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Forum Post: Black and White II.5

Posted 7 years ago on May 27, 2016, 12:58 p.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

1 billion divided by 10,000 is $100,000.00. If 9,999 people are deemed excess population in that there's not enough land and resources to support their reasonably comfortable existence no matter how hard they work, should they be euthanized or would it be better to tax the billionaire's unnecessary property so that all could have $100,000? ie: Should one or 9,999 suffer?

Neoliberal dogma has it that competition is the natural human condition and that if we don't interfere with outcomes and let the [rich] winners do as they will, utopia will be achieved. Many believe we're already there. Most don't even realize that neoliberalism is the conservative ideology that has contributed to the forty years of concentration of wealth with the few [and ever fewer] and growth of hardship and poverty in a consistently increasing percentage of the population. Most of US are still true believers in the "free market" promise of prosperity for all. How does that work?

George Monbiot has an an off the mean viewpoint that traces the origin and effects of the neoliberal "free market" religion:

"... The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek....

"... In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises's book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax....

"... Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk.

"The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatize remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector....

"... The movement's rich backers funded a series of thinktanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute....

"... As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek's view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way - among American apostles such as Milton Friedman - to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency....

"... With the help of sympathetic journalists and political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter's administration in the US and Jim Callaghan's government in Britain....

"... After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed - often without democratic consent - on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, 'it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.'...

"... Sayer argues that the past four decades have been characterized by a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy: from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned income has been supplanted by unearned income....

"... Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics."

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

https://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=How+Did+We+Get+Into+This+Mess

20 Comments

20 Comments


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[-] 1 points by Shule (2638) 7 years ago

The real question is how do get people to stop drinking the Kool-Aid?

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

To awaken, one must want to be awake. To be fully awake is rare.

Bernie partially awakens some and "the Donald" partially awakens others. Both point out more or less real problems and propose more or less good or more or less evil solutions. Neither is fully awake and so can not fully awaken. The desire is not fully developed.

Shit! I'm starting to remind myself of the I Ching. Where did I put that book, when I set it aside a few years ago?

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Neo-I-Ching to the rescue here: 69 - Yin and Yang, is the Wall-nuts' way with the Cesspool, grinding all into dingleberry juice. For dawn to come, darkness must first arrive. For restful night, twilight must fade to darkness. For in darkness is the emptiness, the possibility of all things, equal yet opposite, but not the same. 0-point fluctuation => 0 ~= e^ ix = cos x + i sin x = yin and yang because e^ -ix = cos -x + i sin -x = cos x - i sin x .

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

"To be or not to be?" is the question. "To be And not to be," is quantum theory's answer.

In the longer term, the more disruptive choice with a believable story to match offers the better return. Risk correlates with potential return.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

It's easy - throw a rat in there to prove quickly that it's poisonous. I distrust wild water in a desert with nothing living in it. Wild water with green scum, swimming fish, and frogs is often better for health.

Neoliberalism is ecologically deadly, economically disastrous, and politically untenable. Vote for free-germ zone worldwide so that California can be freed to have mediterranean fruitflies' larvae growing in its fruits and vegetables, Hawaii can be freed to have its snakes in paradise, hospitals can be attacked for freeing their Ebola-infected patients like in West Africa, and MRSA spread by subway riders in New Amsterdam.

We have already imported West Nile disease, Asian emerald ash borer beetles, Asian long-horned beetles, Burmese Pythons, Asian Carps, Snakeheads, etc. Administrations of Slick Willie, Mega-Wiener, and geoduck had opened up Virginia in an orgy of neoliberal Lust, just cheap 3€ from Angina, cheap, cheap, Cheap! Fa, la, la, la, la, -- la, la, la, la!

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 7 years ago

Two big rats have been thrown in the water - sHillary & Drumpf - and there are plenty of people who are still drinking the Kool-Aid.

BTW - stay away from the pretty florescent green scum - as it is poisonous and has been making people and animals sick and killing some as well.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

These two critters haven't been poisoned yet because they don't drink the Kool-Aid themselves. They love feeding the pretty fluorescent green scum to others, especially the ones thirsty in the land of our western deserts. Fluorescent beauty in nature is often a warning signal. Beauty sometimes kills.

These two critters will drink the Kool-Aid if the Asian Long-Horned beetles show up in Chappaqua, NY and MRSA in Plaza Hotel. Norovirus is also very educational. Bedbugs are highly illustrative of what the Wall-nuts are doing to us on this Royal-Carnival Cruise to the Sinkhole. This is torture. This is a bedbug!

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 7 years ago

The real question is how do get people to stop drinking the Kool-Aid?

It would be ever so much helpful if the public were to have more spreading the truth rather than lies.

A lot of people have started to get involved in calling out Bullshit as well as in spreading truths.

https://twitter.com/DKAtoday/status/736748139219148800 Shouldn't b about commitment 2 a party It should b about commitment 2 true democracy of by & 4 t People!

