Well for those with a Joe McCarthy mentality. To well balanced people this should sound like good common sense, but I'm not holding my breath!

An article which should be read but will probably not be

An extract:

You’ve heard the sermon preached by its most fanatic true believers:

There is no public interest—only an aggregation of private interests, which are best served when we each pursue our individual greed in a marketplace unfettered by rules and other forms of government interference. Public assets must be privatized to increase their productivity and efficiency by selling them to the highest bidder. The faster we consume, the faster the economy grows and the wealthier we become as a rising tide lifts all boats.
Inequality is essential to social order and prosperity. It provides us with wealthy investors able to bear the risks of investing in the creation of jobs and a working class motivated by economic insecurity to work hard at those jobs at a globally competitive wage. There is no alternative. If a few get rich, instead of condemning them out of envy—which is a mortal sin—celebrate their good fortune, because as the rich get richer, wealth trickles down and we all get richer. In America, anyone can succeed who applies himself. Failure is a sign of a flawed character.

Is this story familiar? It is no mystery why this economic theology leads to ruthless competition, obscene accumulation, and reckless consumption that destroys the environment and tears apart the social fabric. It embodies the moral philosophy of the sociopath.
It is now time to acknowledge the lessons of this disastrous experiment. Markets do have an essential role in a healthy economy, but market extremism does not. It turns out that markets do need rules, there is an essential role for government, we all have more when resources are shared, and Jesus and the other great religious teachers were right. We are members of a community and we all do better when we care for one another and act with mindful consideration of the needs of others.

http://energybulletin.net/node/50531

First off, the title of the thread and the contents don't match. Although it's quite normal (though still frowned upon) that a thread may go off topic a few pages in, it's not really what you want to do with your first post.

It's very easy to explain and justify what it is they mean and what parts are actually worth agreeing with and what parts are not necessarily true and are said by people who were fortunate enough to be raised in families that actually had the money to spend on them.

And I can easily tell you just how easy it is to manipulate the story by word choice. The quote you have in italics has its merits and its flaws (some very arrogant flaws at that).


However, the part you wrote is worth tearing apart.
Refer back to what I said about Capitalism, Lessaise-Faire capitalism at that, being the natural way of things and how we as civilized people must find better ways to live but still not violate the fundamental laws of nature or else our attempt at making life better will fail.
If you ignore the laws of gravity and aerodynamics, your plane will never be airworthy. If you violate the properties of buoyancy and hydro dynamics, your boat will be useless. Likewise, if you ignore the natural laws of capitalism as they were brought about ever since the first time someone had too much of something and had to exchange it for something, your social system will also fail....
Anyways my part in bold:

Is this story familiar? It is no mystery why this economic theology leads to ruthless competition
Ruthless competition. What kind of competition isn't ruthless? A friendly competition, isn't really even a competition. If there was no competition, what do you think the world record for the 100m sprint would be?
, obscene accumulation
In the eyes of someone who lives in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, your accumulation is also obscene. So in a sense, it's simply accumulation. Excluding those who have actually stolen from people, it's what society has decided to give them for them for their work.
, and reckless consumption
Reckless consumption. You really do enjoy putting these adjetives in front of words don't you? Reckless? What do you mean? Wasteful and undisciplined? Yes. But that occurs in groups largely without a real correlation to their social status. The wealthy Chinese families in Southeast Asia for example, are extremely frugal. Yet when you go to places like Best Buy in the US, you can see poor families buying stuff that even I can't afford. It has nothing to do with Capitalism, since both are living in Capitalistic societies. Communist countries also have a very woeful record in terms of waste... remember the Soviet oil pipelines.
that destroys the environment and tears apart the social fabric.
At this point your paragraph is getting so full of sh1t I'd not bother but if I do say "alright, whatever," you'll declare victory so I'll continue. I don't recall Capitalism destroying the social fabric, but I do recall Communism doing the very thing. Cambodia would be the best example where children were taken from their parents and "re-educated" ... one part included where they'd have a drawing of a family and they'd erase their parents. Wonderful way to maintain the social fabric. And you know what? They had a point. Nepotism is such a problem in this side of the world that they had a valid grieviance. Their "solution" however...
As for environment, read up on the USSR's wonderful job of keeping their lakes clean.
It embodies the moral philosophy of the sociopath.
And how many hours have you clocked in the fields watering, weeding and fertilizing? Bet you've done a lot of fertilizing. Sociopath.
It is now time to acknowledge the lessons of this disastrous experiment.
Yourself.
Markets do have an essential role in a healthy economy (didn't you just go off bashing about how the market is nothing but bollocks?), but market extremism does not. It turns out that markets do need rules (they have rules), there is an essential role for government, we all have more when resources are shared, and Jesus and the other great religious teachers were right. We are members of a community and we all do better when we care for one another and act with mindful consideration of the needs of others.
There is no market extremism except a market regulated well and a market regulated poorly. There are an infinite number of ways to get it wrong and Communism is one of those ways. Like nature, if we had Lessaise-Faire Capitalism, it would be jungle law. Life would go on but it wouldn't be a very good one. Just as life in the jungle is extremely harsh and even harsher on the ones that just don't make it. But you have to accept that the the laws of nature must be respected in whatever you do and that when you do tweak it, you still will pay a price for it.
We can care for one another if we've actually got something in our hands. There is a way you can help. You can work hard, get rich, and then use that money to give back to society or whoever it is you wish to help.
Or you can bitch and moan all day about Capitalism while enjoying all the comforts and benefits it provides you.

http://groups.google.com/group/lonni...0ab98930?hl=en
Edit : versus http://energybulletin.net/node/50531
Is my answer to that trash, short and sweet, comparatively speaking. If you want to live in a global village, move to Africa, Asia, or South America. I will keep the good old U.S.A. any time...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Christ, I hate being in the middle.

I can't think of a better system than capitalism but it needs a hell of a lot more regulation in this country to keep the greed from reaching self-destructive proportions like it has.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

First off, the title of the thread and the contents don't match.-snip-

Yep, that´s why myself e.g. stopped reading after a quick overfly and wnet to your post, you hit the nail where it needs to be hit! (Btw, and OT, you are sucking at the soccer competition... might want to revisit your team set up.... )...

Rattler

A capitalist system is great, but we're in an oligopoly right now. That has to change.

The hate Communism/Capitalism has for each other is bullsh*t. If the two economic systems were combined and mixed together the world would be inifnitely better.

The world is more becoming a mix of plutocracy and kratocracy.

I'm glad you all believe that the title and content don't match. Neither do I ! It was a bit of a p*** take on the McCarthyist hysteria which a few people still suffer from, and a trick to lure people in to read something important, and one person in particular.

Yes Redneck, as much as I would like to be credited with the article, all of which I have quoted (italics and otherwise) is the original, nothing to do with me. Please read the link, the quoted bit is only part of a larger piece.

That said, the article has too many religious connections for my comfort, but isn't it interesting how people can reconcile the vast difference in wealth between people with the teachings of Jesus? Yet these are often the same people who preach unbridled capitalism. How they except to pass through 'the eye of the needle' on their 'judgement day' I've no idea. A case of double deception perhaps!

Perseus, are you a communist?

Sometimes you make it seem like you are.