Forum Post: We can't be all things to all people
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 9, 2011, 7:58 p.m. EST by looselyhuman
(3117)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
First, I know I'm going to get flamed for pointing out the obvious right/left dichotomy at play here, but closing our eyes will not make it go away.
The John Galts and Howard Roarks of the world are here in force. They didn't like what happened to the Tea Party after it was co-opted by traditional conservatives, so they think they can co-op this movement.
They believe because we share some common ground on the bailout and the Fed they can make this movement work for their narrow anti-tax, anti-government, anti-common-good, anti-everything-but-their-own-self interest agenda. This is NOT a match made in heaven. The goals and motivations are diametrically opposed.
Then there are the other Ayn Rand, Ron Paul kool-aid drinkers that are just here as trolls and have no interest in any change or any movement whatsoever. They just want to disrupt and derail. This latter category is at least pretty honest about their intentions and less insidious, but still obviously a problem...
We need to realize that the more we try to be all things the less effective we will be. The Tea Party is still out there and we need to be a counterbalance to shift policy initiatives back in the direction that will benefit the 99%, not the 1%.
Make no mistake, the right libertarians among us are the 1%, or see themselves as such, or aspire to becoming it. Their views are simply not compatible. Like the communists and hardcore anarchists, I guess they have to be tolerated, but don't look to them for help. IMHO.
Disagree. I'm not a Ron Paul person, but their presence is a strong sign to the media and to uncommitted people that this movement is still open. Once this gets shunted into the lefty ghetto, it goes where protest movements go to die and it's all over.
Good night, and good luck.
"First, I know I'm going to get flamed for pointing out the obvious right/left dichotomy at play here, but closing our eyes will not make it go away."
I multi-party system would
We can be all things to all people, and 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 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 Committee at AmericansElect.org in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Shorter.
What tl;dr? Try ritalin.
If this group truly felt that way, they shouldn't call themselves "the other 99%." That would be kind of misleading. Perhaps that description should be changed, for example, to the 15%.
The point I'm making is that there are people pushing the 1% message here. This is the ideology of the Koch brothers. Whether these people are the 1% or just toadies, they aren't really the 99%
Just a thought, but it seems like this movement could become extremely powerful, and widely supported, if the end goals weren't so easily labeled "left" or "right." Off the top of my head, stop the practice of corporations helping to create legislation (Google "ALEC") and corporate lobbyists, corporate donations to elections, and gifts to politicians for influence. I think most of the 99% can really get behind this. On the other hand, certain goals are going to make the movement lose a great deal of support i.e. big government.
But, anyway, it's fun to finally talk to someone in this movement. I've been reading this forum for about a week. :) I guess all these demands on here (left and right) are just an expression of all our frustration we feel.
p.s. I guess it's expected that a lot of "toadies" will be crashing the party as well.
So, I don't disagree with that, but I think you'd find the right side of things would claim that's impinging on free speech, etc.
Thanks for your comment,
I kind of thought of that list on the fly, so it's just an example. But I wouldn't necessarily assume it would be widely rejected by the right. For example, if you consider the Tea Party, they have 15 core beliefs - #4 is "Special Interests Eliminated."
Source: http://www.teaparty.org/about.php
I'm not involved with the Tea Party, but have a friend that is. He would absolutely support getting corporations out of politics.
On a side note, I've been watching this. Ron Paul hasn't said anything unkind about this movement, in fact, the opposite, in that he would like to cooperate on any common issues that we could agree on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLdcB0ln9t8
If the 99% weren't so divided, I think we could accomplish a great deal.
to get serious requires a few things they don't have. like chat admins who aren't ego serving propaganda tools, a wiki, 1001 sub forums, an actual game plan, a straight up political platform... you know.. basic organizational things sane people do BEFORE protesting.. like figure out a diplomacy and logic centered metaprocess to give their chatadmins so that they don't really just drive out even more people than the trolls. Adminatrolla. trollaAdmin. Whats the difference to somebody whos got the truth facing a propaganda tool abusing admin powers to push their agenda? how can you prevent such a thing? Metaprocess. did i mention metaprocess? and science diplomacy science psychology science sociology and all those textbooks to read B4 protesting?
you can't have capitalism without a free(SLAVE) market. but you can have a free market without capitalism. And thats strangely the only way it CAN work.
