I eat this up with a spoon. JTA:
We are reasonably certain that 139 of the richest 400 Americans are Jewish, including 20 of the richest 50. Those top 20 control some $211.8 billion in personal wealth.
A ton of Israel lobbyists here: Haim Saban, Mike Bloomberg, Mortimer Zuckerman, Bruce Kovner, Alfred Taubman. And Obama Jews: the Pritzkers and the Crowns.
Lists from previous years were closer to one-half Jewish.
It’s just part of the arithmetic of income/wealth distribution that the vast bulk of the economy is owned by those sitting at the very top of the income distribution. So we can roughly say that from one-third to one-half of the U.S. economy is owned by Jews.
And since (by my personal estimate) about 95% of today’s American Jews take Zionism as one of the pillars of their Jewish identity, we have a problem in this country.
Phil,
I thought it was anti-semitic to say things like that? I am really confused about what is acceptable and what’s not.
If it weren’t for Palestine, israel and Jews probably wouldn’t have been on my radar screen. I thought of them as a historic people, who wandering the desert, Moses and the law–and a very interesting story to tell Sunday school kids.
I understand the Israel/Palestine conflict. I don’t understand half of what’s discussed on this site about anti-semitisim. But from what I have been paying attention to, seems like you are posting something that can be called an anti-semitic post.
Saleema – The whole subject is indeed confusing and full of contradictions. I hope the following points are helpful:
1. There is a powerful Zionist lobby in the US (see Walt and Mearsheimer), run and funded primarily by wealthy Jews. Apart from the organised lobby, Jews make a disproportionate amount of political campaign donations, and Israel is often a key issue for these donors.
2. Jews themselves often take pride in their power and success as a group (the story Phil cites here is from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency).
3. The subject of Jewish wealth, power and control – often invented or exaggerated – has been a constant feature of anti-Semitism, at least since the 19th century.
4. The political system itself is lousy and open to corruption and subversion, and the Israel lobby is not the only one to take advantage of this. If the system is broken, why blame the Jews.
5. Some Jews may be very wealthy and they may use that wealth to further what they consider Jewish goals, but such discussions easily deteriorate into generalisations about all Jews or “the Jews”, feeding into sterotypes (see n.3 above) of Jews as money-grubbing, exploiting, disloyal (which brings me to nn.6 and 7).
6. The subject of the extraneousness or “dual-loyalty” of Jews (to the state and to their ethnic/religious group) was used by anti-Semites in Europe, who opposed granting Jews full civil rights, or advocated rescinding these rights once they had been granted.
7. How would you characterise an organised group that votes, funds and lobbies on behalf of a foreign government? “Dual-loyalty” might even be too mild.
8. The real issues can and are hijacked by people who really do hate Jews out of prejudice and intollerance (I know that some here dispute this).
Saleema, forget the messenger and look at what Shmuel says, and again, do the same here: link to kevinmacdonald.net
Then tell us what you think. BTW, the last figure I read was that Jewish Americans
fund at leat 40% of the Democratic Party, while they are 2% of the population.
The information is available on the iternet if you choose to check anything out that either Shmuel or MacDonald says…
The figure I have seen most often, at places like The Forward, is approximately 60 per cent. Not to draw any inferences.
Please explain what was objectionable about what Phil said. In calling his piece, “Hot Damn! We are the new establishment now”, he was (I think) speaking ironically in reference to perceived Jewish chauvinism on the part of the JTA. Also, he may have been invoking the common perception that Jews are indeed the new Establishment (or at least a big chunk of it).
Of all the cultures in multicultural America, why do people want to set Jewish ethnicity on a pedestal above all others? We will never get far in combating the harmful effects of Zionism in America if the goyim (and Jews) are not permitted to talk about Jews publicly. (Curiously, this ban tends also to inhibit non-Jews from speaking admiringly of Jews and their works.)
If I were to say that there are some aspects of historical Chinese or Japanese or Russian culture that I find undesirable, would that imply that I don’t like Chinese or Japanese or Russian people? I doubt it. If I say that “Republicans” do a lot of harm in America, does that imply that I hate Republicans and think they are all evil people? Nope. Most Republicans do nothing politically except vote (and often not even that).
Similarly, if I say that organized Jewry is doing a lot of things that are not good for America and Americans as a whole, does that imply that I dislike Jews or don’t recognize that many Jews do great things in America? No, it does not.
“We are reasonably certain that 139 of the richest 400 Americans are Jewish, including 20 of the richest 50. Those top 20 control some $211.8 billion in personal wealth.”
I think the above quote shows that Phil was being at least partially ironic.
I kind of understand where Saleema is coming from. As an Indian, Jews have been in my peripheral consciousness as a vague people personified by Charlton Heston in Ten Commandments. All the attention and political correctness associated with them has been something of a surprise.
I also find myself wondering about what antisemitism means anymore.
sammy, many Americans have the same image of the jews, Charlton Heston, the other
dye is Paul Newman in Exodus. It would be as much a surprise to most average Americans as it appears to be to you that reality is different; the average American,while viewing themselves as practical, never puts that in practice in the arena of foreign affairs–though that arena sucks the life out of them them same as
health care. They never realize anything until it smacks them directly in the face–
“directly” that’s the key. They know a dollar, but nothing about the Fed Reserve and the USA monetary system, for another example. In short, they choose to remain ignorant of what’s the dollar is, only how many they need to buy something sans the question, why is that? They are sheeple, mostly. Simultaneously, they
by and large are good people–they don’t want to know reality, but trust in
nurtured sentimentality, especially the Christian variety–and this goes for the secular humanist gentiles too who usually have been baptised Christians.
