarded with adequate means to live and pursue happiness (unless happiness is being better off than people around you).

I've read Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" about a hundred times. I do believe, though, that living counter to our baser instincts is the key to overcoming things like war and poverty; things that seem to come with a capitalistic system. Basically: we're stronger than our more visceral, animalistic natures. Therein lies the path to real equality.

host · 03-07-2008, 04:36 PM

No logging....no record of what "the authority" is taking from our communications or our billing records.... no constitutional protections, anymore. But, they "promise" not to use what they've stolen from us, "abusively":

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um...nG=Search+News

So few of you will actually read this telecom consultant's 2/29/08 affadavit:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/fil...t-BP-Final.pdf

What information is required to raise levels of concern?

Ustwo · 03-07-2008, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Yes, I'm sure Darwin would have loved to spend more time studying altruism in humans and other primates.

I used to say that communism worked great, for ants, but that was before I got a better understanding of how altruism works. Social insects are closer to genetically motivated slaves. Its stable for social insects because of how the genetics work, and would be inherently unstable in humans for the same reasons.

This is the problem with socialism and communism at its core. Its attempting to force human nature into what its not.

roachboy · 03-07-2008, 08:48 PM

i like little logic exercises.

Quote:

This is the problem with socialism and communism at its core. Its attempting to force human nature into what its not.

so you oppose what you imagine socialism to be.
because of the way you choose to oppose what you imagine socialism to be, it follows that you are yourself therefore a full manifestation of human nature.
because human nature and you coincide in your mutual opposition to what you imagine socialism to be.
so human nature is both parochial and smug.

well played.

03-05-2008, 12:53 PM	#41 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Perhaps this is a good example of observer bias. If the observer is 6'8" tall and thinks this is slightly taller than average, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion abnormally short. He may be worried something is wrong with these people, perhaps they had poor nutrition as children, or were poisoned, after all how could they be so short compared to his only slightly taller than average height. If the observer is extremely far left, and thinks he is only slightly left of center, then almost everyone else will be in his opinion, right wingers and right wingers will be far right wingers. I'll love to comment more but I have to go to my Bund meeting. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

03-05-2008, 04:10 PM	#48 (permalink)
debaser Sir, I have a plan... Location: 38S NC20943324	I thought I smelt something awry... __________________ Fortunato became immured to the sound of the trowel after a while.

03-05-2008, 07:23 PM	#51 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i thought it was nice too. but truth be told, it reproduced as a much bigger fish than i imagined. a reverse fish story. so it's kinda like following with alot of exclamation points!!! a point that didn't need them!!! anyway: you gots to get your head out of american paranoia about the old left. socialists (democratic socialists, french socialists etc.) aren't terribly radical politically, particularly not in terms of property claims/rights. they just work with a different conception of capitalism--a (to my mind) sane(r) one that assumes that markets left to themselves cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds and that the state should adjust for these effects. some of these adjustments involve wealth transfers---but these are matters of political consent and the arguments for them are utilitarian as well. there's a debate to be had about this--an old school one---but it's about how actual markets function and whether it makes sense for their long-term functioning that the social system be maintained. to turn it onto "respect for property rights" is the red herring. you must have been arguing on libertarian grounds---arthur darby nock and all that---but those grounds are at best eccentric. aside: it's a tiresome quirk of tfpolitics that anyone can say just anything about words like socialism. over and over and over it happens. i call it the ustwo effect, when i bother to call it anything. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-06-2008, 07:10 AM	#58 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	loquitor: again if i strip away the libertarian eccentricites that shape your rhetoric, i can see that we're maybe not so far apart--but why should i have to do that if the idea is to have a debate or discussion? over and over it comes to the same thing--a little fight over who gets to control the rhetoric. we can agree that socialism departs from an understanding of capitalist markets--and maybe even that this understanding derives from the history of actual markets as opposed to their self-regulating floating-all-boats metaphysical duplicates (see? there it is already.) more neutrally--we have no agreement about which capitalism to look at in these debates---i prefer looking at historical capitalism, you know, the stuff that happens and that happened in the 3-d world---i dont know if you do--from your arguments here it doesn't sound like that. if there is no agreement about what is even meant by capitalism--in that i talk about historical forms and you talk about "self-regulating markets" or whatever---but in general, you seem to like ideal-types--then there is no argument, there's just a differend. i say that most democratic socialist arguments about wealth redistribution follow from the way they see markets working historically and the implications of this for the social context they operate in---you don't acknowledge the premise and then repeat stuff about "violation" or "circumscription" of property rights. this is metaphysics. but even in mideval metaphysics, debate was possible because there would be agreement that there is a debate because people would be talking about the same thing. term switching--which is all that is happening here--i go one way, you another--isn't debate. we keep doing this too. it isn't interesting--and it cant be much more interesting for you. so what are we talking about? i am not interested in fictions like hayek's markets--simply because in hayek's work THEY'RE FICTIONS. so if you want to talk about socialism==or democratic socialism---you have to abandon talking in terms of fictions as your point of departure. or we can just do something else. the world is big, this is small. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-07-2008, 11:32 AM	#67 (permalink)
SirSeymour Ambling Toward the Light Location: The Early 16th Century	Reading through this thread has reminded me of the philosophy the head of the Pol Sci department had when I was in college. He considered the political spectrum less linear in nature and more horseshoe shaped. In this fashion, the more one moves to either extreme, the closer one actually comes to the opposite extreme. __________________ SQL query SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue > 0 Zero rows returned....

03-05-2008, 03:23 PM	#44 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	will, you're a civil libertarian, but not a libertarian. A socialist can't recognize the sort of strong economic and property rights that libertarians do and still be a socialist.