Marketing 101 was fascinating. I admit thats a lot less than a bachelors but its sure more than enough to see whats really going on given the other things I know. Capitalism is not the problem since it does not exist. corporate oligarchy is the problem. capitalism has never been tried. I am a democracy guy. in order for real democracy to function a free market system is required. Thats not capitalism. thats a free market system. there is a subtle difference there which most people would miss. I will again repeat. Neither capitalism nor marxism nor communism nor socialism has ever existed. All of those governments were oligarchy pretending to be something as a con scam. Telling that simple truth gets one banned out of the Chat by either a capitalist or a socialist whos pissed you just said their pet ideology isn't real. It isn't. anybody who thinks that it is is accidentally playing for team corporate oligarchy as a tool. the ONLY system worth talking about is DEMOCRACY. how democracy HANDLES a FREE MARKET system is dynamic and interesting and NOT capitalism.
o. yes. no. yes. what? making change is not reliant on changing the money system one tenth as much as it is on changing the informational ecology. Going to a gold standard as an idea is a proof of ignorance, not a solution. Really the end game is we evolve out of money. To do that we evolve first new currencies and new economic strategies. this leads to economic singularity in about 50 years. If everyone is a millionaire how much you get depends on exactly the material valuation of that money. Which is to say that by the time money becomes obsolete everyone will live like the current millionaire. Tangible items to other tangible items? the real economy is about ideas, change the ideas and everything changes. the problem with the tangible economy is it does not change; its a static reality. you can't make a meaningful gold standard with only enough gold to represent on millionth of the economy. You can make a purely imaginal money system work; but it has to be subject to moral and ethical laws. This is about pinning down those moral and ethical laws and implementing them in new currencies; not trying to imagine a control freak impossible non solution because of the simplicity with which you go about thinking over the problem.
once again. there has never been a socialist or capitalist economy. in all instances such nations were oligarchies. using a mask and a con scam and telling their dupes and pwns that they were something other than oligarchy. the big hump to get over is that the USA oligarchy and the Soviet oligarchy are in on this lie against the rest of us TOGETHER. Neither of them was ever anything other than an oligarchy. both claimed some other system in order to have US fight over the ideals of THAT system while they secretly shafted us all playing a completely different game.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/stop-playing-the-devils-games/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150343790359248&set=a.10150264906064248.348293.511989247&type=1&theater
I don't think the mad copypasta action in every somewhat-related post is very helpful honestly.
until we have the kind of organization which allows for topological order, i am going to play this information and truth whack a mole game my way. I sympathize with your point; go remind jart that we need sub forums and wiki.
I am a Randian Conservative... I don't desire to disrupt or derail. I only intend to inform, and promulgate the correct message.
there is no such thing as a correct randian conservative message. its garbage. all of it. its fighting from an ideology and thus for the corporate oligarchy.
incorrect. Let me try to understand: It's fighting from an ideology, and thus, for the corporate oligarchy?
maybe clarify a bit more?
I'm sorry, but anything to do with rand is an ideology based in lies and classism. Its not possible to there fore present a "correct" view if you adhere to that ideology. Its all patent nonsense. Similarly, "conservative" is just a long stream of lies and deceptions in order to cage your mind. Its patently impossible to be correct while adhering to any of that. You have a choice. you can be a pwn of corporate oligarchy and a slave and a dupe, or you can wake up and see reality and realize that the ideology you got connected with was always a means to the end of keeping you in mental chains.
The ideology is not based off of lies. One of the main points promoted through Rand is the idea of rational self-interest. Everything you or I do, or will do... are grounded with the reality that we make decisions that promote our self-interest.
One example would be: Why did I go to college? -I attended college in order to obtain a degree that will earn me large sums of money in the future. Now, this is just one example... and there are many more decisions I have made based primarily on my economic future, and personal happiness.
The ideology does not keep you in mental chains, but rather, the opposite. The ideology celebrates intellectual ability, and decries constraints promoted by lesser individuals or the government. The ideology promotes innovation and ingeniousness.
I think the issue that turn most people away from Rand is the idea that... you are only worth what you have to offer. People don't like to be judged, and Rand will judge you based off of your abilities.
Rand denies the best of what makes us human: compassion, empathy, the sense of responsibility most feel for their fellow man, the social contract, duty, etc... She turns us into simplistic ego machines that are only interested in ourselves, basically greenlighting the sociopathic tendencies in some and in society as a whole. It's misanthropic and disgusting.
there is nothing rational about randian ideas about self interest. It most certainly is a mental cage, for a large variety of reasons. It can't celebrate intellectual ability when its actually an anti intellectual cult. It does not promote ingeniousness, it promotes group think. What turns people away from rand is that its unethical and irrational and two dimensional.
I am enjoying this conversation.. I really am. I am having a hard time discounting what you are saying with what you are providing, how is it an anti-intellectual cult? group think? unethical and irrational?
What I mean, you are saying all of this without substantiating your claims.
http://www.google.com/search?q=rand+cult&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
these are well known truths.
I'm sorry. Don't let a simple google search offer the answers. I implore you to read Atlas Shrugged-a fictional novel, though very condemning of today's world... and then move on to the metaphysics of objectivism.
The least I can offer is that the book is a good read.
look, i studied this stuff, i don't need to read more. I'm not going to read rand materials, its a waste of my time. Rand is an ideologue and fascist, and its not even slightly interesting to me because i grew up. The metaphysics of objective reality does not endorse the ideology of objectivism. ISM is always a PROBLEM and is always detached from science. I think the google list does a fine job of pointing this out. No matter how you juggle the details, fascism is wrong.
It's not Fascism... quite the opposite in fact
IN FACT. in FACT, it is fascism. Inside of its own ideology its roses and peaches.
http://www.losthighwaytimes.com/2008/03/ayn-rand-and-fascism.html
blogs are not a good source for true understanding.
and forums are a very poor place to attempt communication like this, because i'm rushing on to the next thing after having covered much of this a few times already .. if it was organized in once place the older stuff would be present and i wouldn't have to cut my time short in this one instance.
true, I understand... haha, I am trying to juggle a few too many conversations myself. It's been fun,
HA! and how are comments like: "Good ole Ghandi... can I get my rice ration please? "This sounds so Utopian."
informative?
:-)
To bring that message here constitutes trolling. It's basically "haha I'm a 1% capitalist and I'm up in your stuff tellin you how it is and all your base are belong to us!" Whatever. I hope it doesn't bite you in the ass someday...
No, to immediately discount my message shows your disinterest in proven forms of economics. Furthermore, it might show your ignorance to have interesting and eye-opening discussion. I am quite confident I will not be bitten...
So were the Romanovs and the Bourbons. ;)
ah, the bourbons... I am not a proponent of monarchs. In the least
Oligarchy is just monarchy without the bloodlines and pomp. It's what we have. There is very little ability for people to change their stations, and those opportunities are shrinking every day, and you're defending the status quo. So, you might as well have a noble surname my friend.
I don't know where individual motivation and ambition has gone in this country... it is not that there is little ability for people to change their station, but rather, that there is little desire to change their station.
I am a firm believer that everyone has the innate ability to determine their course through life... there just has to be some intrinsic motivation. I blame the entitlement culture and welfare nation we live in for the tragedy... the loss of desire.
Yes, we know your side blames the victims, consistently. There is certainly some of what you're saying, but you completely discount how ridiculously out of balance the system is, in favoring the very wealthiest and making it impossible for most to even survive without mountains of debt. Why does your America require that 400 people at the top have more wealth than 150 million at the bottom?
Is there not some middle ground, where success is rewarded without making it completely impossible to succeed for most? There are extremely bright, capable children all over this country who will never have any opportunity to succeed, and other extremely competent and motivated individuals (I count myself in this group) who will never make enough money to truly get ahead. I live simply and make $80k/year, but don't foresee being able to afford a home in the area where I live, ever.
It's very few in this life who have the education, time, family stability, support systems, etc, to get started in life without coming up hard against economic realities that make what seem like choices for you seem like impossible challenges for most.