Is that really true? There are several Holocaust Museums in the US but none on the native Americans. Imagine going to Berlin and seeing museum after museum on the genocide of native Americans by the white settlers and maybe one museum [?] on Jewish history and culture.
However, I will admit that the freedom of expression defended by Americans did make it easier for this opinionated Indian to ask questions without being automatically accused of antisemitism.
In fact, on the whole, I was impressed by the American ability to take take on political incorrectness but was surprised by their otherwise blind spot where Arabs were concerned [I have also lived in Saudi Arabia and could not recognise the Arab caricature that most Americans consider representative]. Or their attention to matters Israeli.
You will need to check all this in terms of the demise of the dollar:
link to independent.co.uk
That ‘wealth’ is about to come into some adjustment.
I knew that was going to happen sooner or later. One suspects the rest of the world were waiting to see of Obama really was going to be different from his predecessors. He hasn’t been so there’s no reason for the rest of the world to stay with a sinking ship.
I doubt its as cut and dried as all that. The Arabs have a love for the US inspite of recognising it as the number two threat to their survival [after Israel]
They won’t give up on the American Dream anymore than the Americans will.
It is profound the damage that George W. Bush inflicted on this country. Utterly profound.
It is anti-semitic in ways.
Phil has an odd use of the term “we”.
There was an interesting article in the Progressive Magazine on Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader Throws His Hope in with Enlightened Billionaires
I saw Ralph Nader yesterday, indefatigable as ever.
He was on tour for his new book, and his first work of fiction, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.”
The fixation on Israel, and the specific thesis of “our” guilt for what a few diverse rich Jewish philanthropists and politically concerned do, is a bit off, a bit addictive.
Yeah, Witty. Apparently reality not only has a (genuine) liberal bias, it has an anti-Semitic one as well. Are you honestly suggesting that presenting statistical information is inherently an intolerant act?
With regards to Nader’s book… I have a lot of respect and admiration for him and I want to read the book when I get the chance, and it’s a nice idea, but it isn’t going to happen. The days of the American philanthropist are quite long gone — they were driven away when Socialist Party mayors and representatives were smeared as “commies” and then replaced by robber barons.
link to progressive.org
With all due respect (I keep finding myself using this phrase, I wonder why?), you cannot maintain a system like this, because it portends nothing but the destruction of the world as we know it. This is why a couple of years ago I posted a title “How To Create Billionaires And Massive Poverty.” This is because what has been created as a byproduct of capitalism (the creation of billionaires) is what has been spread all over the world, and the attended financial collapse.
Currently, globalism (which is not necessarily bad in itself) as defined currently is nothing but the future variant of capitalism-imperialism-empire(s), it is nothing but the replication of the same system which enriches the few and impoverishes the many. Some wear it as a badge of honor, but it is nothing currently but the enslavement and debt peonage of the people. It is not maintained by some form of honorable entrepreneurship, but the largess of speculation, markets, trading, etc. (as well as the fact that the majority is inherited wealth either through family or artificially through the system).
Back in 2007 the total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world’s 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world’s population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35 per cent increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.
The spread of this (creation of billionaires) throughout the world goes through three stages –
“1. During the early ‘statist’ model of development, the current billionaires successfully ‘lobbied’ and bribed officials for government contracts, tax exemptions, subsidies and protection from foreign competitors. State handouts were the beachhead or take-off point to billionaire status during the subsequent neo-liberal phase.
2. The neo-liberal period provided the greatest opportunity for seizing lucrative public assets far below their market value and earning capacity. The privatization, although described as ‘market transactions’, were in reality political sales in four senses: in price, in selection of buyers, in kickbacks to the sellers and in furthering an ideological agenda. Wealth accumulation resulted from the sell-off of banks, minerals, energy resources, telecommunications, power plants and transport and the assumption by the state of private debt. This was the take-off phase from millionaire toward billionaire status. This was consummated in Latin America via corruption and in Russia via assassination and gang warfare.
3. During the third phase (the present) the billionaires have consolidated and expanded their empires through mergers, acquisitions, further privatizations and overseas expansion. Private monopolies of mobile phones, telecoms and other ‘public’ utilities, plus high commodity prices have added billions to the initial concentrations. Some millionaires became billionaires by selling their recently acquired, lucrative privatized enterprises to foreign capital.” James Petras, Global Ruling Class: Billionaires and How They ‘Made It’
I could go on indefinitely, but if you want to point to the current world condition and the starvation, poverty and massacre of the the masses, look no further than the billionaires club. As you will note from my previous posts, this is why I call the current state of affairs in America and globally a “confluence of interest,” not all ills can be laid at the doorstep of “The Jews,” but there is certainly significant participation. Pointing out what we see in this article is essentially no badge of honor.
“The Lords. Events take place beyond our knowledge
or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can only
try to enslave others. But gradually, special
perceptions are being developed. The idea of the
“Lords” is beginning to form in some minds. We
should enlist them into bands of perceivers to
tour the labyrinth during their mysterious nocturnal
appearances. The Lords have secret entrances,
and they know disguises. But they give themselves
away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in
the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a
glance.
The Lords appease us with images. They give us
books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas.
Especially the cinemas. Through art they confuse
us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns
our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted
and indifferent.
Door of passage to the other side,
the soul frees itself in stride.”
Jim Morrison
THE LEGACY
HOW TO CREATE BILLIONAIRES AND MASSIVE POVERTY
v… wrote:
“I could go on indefinitely, but if you want to point to the current world condition and the starvation, poverty and massacre of the the masses, look no further than the billionaires club.”
But v…, I suspect that historically speaking there’s never been an era (defined, say, as since WWII, or even from 1970 or 1980 or so as to somewhat get away from the effects of the war), when there’s been *less* starvation and poverty in the world than now. (And even “massacre of the masses” too for that matter.)