03-05-2008, 04:50 PM	#49 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Will's a kipper, not a fryer.

03-05-2008, 06:44 PM	#50 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	nice red herring there, roachboy. gut it, scale it, put some salt on the fillets, grill them and you'll have something tasty. actually, in Amsterdam they sell it raw at street kiosks, with chopped onions. Yum.

03-06-2008, 06:39 AM	#57 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	will, a form of what you described did actually exist in history. It was tribalism. You're apparently advocating a non-blood-based variant of tribalism. The big difference is that your'e positing its existence without hierarchy. But the basic community you're advocating is similar to a tribe. Good luck. Roachboy, please don't attribute paranoia to my understanding of socialism; I'm not attributing any nonpositive attributes to your view of free market capitalism. Paranoia has nothing to do with it; I just don't understand socialism as anything other than the preference to use government to regulate economic behavior and plan economic activity, rhetorically supported by platitudes about the masses and equality. It's a preference for centralization and uniformity, backed by government power (i.e., from my point of view, coercion). It can be used with a heavy hand or not; it can be benevolent (and in most Western countries it is); but there is no denying it necessarily involves restriction of the economic liberties of its citizens, and replacing them with mandates from above, nor is there denying that it involves some serious circumscription of property rights. If you believe, as I do, that humans should be free to follow their individual muses, so long as it does not harm others, then that should logically include their economic muses. Pecunia non olet.

03-06-2008, 08:18 AM	#59 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Liq, what I described IS a form of socialism. Do you see centralization? Do you see government? Did you see anything about economic liberties? Of course not.

03-06-2008, 08:25 AM	#60 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	no, I don't see that as socialism at all. I understand you call it socialism, but you could call it "binky" just as easily. I don't know anyone who would recognize that as socialism. It's a tribal-style organization, and I don't see how it could help but be nontechnological (but that's a discussion for another day). Will, if you want to call that socialism, you end up with anything communitarian being called socialism, including religious war parties, fascist dictatorships, Shakers, the Jim Jones group, etc etc........ It's like what Orwell said in the piece I linked up above - the word ceases to have a meaning by being applied indiscriminately.

03-07-2008, 10:08 AM	#64 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	what you just described is similar to Marx's end-state communism.

03-07-2008, 10:30 AM	#65 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Yes, it is, but have you ever told someone you were a communist? How did they look at you? It's a flavor of socialism, though, which is undeniable. Just as communism and socialism are very closely related, end state (or the final step) of Marxism and my evolving idea of what things should be like share many attributes with socialism. It's why I used the term libertarian socialist. I'm a socialist who doesn't believe in big government.

03-07-2008, 12:18 PM	#73 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	at the risk of being pedantic, the splitting of democratic socialism off from more revolutionary-oriented ways of thinking about/using the term happened just before world war 1 within the German SPD--the debate was basically over how important the creation of stock was for marxian economic theory, that it meant for the idea of concentration of wealth/increasing immiseration of the working class as the overall dynamic of capitalism and by extension whether revolution was a short-term possiblity or not. the SPD position (edouard bernstein) argued that revolution was an eventual goal but wasn't going to happen any time soon so tactically that meant integrating into the normal operation of capitalism and working to improve the material lives of working people was a good idea. the revolutionary wing didnt think that a good move, so they (around rosa lumxbourg) didn't go along with any of it. that's how the spd and kpd split. that's the big dividing line between democratic socialist and revolutionary areas of the workers movement. so democratic socialists are different---it is not the same understanding of the word that you see in, say, pannekoek or the council communist tradition. they---the two understandings of the term "socialism"---have nothing really to do with each other. not since 1910 or so. that split is also a reason why the russian revolutionaries started calling what they were trying to instituted "communism" which had nothing to do with what marx had in mind--to the extent that he spelled it out (which he kinda hinted at, but didnt really spell out---there were a riot of others--especially early, like 1848, who spent all their time working out alternative possible arrangements--utopian socialists, saint-simonians, blah blah blah.) one of the problems with the left as it turned out is that terminologies were tossed about in a closed universe and everyone tried to elaborate their positions by taking over the same words. but its 2008. the democratic socialist tradition is huge everywhere except in the political backwater of the united states. it isn't new, it isn't a surprise: the nonsense you see here about the term is a simple reflection of parochialism. ============================================ note: baraka--that reads like old-school diamat. that is a particularly crude understanding of marx, not that it matters any more. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-07-2008 at 12:21 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

03-07-2008, 01:44 PM	#75 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Baraka hit on why I'm a socialist. The only way to get from capitalism to communism is via socialism. I support socialism now and call myself a socialist because eventually I will be a communist. SirSeymour: there are no leaders in communism. Not really. That's why it's failed before. Some weak people can't let go of capitalism; they're unable to live by what they preach. Me? It is, in my opinion, a more perfect way of being, therefore it seems reasonable to me that I would help to try and bring it about. I bring it about, and then I become just another worker. I'll answer questions if people ask, but I won't hold any place of power, nor do I want it. Mao, Lenin, and Castro were flim-flam men. They used the promise of what I seek in order to herd the sheep.

03-07-2008, 04:36 PM	#78 (permalink)
host Banned	No logging....no record of what "the authority" is taking from our communications or our billing records.... no constitutional protections, anymore. But, they "promise" not to use what they've stolen from us, "abusively": http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um...nG=Search+News So few of you will actually read this telecom consultant's 2/29/08 affadavit: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/fil...t-BP-Final.pdf What information is required to raise levels of concern? Last edited by host; 03-07-2008 at 05:51 PM..