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

The green-eyeing fly couldn't get enough of the squirrel-tailed hairy nest. It's afraid of being eaten by the bird that speaks to the Earth in Portland, Oregon.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

The Dark Ideology that dominates modern life in USA / EU etc. has for most people - No Name! Do we actually know what Neoliberalism is? Here's an alternate link and font, to the one in your essential OP:

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

The Name is Entitlements, Corporate Entitlements enshrined in the Neo-Laws, protected by the non-enforcement of antitrust, anti-monopoly, anti-corruption age-old laws passed after experiencing great pains and political/economic disasters. Every two generations or so, the self-anointed "smart" ones discover that jettisoning the landing gear in flight is a "modernization act" of stupendous proportion and greatness (Great Panic, Great Depression, Great Recession, Great Fear, Great Neurosis, Great Gyration, Great Vibration, Great Palpitation, Great Tinkling, ...).

Next time, when you ride on an airplane and have become airborne, tell the pilots to dump the landing gear and tires to save fuel costs because they are provably serving no function whatsoever aside from occupying space and costing fuels.

It's the Aircraft Fuel Saving Modernization Act espoused by the Cesspool and ejaculated by the geoduck sucking in the tidal flats on the Potamkin.

"All aircraft flying within the jurisdiction of Murderica shall be equipped with disposable landing gears and tires for improved fuel efficiency whilst in flight to maximize corporate profits and ecological greenness."

"Manpad enforcement, as already demonstrated on Free-Germ 'n Wings Airlines flight 800, shall take effect immediately at the twilight's last gleaming across the various states of the Unnion."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

''Yanis Varoufakis on Privatization, Human Rights and Capitalism'':

I append this link to a very interesting interview with Yanis Varoufakis, in reply above because I believe it fits in reply to what I could decipher of your response. Modern High Finance; Low Ethics Capitalism now tends to - Monopoly, Cartels, Loss of Competition and then Price Gouging & Profiteering!!! This is further facilitated by the Co-option and Subversion of Democracy by Banks, Corporations & Oligarchy!! Throw a ''Military Industrial Complex'' into the mix and New Crypto-Fascism is now staring us all hard in the face!

caveat emptor ...

[-] 3 points by Shule (2638) 7 years ago

Instead of stealing, err "privatizing", everything Greece owns, the EU ought take their money losses in Greece as annual tax write-offs. It is the least they could do after everyone spends nice affordable vacations there.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

Greece is being slowly ritually sacrificed at ''The High Altar of Illusory Solvency'' of the whole charade of Franco-German Banking Solvency!!! The Greek People, need to reclaim their Democracy from their own Treacherous, Quisling 0.01%, who have sold their country to The International (in there own case mainly Franco-German) Scum Bankster Parasites!! They Immediately Default & Offer a maximum, notional and honourable 1:10, 10% on their Onerous and 'Odious Debt' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odious_debt ) & Reinstate The Drachma; based on the asset that is Greece itself and Demand A Referendum On These Matters. They can NATIONALISE THEIR CENTRAL BANK & Currency Issue and, reclaim their Country, Democracy, Integrity and Sanity! I recommend the following:

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas ...

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

The European Union is a whole bunch of finance colonies masquerading as a continent of autonomous states. Evaluated as a united continental entity, politically, economically (less but Schengen is pining), and militarily speaking, it's about where the U.S.A. was in the early nineteenth century, shortly after our Articles of Confederation/Constitution proved to be very inadequate, for a nation aspiring to a continental destiny.

The European Union is still very fractious and incapable of speaking with continental authority backed up strongly with means and actions. Crises in Kosovo, Greece, Ukraine, Syria, and Libya proved this fact again and again.

Bankruptcy protections took care of the financial failures in the U.S.A. Remember that Donald Trump who may well become the President of the United States, had declared bankruptcies again and again, so yes, he can be an extremely scary scarecrow indeed with his Big Ideas mostly from the business world (but fear not, we hold the Constitution with the left hand and are armed with our torch in the right). We in the U.S.A. had the frontier spirit to forgive failures in the drive for our continental destiny.

I certainly dislike paying for the upkeep of our political enemy, the Retard-i-can't States of America, but it's a burden that Yankeedom, New Netherland, and the Left Coast must bear. Yeah, that humongous dingleberry state dangling downunder gives us the heartburns but how can any littler states not appreciate the shielding power of its feminine behind? Tex is a country masquerading as a state, after all.

I say that the European Union should treat Greece as a Greater Appalachia state or a Donald Trump company - write off much debt and provide aid packages. There's no need to be beholden to the interests of the financial eelites forever. The law of compound interests is doomed to fail eventually when reality falls behind the rocket launch.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

Yes tRUMP has been bankrupt several times & - had he invested the money he inherited in a S&P500 equity plan .. he'd be over three times as rich as he is now .. yet he's a ''Titan of Industry''; ''Successful Self Made Man'' and a ''Inspirational American''?!!! Right!! "And Jesus Wept"!

Alas, The Greek 99% are actually being ritually sacrificed at The High Altar of 'Bankster Ponzi Finance Kaputalism' & are being forced to suffer extreme austerity, deprivations & hardships, purely to maintain just for a little while longer - 'The Illusion of Pan-European and International Banking Solvency'.

The European Union is indeed in the grip of The Euro-Bankers at its highest level & - its treatment of Greece is nothing short of criminal but IF UK decides to leave EU this week (Thursday June 23rd '06 Referendum) then UK will be open to more such exploitation as London is Global Finance Crime HQ and The European 99% will be weaker to resist Oligarchy too. As ever, we all stand and fall together.

Staying in The Union {EU or US} .. in order to affect a positive, democratic change for all The 99% - has value. Solidarity - has value. Unity in Common Purpose - has value. Texas btw is a Spanish/Amerindian word (''tejas'') meaning "friends" or "allies"! And further to the great docs linked to Shule above, also fyi -

commune bonum est summum bonum ...

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

U.K. may kiss E.U. goodbye because I can just feel the angina clintoris coming.

Solidarity has value sometimes but it has none in debt slavery for everyone. I prefer to see a peaceful and prosperous United States of Europe but the recurring bailing outs of Greece had shown that the efforts were mostly directed towards bailing out the banks indirectly. The Greek people mostly suffered under austerity measures and yet the Greek economy did not appreciably recover. Greece may have been better off breaking out of the euro-area.

U.K. is outside of the euro-area but the E.U. encumbrances still hamper the U.K. economy which may be better off having its own flexibility in trading (or grovelling to Angina).

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

England [NOT UK] did - "kiss EU goodbye"!!! Scotland was strongly for remaining within EU tho!! Ergo a Second Scotland Independence Referendum - is NOT going to be far away ... possibly! The EU could be democratized and built into a bulwark against Neoliberalism and the Bankers have to be defeated & that can ONLY happen (imo) on a Transnational Basis .. ie within EU. The early beginnings of such a Trans-national 99% Resistance Movement is there. Now it needs to spread. I think that you'll be interested in:

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Yes, I fell into the same trap as Tera eRex. At the time I commented, the voting results had not been completed but I suspected that the 'leave' camp would have the upper hand over the 'remain' camp.

England and Wales voted to leave but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay. When looking from afar one tends to see the dominant component as being representative, it's a bit like me being called an American, overseas, but a Mexican, Canadian, Brazilian, or Argentinian, etc., are usually not called an American by (especially) the anglophone world.

The E.U. governance structure seems to be too far away from the control of the peoples it affects, a bit like how we could have party ruminations/primaries/cock-us-es/erections stolen, bribed, or traded off through the super-delete-gates or erectoral collage we have in the U.S.A.

The U.K. consented to the unification of Germany after the fall of 'die Mauer' by accepting the pan-European dream that the E.U. carries. Well, dreams can easily turn into nightmares, can't they? Unified Germany has become the heavyweight in influence in the E.U.

The U.S. got through similar growing pains successfully because at that time, our several states had the most formidable common enemy, the British Empire, which still treated us as breakaway colonies. Perhaps Russia can become the bogeyman for uniting the E.U. politically but even after the downing of the Malaysian civilian airliner over eastern Ukraine, the E.U. has not beefed up in its spirit going against Russia. I feel sorry for the cursed fate of the Russian people but Russia/Soviet Union has been switching sides in the major wars of the 20th century. It has never been a dependable ally. It's still being led by cavemen, with territorial lusts oozing wild from their dingleberries (Catherine the Great might also have oozing dingleberries when colluding with Prussia to annex Poland, planting the seed for the bloodiest century in all of the world's history).

The proper policy of the E.U. towards Russia should be a chamber policy: to draw a circle for Russia to kneel in and let Russia balance a big chamber pot full of pee and poo on its head while chamber music is being played in the background to soothe the Slavic soul. After all, isn't Russia being led by Poo Tin the Great perching precariously on its head? He must be clapping his hands now because his bombings in Syria has triggered the breakup of the E.U. but that shakes things up badly for Russia's future, too.

If the E.U. has been subverted by the eelites, it's easier to tear it all down to start over. Perhaps Europe will learn the scorched-earth strategy from Russia when Russia invades again as it has already done for centuries. Younger Germany needs to relearn the lesson through more wars if it doesn't want to learn from grandparents or history books. The Russian people also need to go through yet another bloodbath to cleanse its poop. I assure you that the Germans still carry the genes of the Teutonic warrior tribes. I'm glad that right now they have the mommy (die Mutti) in charge, a civilizing influence in a family.

Zur Europa: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A7gAxylASMU

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

Neoliberalism - NOT Russia, is The Enemy, BUT ... do we really know what it is?! Imagine living in the erstwhile Soviet Union & NOT knowing what Communism was?!! Die Mutti is Die Bankers' stooge aber der gig is up soon - as the illusion of Mega-Bank Solvency crumbles!!! I will recommend the following...

fiat lux ...