Look just at what economic reform has done in two countries and two countries alone, India and China, and their teeming billions. (Which indeed form an appreciable percentage of the world’s entire population.) And then consider the rise in living standards in SE Asia such in Indonesia and the Phillipines with their untold millions if not billions, and then also what seems to be at least the modest betterment of the millions if not billions of those living in the former Soviet Union.
If then starvation and poverty (with the latter not being measured relatively but via some absolute measure, such as mere subsistence living) have indeed lessened over th recent past as I suspect most any statistics would show, would you likewise be willing to *thank* that “billionaires club”?
(And as to the “massacres of the masses,” so far as I’ve read I don’t think I’ve seen any really recent events to even compare with things like … the Nazi’s killing 15-20 million or so in WWII, or the Commies killing 80 million or so under their watch, or the additional 20 million they killed by intentional starvation in the Ukraine, or the great huge famines that used to just periodically ravage China, or the somewhat lesser but still huge famines that ravaged it under Mao’s insanity with those tens if not hundreds of million victims not even countable, or the great huge chronic famine that used to be India.)
In short, strikes me that you are being (understandably) upset by “mere” temporal, *comparative* disparities, while the historical, relative perspective is being totally ignored. The history of humanity simply moves slowly, which is tough to remember given the shortness of our own lives and the short perspective that tends to give us.
Maybe you can figure out a way to decrease the disparity in wealth without also diminishing (if not destroying) both the average and total amount of same that exists, but so far at least no system seems to have hit on the perfect solution.
I’d take your Ukraine number with a grain of salt, in part because of this–
link
There’s a link to the original article in there (I think) which goes into more detail, but briefly, historians who agree that Stalin deliberately murdered people with the Ukrainian famine also think that the death toll was more like 3 million. (The 5.5 million figure in the piece I linked included other famines.)
As for post-communist Russia, it’s been a demographic catastrophe. That doesn’t say anything positive about communist Russia, of course. In general, I’ve gotten suspicious of the numbers games that almost everyone plays–there are some historical catastrophes where the numbers have been pinned down fairly accurately (the Holocaust among them), but otherwise there’s a range of numbers that people cite and invariably people start picking the largest ones if that supports their point, and sometimes that leads to still larger numbers. It’s as if it’s virtuous to believe the largest numbers around.
I think that if we had lefty scholars interested in this, they could put together a Black Book of Capitalism that would rival the horror of what is in the Black Book of Communism. Famines in India, for instance, were much worse than they had to be under the British–see Davis’s book “Late Victorian Holocausts”.
I agree with your main point that life expectancies have gone up and mass killings are (at the moment) smaller than they were some decades ago. With the environmental strains we are causing, though, it’s possible we could see famines and forced migrations and wars that might make the 1st half of the 20th century seem like a dress rehearsal.
My Ukrainian famine link didn’t work. I’ll just put in the address–
link to nybooks.com
And I’ll see if I can make a link that will work–
link
Donald:
Well I won’t quibble about the Ukrainian number. Too lazy to dig out my Conquest or Service and whomever else from the piles. Suffice it to say it was alot, true?
What I’d take issue with however is the way you compare communism with capitalism on this issue, which seems to me to be misguided due—and tantamount to— essentially ignoring the difference between murder and unintended premature death.
That is, when it came to the commies they *intended* those deaths. When it comes to the “capitalism” you speak of, well, hell, since there was no modern form of communism really until 1917 you could go back to when humans still lived in caves and ascribe every premature death from starvation or etc. to capitalism.
I know of course the argument that essentially asks what difference it makes, but I think that’s just specious. If taken seriously you’d then either abolish murder as a crime or make it equivalent to murder to not do everything in one’s power to prevent every single other person’s death. (Because, after all, you’ve not only abolished the distinction between intentionality and neglect, but indeed the distinction between murder and doing anything less than affirmatively doing everything one can to prevent everyone else’s death.)
In any event the point v… seemed to be making was that things are worse than they were before and I think that almost no matter how you define “before” that’s just wrong.
I think the Indian famines under the British are the same as the Great Leap Forward under Mao–tens of millions dead for the sake of a theory. And while I want a difference between intentional and unintentional killing when talking about individuals, when you talk about social systems the distinction starts to fade. For instance, Leopold II didn’t “intend” to kill tens of millions of Congolese (if that figure is accurate)–he wanted to make money and the deaths were a side effect. Of course here I’m talking about both an individual and a system and what Leopold’s fate would be in a courtroom would depend on the details of what he knew and intended, but our judgment of the system he ran in the Congo is unaffected whether or not Leopold himself was fully aware of the nature of the system that enriched him.
As for the Ukraine numbers, I think Conquest’s numbers would be outdated. Back in the cold war era scholars had no access to the Soviet government’s records and so death tolls were guesstimates at best, probably with the natural human tendency to inflate numbers when they are part of a case against a hated system. Snyder (the historian I linked to) goes further than I would on this–he says that one generally finds that the smaller estimates are correct and in the link I provided he says the number of Roma killed by the Nazis is probably at the smaller end of the range of estimates his correspondent provided. I’m not sure about the general principle (always assume the smaller estimates are correct), but it’s probably true in many cases. I think many or most modern people have the same attitude towards numbers that ancient and medieval chroniclers took–the larger the better, at least if one wants to dramatize one’s case.
Sin N, you do not know how many times I have heard that “triumphant” retort, lets say for brevity (I am not going to go all the way around the world with you) – about China and India, and the canard about people generally doing better (if I had a dime for each time I might make headway to the billionaires club…lol). the fact of the matter is that they have been informed by their “objective” press that China is a capitalist Shangri-La and that India is likewise the treasure of the region (speaking about capitalism), when in reality it is just a tiny group that is significantly growing and the rest are in the worst throes of poverty in their history. In China alone there were over 100,000 riots last year.
When China took the road of capitalism, this polarization began to occur in a country that was very egalitarian – and now there is this growing wealth at the top and a grinding poverty for the peasants below. In 2006 Fortune they listed seven billionaires on mainland China and one in Hong Kong. A corruption begins to set in which unites party and state authorities, enterprise managers, with private entrepreneurs, and that brings about a capitalistic class – what I call the capitalistic aristocracy.
What happens next is a matter of course in all capitalistic countries, the working classes are strongly exploited – mind you, not like they have been in the last half-century of China. Millions of workers have been thrown out of state run jobs, having been PRIVATIZED – these work units were vital to the security of the people and consisted of housing, education, health care, etc. They have been transformed into PROFIT DRIVEN CORPORATIONS – and the corruption of the party authorities has been common in this exercise.
What happens next is a matter of course in all capitalistic countries, the working classes are strongly exploited – mind you, not like they have been in the last half-century of China. Millions of workers have been thrown out of state run jobs, having been PRIVATIZED – these work units were vital to the security of the people and consisted of housing, education, health care, etc. They have been transformed into PROFIT DRIVEN CORPORATIONS – and the corruption of the party authorities has been common in this exercise.
Quite frankly, whether you are aware of it or not (it’s not your fault it is the corporate media) there have been almost countless protests and riots in China since the Tienanmen Square incident. The economic boom which went on for a middle class managerial type is disintegrating, and class struggle is becoming more pronounced.
Let’s just concentrate on one area of “improvement,” in capitalist China – health care. There are reports that health care has deteriorated dramatically in China, and this has really happened over a period of years, in direct correlation to embracing a “free market.” A couple of thousand people rioted at a hospital in Guangan after a grandfather brought in his grandson who had drank a poisonous pesticide, it is said that he was refused care because the grandfather did not have enough money to pay – he was refused treatment.
This is directly connected to Beijing’s “pay as you go” policy, the new market friendly China. The grandfather did not have enough money to pay the fee, and the doctors told him to go home and raise more money, and the child died before the grandfather returned. There was a demand for compensation, but a paltry sum was offered. The family went to the municipal government to lodge a grievance, but were beaten by the security guards!
Are you beginning to see a parallel here between what takes place in the new darling of market freedom, China, and a deteriorating system which is becoming rapidly non affordable in the United States? So the protesters came and it turned violent, they broke windows and damaged hospital property. It is said that the policemen were in the streets yelling over loud speakers – “do not believe the rumors, trust your government.”
The official story is that the physicians gave the boy care, pumped his stomach, and put him on a drip, but he died anyway….but this does not remove the intense hostility toward pro-market realities in matters that mean life and death at hospitals. “Pay first” was introduced into the market friendly China in the 1990′s, in the United States it is “where is your insurance card?”
In the early years of the Chinese Revolution there was health care for all, it was introduced in 1949, and although it was fairly adequate life expectancy jumped from 35 years of age to 68. However, this all began to erode at the introduction of the “market reforms” of 79′ and it is now a fond memory. As in all Capitalistic countries the wealth is in the hands of a few, and health care has become an unbearable cost along with education and housing in the “New China.”
In fact, the only difference between China and the United States is that we have a rapidly disappearing middle class that has become expendable. There is still the concerted struggle to maintain what we possess, but I think you know that this is ebbing away at a faster rate every year. More people fall off that edge every year, poverty is on the rise and the rich are just getting richer.
It is granted that China does not have the same historical background as the United States, not the same population growth, but it is here that you get a glimpse of what can happen when free market Capitalism is given somewhat free movement. We have the same making of this abysmal condition becoming more and more a reality every day, as corporations become the only “people” who get the ear of “our representatives.” It is just a matter of time.
China ranks 181 out of 191 according to the WHO in equality of medical resources among a population of 1.3 billion. In 1980 the governments share was 40 percent, it has now dropped to 16%. There is a saying in China in regard to health care (see if this strikes any chords): “Once an ambulance siren wails, a pig is taken to the market; once a hospital bed is slept in, a year of farming goes down the drain; and when someone falls ill with a serious disease, 10 years of saving are whittled away.” With the exorbitant expense of health care in the United States what would our saying be?
In China there is this massive gap widening between the rich and the poor. Two thirds of the health care goes to small rich urban areas, which leave 800 million people with very little basic health care. 80 percent of the public medical funding goes to a tiny privileged minority of 8.5 million people, 0.007 percent of the population! Hospitals are only for the rich.
Li Ling of Peking University describes the problem very well, see if this sounds familiar to you, she said rising medical costs are rooted in the fact that doctors and hospitals “rely more and more on profit,” for their income. That leads to corruption, and kick-backs from drug companies.
In fact, there have been government price caps applied (19 times), but Li says that they just change the names on the packages, and than rise the prices again and again! Oh, this is getting to close to home – we have a pharmaceutical nightmare in the United States!
Here is the difference between people in China and the United States, they have THOUSANDS OF PROTESTS! Not only about health care, but because of social inequality, corruption in high places, and the lack of jobs. What goes on here in regard to these issues in the United States?
Here is a real irony for you, the first protest in front of the hospital we talked about was in the city of Guangan, that is where Deng Xaioping lives – he is the original architect of “market reform,” he was the one who said all of these reforms would be good for everyone, how ironic. UNFETTERED CAPITALISM IS ABOUT AS GOOD FOR CHINA AS IT IS FOR THE UNITED STATES!
Let’s look at India for a moment. Many are aware of the fact that India is one of the newer darlings of Capitalism, it is supposedly on the cutting edge of globalism. However, as you look at what is happening there closer you see it headed for the same disaster as the rest of the countries that are part of the globalization experiment.
We see this great divide taking place between the rich and the poor. Massive gentrification projects taking place in areas which once had a mix of people from many economic backgrounds – like Mumbai, people watch as their humble homes are leveled to the ground for grander homes only affordable to the rich. In fact, you could say this same process is taking place all over the world – but especially in those “capitalistic” countries, where the country is very wealthy yet most of the people are dirt poor and things are getting worse.
The investor class became very angry in India – you know, the chosen aristocracy that capitalism always appoints when it wishes to exploit a nation. Hence the great drop in the market, what was the problem? It got so bad that it dropped 10% within twenty minutes of opening! So the Securities and Exchange Board of India stopped the trading for two hours – opened it up again and it promptly dropped another 5%, whereupon it was closed for another two hours.
311 new billionaires and millions of poverty stricken folks, yes capitalism is working well! It is a tale of two cities within the same city, but an all to familiar refrain across the world. Shanty towns next to palaces, designer clothes next to rags – but definitely the by far the majority in the poverty category.
This is what globalism/capitalism/empire must always create, because it must have that buffer to protect it’s interest from the “less fortunate” people, who might consider those “leveling impulses” that Madison the father of our constitution was so worried about (Read Federalist Paper #10). Unfortunately this is always how neo-liberal, neo-colonial powers always set up the country before the fall.
This brings us back to my original statement about the stock market almost crashing in India. Attached to all the money invested by the IMF and the World Bank comes these stipulations – in fact, they are called the “riot principles” by some, because of the riots that take place when these stipulations are enacted.
Implanted in the bosom of the victim country is the investment for the shell of production – I call it the shell because this is all the investment money produces. It is just enough to take advantage of the super low wages the rank and file people are willing to work for, but not enough to invest so that the nation as a whole might benefit. It is just enough money so the chosen few can feed off their own people like vultures.
Along with the paltry investment comes the investment houses that have foreign capital in them, and they buy up the companies that used to national, and the commons like water, food, natural resources that used to belong to the people. After this is done they run what used to be common for the people at a profit margin that ever increases – sometimes it gets to that point of “riot” by the people I mentioned earlier, but this is the stipulations that the people who would borrow money must follow.
However, being called a “democratic” (yeah right) country the people get fed up with the rip offs and they elect a body that they think will represent them. In India this is the various “communist” parties that wield influence because the people fear what is happening to them – and their instincts are correct. All of this money that is being made is not reinvested, it is spirited away out of the country – to the next even lower wage and weaker country that becomes the next victim/darling of globalism. Perhaps it becomes as severe as what happened to the former Soviet Union – that is another story but India is in peril of this same fate.
So now the tension begins, the local and foreign lords and masters want to exert their control so the money flows like a river in their pockets without interruption! They start to collapse the market because they cannot have the wheels of privatization halted, heavens no! They cannot allow representatives gain power by listening to the voice of the people, especially those troublesome poor folk who are starving and living in filth and squalor! These globalistic reprobates and their local minions act like Samson who pulled the house down on his own head – mercy? What is mercy? Why should we care for these useless mouths to feed, the blind, the halt, and the lame? Do you think this is a democracy or something?!
This is what is taking place all over the world – abundance for the few, and a pittance for an all too shaky “middle class” that will slowly be eaten alive by the rising cost of living (because the commons that are privatized must have an ever increasing profit) . This middle class is represented by the small investors that stood outside the Bombay Stock Exchange and chanted “Down with Sonia Ghandi,” who have no idea that they chant their own demise.
So as not to bore anyone further why don’t we listen to someone who most understand know what she is talking about when it comes to India Arundhati Roy. Here you will get what I have been saying and much much more –
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN INDIA
Sin N, you are right, life is too short, much too short to have in robbed by the few and the consequent global commiseration brought about by the damnable system of capitalism.
Donald:
Re: the Ukraine, the Wikipedia entry on the “Holodomor” might interest you.
(link to en.wikipedia.org
Says estimates range from 2.6 million to 10 million dead in Ukraine, then, somewhat contradictorily, talks about estimates of famine deaths in Ukraine *and* other areas of the SU too during early-’30′s time frame ranging from about 6-7 or 7-8 million. But then notes that latter estimates sometimes go up to 20 million so it muddles things, which is understandable given that all this hopelessly muddled.
Surprising to my memory is its noting Conquest at about 5.5 million, but I seem to recall this being his est. of just people starved and that’s always been an issue I’ve noted and is one that while the Wiki article mentions, it never strictly reconciles or differentiates. That is sometimes people talk about those starved, and sometimes people talk about those starved *and/or* otherwise killed or deported as kulaks. (With the anti-kulak thing of course being Stalin’s tool for the famine.) So anyway just as regards them all, which I think is the way to do it, I’d also note the 2003 Stalin bio by Simon Montefiore who is a great exploiter of recently opened Soviet archives of course and who therein says that at the start of the anti-kulak thing in the Ukraine (1931) there were about 25 million households there. By 1937 there were only 19.9 million left however, so meaning that some 15 million had been liquidated, deported or starved to death.
In any event and as regards your conflating this kind of thing and the Indian famine(s) under the Raj while you haven’t tried obliterating the distinction between murder and the failure to do anything I do think you’ve veered over into ignoring the distinction between murder and negligence. Looking at Wikipedia again (link to en.wikipedia.org
it seems clear to me that the weather was really the prime culprit, “only” (but perhaps still terribly) exacerbated by stupid Brit policies such as taxation or just ignoring the already-started famines in the belief that aid would just wreck the livelyhood and production of what food producers were left. (A point made by some today as regards aid in Africa I’ve read.) But it also notes that once that “ignoring” policy was tried and failed the Brits reversed same dramatically in the future.
As re King Leopold and in terms of citing an example most likely to make one ignore the distinction between murder and neglect I think your notation of him is simply brilliant. Logic still makes that distinction I think, but no punishment would have been too severe for him. Again, simply brilliant evocation of him on your part.
v…
Via your express words you’ve simply elided the question: Do you really think things have gotten worse historically speaking?
Via the implications of your words it seems you think not, but say that the future looks grim and worse, about which you might be right. But that’s still a different issue.
Sin Nombre–
I actually was careful to compare the Indian famines to Mao’s Great Leap Forward rather than to Stalin in the Ukraine, because my understanding of Stalin in the Ukraine is that there is now enough evidence to say that the famine deaths were deliberate and not just the result of insanely stupid policies. Mao’s famine deaths were more the result of insanely stupid policies. The British India famine deaths were also of that sort, though in reading Davis I get the sense that maybe racism played a role too, or a little bit of that sort of malice that the most fanatical believers in laissez faire feel towards those who are poor. In a better world the British administrators would have been called to account before a judge, but I’m not sure what the final verdict would be regarding their motives. The same for Mao, no doubt–sheer stupidity wouldn’t fully explain the Great Leap Forward.
Gotta go for now.
Donald wrote:
“I actually was careful to compare the Indian famines to Mao’s Great Leap Forward rather than to Stalin in the Ukraine….”
You certainly clearly did, so causing me to catch it only after zipping out my response and while walking to the car to run an errand. Almost smacked my forehead in embarrassment.
How stupid of me; my apologies. I’d still rank Mao’s famines worse from a moral point of view given what seems to me his far greater recklessness with human life, but you’re still right (and keen to note) that they seem to at least fall in the same moral category.
I’d apologize again but I feel dumb enough already.
Isn’t this essentially the landed gentry system [what we call the zamindari] of Europe on a global scale? The nobility reaps the benefits while the labourers get by. Or not. But who cares, as long as the nobility gets what they want.
Do you ever get the feeling that we keep fighting the same battles at bigger and bigger levels? From tribe to settlement to city to empire to nation to world?
Yeah, that’s right, I am Abbie Hoffman coming back to haunt you…
You’re not.
Abbie wasn’t anonymous.
I don’t know, Richard. I’d have to say the phony sort of liberalism you shroud yourself in gives you a sort of anonymity. With all the double speak, none of us can really tell what’s going on inside your head.
You don’t know me Chaos.
How dare you judge me?
“How dare you judge me?”
Rather melodramatic. We can judge what you write that appears here–what you’re like as a person in real life is beyond our knowledge, but your positions here are not.
No, Abbie was just blind to some forms of exploitation. It seems in that he was normal?
Richard, I am not going to reply directly to you’re retort, because I cannot hold a candle to Abbie, so essentially you are right about my not being him by a long shot. However the total difference is not in anonymity versus fame (or infamy as some would opt), it was just the sheer knowledge, force of commitment he had, it is quite unmatchable. So, I stand corrected not for my anonymity, but because Abbie was a much better man than I am.
But, you so infrequently bother to get what I actually do write, instead filling in the blanks falsely.
I get how you like Abbie. But, it was only after he gave up his nuttiness that he actually accomplished things in the world (running a St Lawrence River environment organization under the name Barry Freund, I think.)
“But, you so infrequently bother to get what I actually do write, instead filling in the blanks falsely.”
Sorry, Richard, that’s just you claiming to be misunderstood again. You say some things I like–I was initially predisposed to think I could meet you halfway. I can meet liberal Zionists halfway when they don’t try to whitewash some of Israel’s crimes. But you’ve said enough around here to disillusion me on that score. But I don’t judge all liberal Zionists by you–there are many that are like you and they dominate the MSM in this country, but there are also some who are much more willing to admit Israel’s flaws and don’t try to pretend they are mostly just the flaws of the far right.
Oh Richard, I also forgot to mention that Abbie had a far superior gefilte fish recipe than anything I have produced (I do not have the patience). However, I disagree with you on his accomplishments, if one takes just a small seminal example of his writing it is more relevant and potent than many things written today –
We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system, but destroy it. The weapons are carefully chosen. They are “home-made,” in that they are designed for use in our unique electronic jungle. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof of our “violent” nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us. Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression. Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be fucked. Let me illustrate the point. Amerika was built on the slaughter of a people. That is its history. For years we watched movie after movie that demonstrated the white man’s benevolence. Jimmy Stewart, the epitome of fairness, puts his arm around Cochise and tells how the Indians and the whites can live in peace if only both sides will be reasonable, responsible and rational (the three R’s imperialists always teach the “natives”). “You will find good grazing land on the other side of the mountain,” drawls the public relations man. “Take your people and go in peace.” Cochise as well as millions of youngsters in the balcony of learning, were being dealt off the bottom of the deck. The Indians should have offed Jimmy Stewart in every picture and we should have cheered ourselves hoarse. Until we understand the nature of institutional violence and how it manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to think revolutionary.”
I think this is the issue in a nutshell.
STEAL THIS BOOK
Donald,
Not being understood and being misrepresented are two different phenomena.
If you wish to dialog with me or address my comments, BOTHER to find out what I write and what I think, not words that you put in my mouth.
“Whitewash Israeli crimes”. Again, if you read, you will note that I don’t comment on what I don’t know confidently. I will certainly not condemn.
And, I prefer to focus on issues that are nuclear in my judgement to what accomplishes mutual reconciliation, to issues that invoke rage, especially if there is some basis for questioning the Pavlovian invocation.
What are the facts?
What is their significance?
How does it affect actions for improvement of the situation?
NEVER retribution. I do blame escalatory words and actions as unnecessarily contributing to an environ of conflict. TOO OFTEN, the rhetoric is excessive, irresponsibly demonizing, and containing and/or ENFORCING blinders.
Consider the discussion on Iran, in which a dozen posters here summarized “Iran is innocent”, or “Iran never aggresses in any way”, when in light of the reality of its relations to Hamas and Hezbollah and its recent elections and subsequent violent crackdown on demonstrations (at least hundreds of dissenters shot, Iranians).
On the Fareed Zakaria interviews, ALL of the three interviewed discussed whether Iran was in fact a military dictatorship (nucleus in the Republican Guard) or a theocracy.
On Israel, I adopt the perspective that Israel is functionally a Jim Crow state, and apartheid-like in ways in relation to the West Bank and Gaza. Its important to note that Judge Goldstone basically laughed at the suggestions of parallel between Israel and South Africa. Not because of differences in form, but differences in scale, intent, and context.
To ignore those differences, is to distort.
I don’t wish to dialogue with you Richard. I jump on your statements because so many of them seem wrongheaded to me in ways that are similar to the ways mainstream liberal Americans have long talked about the conflict (Thomas Friedman for one, though I’ll do you the slight credit of saying you’re not as bad as he is.) You are the default representative of that way of thinking at this blog and you have appointed yourself Phil’s critic, so you get criticized by most of us for that reason. You’re here and present yourself as a target, while Tom Friedman doesn’t stop by. Perhaps we should ignore you and just pick out samples of writing in the MSM and critique those instead. That might actually be more worthwhile. I did once think of “dialogueing” with you, then lost interest as I read you. Your long term goals are similar to mine, but I’ve seen you whitewash Israeli actions and it’s tiresome being told that we are projecting this or that when it’s your actual words and statements that are offensive, not what we project onto you.
Also, your writing style is abominable. It’s like a combination of Jack Handy and Yoda and a Tai Chi instructor trying to sound profound rather than just telling one how to do the damn movement. I started to say this is a trivial thing, but maybe not–it comes across as you regarding yourself as the wise person trying to educate the less enlightened ones around you–if you want to project that image, then by all means keep writing in that style. Sometimes you write like a normal human being, when you think the facts are on your side and you’re trying to press someone to admit it. When someone else obviously has the facts on his side, you’re in Yoda mode.
That’s one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is why the remaining 261 offer absolutely no resistance. The answer to that is found in media control, moral terror groups like the ADL, and intellectual movements such as the Frankfurt School.
How about too busy looking out for their own interests, which sometimes coincide with those of the 139 and sometimes simply aren’t affected by them. Remember that even the 139, to the extent that they use their wealth to influence policy, have a wide range of interests – primarily, one would presume, increasing and perpetuating their own wealth, power and privilege.
Of course rich gentiles looking out for their own interests is the problem. A cohesive minority dominates a diffuse majority every time: team players vs. individualists. I’m addressing why white gentiles are now exclusively looking out for their individual interests and not their group interests, which are clearly in conflict with Jewish interests. It is due largely to the Jewish media and intellectual influences I named. Specifically any opposition to the Jewish agenda is vilified as anti-Semitism, and any group cohesion on the part of whites is “pathologized” as racism.
But the entire 400 constitute a cohesive minority, grouping and regrouping, but basically supporting their own group interest as a moneyed elite. As a cohesive group, they do far more damage to the rest of us than any of their subgroups. Opposing Zionist-influenced policy is not a “gentile” interest that I would expect those with the money and power to do so to oppose, simply because they are not Jewish. Zionism is convenient. It pays on so many levels. As I suggested in another post concerning early-20th-century British politicians, sometimes it is convenient to be “fooled” and “manipulated”, and sometimes even the pretense is unnecessary. I would not be surprised to find that many of the wealthy Jews who lobby for and support Israel do so for much the same reasons that wealthy non-Jews do, rather than some selfless sense of ethnic/religious commitment.
Opposing Zionist power was in the interest of the oil companies, who actually did lobby in the 1970′s for a more even handed Mideat policy. What happened is they were pilloried in the Jewish media, they were accused of dual loyalty and anti-Americanism, and Congress led by Sen. Metzenbaum started all sorts of investigations of the industry. So they said no mas and now use their still considerable power to lobby on depletion allowances and environmental regulation, on which they are not in direct conflict with Jewish power, which they learned is the power without equal.
Here’s Dick Cheney speaking with his “imperialist” hat on, as head of Halliburton in 1998:
“I think we’d be better off if we, in fact, backed off those sanctions [on Iran], didn’t try to impose secondary boycotts on companies … trying to do business there.”
Interests change, AF. The Saudis, Emirates and even Libya, are practically Zionists themselves these days. On the other hand, there’s all that Iraqi, and dare I say Iranian oil out there for the “taking”, not to mention speculation due to “regional instability”. The big boys don’t get taken for a ride by “the Jewish media”. They can handle themselves, and always come out smelling like crude.
AF and Shmuel, when you back off a bit from the absolutism of some of your statements, you both are expressing essentially correct viewpoints that are complementary. Shmuel, I would say, however, in response to one of your statements, that the Zionist-controlled media in the US are a major force in resolving many conflicts over political and economic power – not just about US policy toward Israel.
Shmuel -
“I would not be surprised to find that many of the wealthy Jews who lobby for and support Israel do so for much the same reasons that wealthy non-Jews do, rather than some selfless sense of ethnic/religious commitment. ”
Excellent point. The ethnic identity issue can help in rationalization or in keeping activities acceptable to a social group, but I also would suspect that, in many cases, rationalization is wrapped around economic interest.
Does all this reduce to that the common economic interest
of the, say, 400 richest is nearly always the prime interest for all the Gentiles in that group, but less true as a prime motivator of the disproportionate Jewish members of the 400? This in turn can reduced to the Gentile members of the 400 are just totally selfish
when push comes to shove between themselves and the best interests of the USA masses,
and in comparison, the Jewish members of the 400 is usually less purely selfish in that
they at least care about all Jews, and total support for Israel manifests that selected
altruism? Now there’s a choice combined lot average Americans get to support whether they like it or not. All campaign finance should be via federal taxes, and
ditto as to all funding of TV access for electoral candidates. The weakness in our funding of our political election system the Israel Firsters take advantage of is the core problem; the likudesque Zionists are
another version of Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Banking, Ike’s military-industrial complex, etc–
our votes are reduced to being worthless in effecting any real change.
Nah. I’m sure selfishness is pretty well-distrbuted, and to the extent that any rich Jews support Zionist causes for “altruistic” reasons, their non-Jewish colleagues also have their pet causes. Live and let live, as long as the system allows us to keep our power and privilege. Of course, like politicians and taxpayers, the wealthy may also be in the dark about a lot of things, and not care enough to educate themselves.
Your comments about campaign finance are right on the money (so to speak).
Shumel, are you saying that the sample 400 richest group members who are non-Jewish have pet causes dedicated to a foreign state who’s interests don’t always conflate with the USA national interest? I think not. But then again, since Israel is much more important strategically than, say Cuba, I don’t think you addressed the key issue. “Live and let live” doesn’t cover the gravity of the situation, that is, in my opinion, the fact that the Israel-AIPAC tail wags Uncle Sam, and this wagging is not good for the USA and yet never really gets addressed by any USA regime. I know you live in Italy, and you know the detriments of raising a humane family in Israel, but
have some sympathy for those of us living in the USA who want to do the same and are continually totally frustrated by the trajectory of the USA’s foreign policy.
Not to mention the immense danger to the security of the USA, including our families here, both in terms of tax-milking including to future generations, our sons dying in the Middle East, and a future of more 9/11s certain to come if we keep rubber-stamping Israel and funding Israel with a blank check.
Note to self: Try to be clearer.
I was not trying to minimise the gravity of furthering the interests of a foreign state, although if it suits their purposes I wouldn’t put it past any of the 400. As a matter of fact, I would imagine that a good number of the non-Jewish 400 even support Israel directly or indirectly (not counting taxes of course – which is pretty obvious) through their investments and campaign contributions. My “live and let let live” was meant to be sarcastic – rich powerful people looking out for each others interests in order to further their own (eg. that Israel earmark’s fine with me; we still on for that defence contract/coup d’etat/subsidy/tax bill/etc.?). Maybe “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” would have been more appropriate, but it doesn’t express the not giving a damn part very well.
I agree completely that Israel/AIPAC wags Uncle Sam – sometimes because those in charge want to be wagged, sometimes because they get what they want out of it, and sometimes because they are pressured by a really lousy system and a really unscrupulous lobby. The wagging is certainly there though, and should be exposed and combatted.
You honest USians have my complete sympathy and support. Just remember that whatever policies the US pursues, they affect the whole world, and that Italian governments – and especially the current one – are like fleas on the dog that gets wagged. Italy is in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and supports everything Israel and the US do. Honest Italians tend to hold the US more accountable than Israel (although there’s plenty of blame to go around), for not standing up to the little bully.
Schmuel, certainly I don’t disagree that many of the Gentiles who comprise the sample 400 richest would rubber stamp Israel, but, again I’d like to stress that
is not because they have a limited “ethnic” altrustic focus as strong as the Israel Firsters of Jewish persuasion. My point was that the Gentiles of the group have
no ethnic or religious motive even faintly equal to the Jews in the 400. This is
due I think to the importance of the concept of individualism in the Gentile
American heritage. So, in summary, the Gentiles of the 400 richest are simply
selfish, at least to the extent they ignore that most people were not born with
shoes , let alone laces–yet they are universal in this fiction. This is simple defiance of the (Limited) truths Marx gave us all. In contrast, the American Jewish establishment, denies both Marx and Freud, except when it comes to the tiny 2% of American demography that is Jewish. Nicht wahr?
Citizen – And these gentiles would be all more or less alike, with limited religious, ethnic and national loyalties? I don’t know. The only info we have is about the Jews – admittedly a big chunk of the 400, but not the whole megillah.
Let me give an example of how other elite interests, outside of the Jewish would invest in Israel (actually how a number of countries attract investment). Israel receives quite a few billion every year, and it is the military industrial interests that push the designation of the money to Israel. That is because most of the money (except for about 15%) is designated to be spent on military hardware. So, the elites in the complex push for Israel’s endowment, because they have a clause which says it is spent on USA defense material. It is like a large circle jerk, with the American people paying the bill – the money goes to Israel (which the Military complex elites push hard for) and it goes right back into the pocket of American industry, circular. It is a self-feeding endeavor, the complex does not give a shit if it is used to exterminate the Palestinians.
This same process is rife all over the world, the same in Latin America and other puppet governments around the world, they have no immediate enemies for the most part – they use it to suppress their own people. That insures that other elites, both foreign and domestic, can either rob the countries resources (natural or human or both) by paying a tiny “ransom” to the duly appointed tyrants to enrich them to the undoing of their own people. Round and round it goes, and what greases the wheel is good ol’ capitalism…
“Just remember that whatever policies the US pursues, they affect the whole world, and that Italian governments – and especially the current one – are like fleas on the dog that gets wagged.”
I love that, Shmuel.
Isn’t there an assumption that only rich Jews would support Israel? