Forum Post: Not a troll, looking for real answers
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 12:11 a.m. EST by justda
(7)
from Seattle, WA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
So I have been reading all the "demands" posted. and some other post. And correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like all of you want Socialism. Which I am fine with, but call it like it is. Every demand to cap earnings, and offer free services the the pubic... seems pretty socialistic to me, and I am not a socialist, I am a capitalist, I work for mine, and sometimes I get more than others for the work I do.
I was behind the whole 99% thing from the beginning, until I started seeing all these lazy entitled people complaining that their life choices are other peoples fault and that they deserve better. Now I am not so behind the movement. I have lived on my own since I was 17, I had my first kid at 17, my second at 20. I have a job, I make good money, and I worked for everything I have, I have never used unemployment, or welfare, and I have gone 5 months without a job. I save my money and don't buy things like I phones or new cars, or sign for a mortgage on a house that is outside my means...
So am I part of the 99%? how and why? help me see the light, cause it is fading for me.
Capitalism, socialism, communism, etc are all simply names of systems and philosophies that can be implemented to achieve economic goals. Not one is inherently better or worse than all the others in the same way a hammer is no better or worse than a screwdriver.
Knowing what to use, and when, to achieve the result one wants is the true art when it comes to governance.
You generalize your experience as if everyone has the same opportunities as you. This is a common logical mistake. Take two people, of similar talents, and work ethic. Give one $10,000 to start a business and the other $100,000.
Which one will end up further ahead?
Is equality in opportunity too much to ask for?
Unions and anti-trust laws have been considered anti-capitalist too. Capitalism and socialism are sliding, subjective scales. Labeling something with an "-ism" is irrelevant. If you focus on how socialist or capitalist an aspect is, it only shifts focus away from the important questions, such as, will they work to accomplish what the country needs?
Truth.
Use what works where it works and only where it works.
I love how Republicans claim to be "pro business", but oppose "socialism" when having a socialized road system is why employees don't have to call in and tell their bosses that they won't be at work because Steve decided not to allow people to drive on his road today.
I love how Republicans complain that the cost of an employee in America is higher than the cost of an employee in a socialized health care country by the exact amount that the American employer is paying for the employees health care costs (auto workers for example).
They also complain that we don't have enough "qualified workers" for some of the jobs out there in order to justify outsourcing while cutting the funding for the education system tasked with providing the very qualified workers they claim we need.
I'm sick and tired of them complaining about the problems they're creating because they've got some ideological opposition to some concept they don't understand but upon which they rely.
Even the founding fathers realized that socialism was sometimes necessary, which is why they're the ones that socialized certain parts of our society (like the roads).
US Constitution Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
I'm not a socialist, but dammit, in certain situations socialism works. The founding fathers even knew it and wrote socialism into the US Constitution. Ideologues don't understand things like that. And that's the problem.
The reason you are part of the 99% is because you work within a system that has been designed to fail. The designers of this system did this so they would be the ultimate profiteers -- it is a perverted version of capitalism. I too am a capitalist and I too disagree with many of the entitled - however all of us, entitled or not are the people who are being screwed.
David Walker, former US Comptroller General and chief of the GAO, warned before the 2004 election that if large economic changes were not made, by 2009 the United States and its taxpayers would not be able to afford the interest payments on the national debt. A study authorized by the US Treasury in 2001 found that in order to keep servicing the debt at its current rate of growth, by 2013 income taxes would need to be raised to 65%.
If the United States cannot afford to pay the interest on its debts, that would be the final stage of economic collapse and hence result in a total textbook bankruptcy. The systematic crisis would in turn spread to the rest of the world.
How did this happen? Why is the US national debt $14,819,350,000+? Of the 203 countries in the world today, only four (!) do not owe others money. The collective external debt of all the governments in the world is now above 40 trillion dollars and this number doesn’t include the massive about of household debt in each country.
The whole world is basically bankrupt. But how? How can the world as a whole owe money to itself? Obviously, it’s all nonsense. There is no such thing as ‘money’. There are only planetary resources, human labor and human ingenuity. The monetary system regulated by Federal Reserve is nothing more than a game… and an outdated and dysfunctional one at that. Those in positions of social power alter the rules of the game, at will. The nature of those rules is guided by the same competitive, distorted mentalities that are used in everyday “monetary” life, only this time the game is rigged at its root to favor those who run the show. For example, if you have 1 million dollars and put it into a CD at 5% interest, you are going to generate $50,000 a year simply for that deposit. You are making money off of money itself… paper being made from other paper … nothing more - no invention - no contribution to society – no nothing.
That being denoted, if you are a lower to middle class person, who is limited in funds, and must get interest based loans to buy your home or use credit cards, then you are paying interest to the bank, which the bank is then using, in theory, to pay the person’s return with the 5% CD! Not only is this equation outrageously offensive due to the use of usury (interest) to ‘steal from the poor and give to the rich’, but it also perpetuates class stratification by its very design, keeping the lower classes poor, under the constant burden of debt, while keeping the upper classes rich, with the means to turn excess money into more money, with no labor.
That reality aside, there are other games in the system which have worked for decades, but are just now starting to bloom into the inevitable mathematic disasters that should have been anticipated 100 years ago. The point is, our system is broken. Simple policy change will not solve our debt problem. We need to alter the governmental paradigm if we wish to repay our debt. First step: our government must fire the Federal Reserve Board.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/who-are-we/
We are open to all ideas.
We are the ideas.
We have no leaders.
We are the leaders.
We stand united.
We stand as a voice of the people.
We hope for a constitutional government.
We hope for a sustainable economy.
We hope you will join us if you have similar interests.
I did not read your entire post, however I have to disagree the there is no such thing as money in one respect. Money was originally designed to coordinate trade of resources. Money should be and only be a representation of value created through physical labor. At some point in time money changed from representative into objective, and that is when shit hit the fan.
Congress has the power of the purse, this means that they are meant to regulate the US currency. In 1913 they handed the power of the purse over to a private bank - the Federal Reserve, to print money based on nothing. Historically, money was backed by commodities such as gold and silver, although now it has zero material backing. It's a bunch of numbers in a computer.
Congress does not have the constitutional authority to hire a private bank to manipulate global currencies. It's a scam. It's hard to imagine that such a scam has persisted for so long, I understand. If you have any questions I'd be more than happy to explain further.
Gotcha, and yes I did know about that part of history. I should have read the whole post :)
I would argue at this point the gold standard is even outdated as the amount of commerce necessary in the world far outweighs the precious metals available.
There was an amazing idea that was left out during the writing of the U.S. constitution and that was the idea of money backed by electricity. The originators of this idea were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Edison -- however it was left out because electricity was not widely known at that time. Check out www.energybackedmoney.com -- essentially as consumption grows (due to various reasons, mainly population) so will our consumption of electricity, and when the volume of electricity increases so will the money supply. It is a mathematically beautiful equation -- and again returns money to original state of being representative.
It sounds like you grew up early and made intelligent choices, because you had to. You had mouths to feed. I admire the fact that you don't live beyond your means. I have never owned a new car, or pretended to own one, more accurately. Americans are capitalist when it suits them. Most of them don't care about killing or economically enslaving other people, but now that they have to pay the bill they are upset. Too f#$%king bad, is what I have to say. But, pain is a great teacher.
That said, the reason to be here is that there is real danger that our financial systems are collapsing because of corporate malfeasance and governmental corruption. If the value of the dollar sinks, then even the most clever and reserved middle class actor will be destroyed. The concern is that the government no longer represents you, but represents corporations. Your vote, your freedom and your safety are all dependent upon a nation that is rich and one in which the dollar is strong compared to other currency. Imagine all the money you have being converted to Pesos or Rubles, or some other weak form of currency. All the money you have been careful with is now worth pennies to the dollar. What then? What can you do? There are many people here who made intelligent well considered choices and are now ruined. This movement, if amounts to anything, amounts to fighting for you, too. We are in this together. Don't be fooled by labels. When the government bailed out the banks it was behaving as a corporate well fare state. That is socialism; pure and simple. Sadly, it is pathetically inept socialism as well. Capitalist who fail are supposed to go broke and their assets are supposed to be purchased by more responsible economic actors. But, there was a blatant move to keep the rich wealthy and reward them for failure. In socialism they would have simply kept getting their salaries rather than being financially insured by the government and made rich for doing the wrong thing. The same is true of farmers who are paid not to work, but also hate well fare. I apologize to all farmers who do not fall under that description. I suspect that my apology goes out to very few people. The question people are asking is why did you save corporations and preserve their wealth at the expense of your citizens who are losing jobs, housing, medical care and food? What makes some abstract entity like a corporation more deserving of your help than your own people? That's the point, justda. That's what the argument is about, as I understand it, and that is the reason that you should still be here. This movement is trying to do its best to avert further crisis by letting the government and corporations know that we aren't going to be stupid pawns forever. We are wiser now that we are more collectively broke. I sincerely hope that these problems don't reach you, even if you disagree. It sounds like you have worked hard all your life. So have many of the people here. People all over the world (with some exceptions) work hard, but if they have a bad economic system their struggle doesn't make them more secure, or more wealthy. What I think this movement wants is a stable and reasonable economic system for a nation that is already on the financial ropes, so to speak. Our foreign debt is too high, or interest rates will soon sore domestically, and we don't seem to have a plan for helping the average citizen in a democracy to help themselves. We aren't investing in new energy technologies, for example, because our government is significantly controlled by the oil lobby, when doing so might well create new jobs and dig us out of the mess we are in. There is no single answer, but I say that to illustrate a point. Moreover, I do think we need a safety net for people. There is something wrong with a system were health care costs are projected to be 20% of the GDP by 2015 (although people play with numbers, of course). The idea is to imagine having to spend 20% of what you make on health care and then pay the rest of your bills. How long could you last having to do that? Best of luck to you, justda. Stay with us, please. We need all the help we can get.
justda, I know what you mean. I used to be a liberal but am cynical enough now to think that a lot of those proposed socialist policies won't work.
Don't lose hope yet. If we want to change this country, we need to band together and speak with one voice. I suggest politely informing the socialists that those ideas are driving away conservatives from the movement and that we need to concentrate on reforming the corruption before tackling other agendas.
I wrote a post (see below) about this very topic because I was losing heart as well. If people insist on pushing their ideologies into the movement, it will fail. We need to embrace ALL americans.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/liberals-shape-up-or-youll-ruin-the-movement/#comment-64779
Although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management Group of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do this at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to support a Presidential Candidate at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Term limits would stop backdoor deals in congress.
Term limits are not the answer. They are typically the cry of a political party who is in 2nd place.
When a politician is running for office, they need to accept donations to raise money. The amount of money needed to run is enormous! Well, the incumbent has a natural advantage (the high ground) so requires less money to stay in office. The challengers must raise more than them, usually substantially more.
So, who donates to them? Seeing the incumbent usually has higher odds of winning and donors have limited funds, they will tend to donate to the winner if possible. BTW, do I need to say that the donors are donating the money in an attempt to curry favor with the politician? They are buying political favors.
Seeing the donors will usually try to donate to the incumbent, he has his pick of which ones he will accept. He will usually take ones that are "touchy-feely" and improve his image.
Challengers must strive for donations. They are usually forced to take money from "questionable" sources, usually renamed to look like it benevolent (ex. tobacco industry donating thru the "Southern VA Agricultural League").
If elected, the Challenger must pay off his political debts. If he doesn't fulfill his "obligations", word will get out and he will never receive funding again from any lobbyists, good or bad.
After his first term, he is now the incumbent and can choose good donors. Of course he may still be corrupt... because let's not ignore the fact that the only way he could get funding in the first election was to compromise his ethics which means that our system is naturally selecting for corruptible politicians. However, he is likely to be a cleaner politician than the challenger with a fresh load of political debt.
What I am saying is, term limits would increase corruption, not stop them.
Oh, and btw... can you explain how backdoor deals would be stopped by term limits? I fail to see how. A lot of backdoor deals come from one politician wanting to pass a piece of legislation favorable to his state but can't get enough votes. So he makes a deal with another congressman and they make a deal.
I think the answer is that "We The 99%" is made up of everybody, bringing all ideologies....
here's my view of this....
Neither socialism or capitalism exist in nature without the other… Alone they are mere philosophies…
Of course you are. There is no pure capitalism anywhere in the world and very few sincerely advocate for pure capitalism who are actually in business in the real world. That is true of socialism, as well. We are all advocates and beneficiaries of mixed economies. The accepted definition of the commons that provide essential benefits of a society is a bit different from society to society. And it typically is moved by a more or less democratic society.
You like more coffee in your coffee than your buddy. You are like most of the 99% and you are faced with a situation a context that you didn't cause and may or may not have even participated in. You may have voted for the lesser of two evils, but most of us have. We tried to believe that they would wake up and do what is best for the country. And they let you down, They accepted, what should be called bribes, and sold you and the rest of us out.
Keep pulling on the rope with the rest of us until this is fixed to your satisfaction and, if you are generous, and I think you are, until they are fixed for everybody.
If you did more than you should have to help them exploit the rest of us, admit it to yourself and make it right by helping fix it now. We may never get another chance.
A lot of the things you see posted are just big ideas from bright young minds. Maybe one day... But they wont come from the OWS movement.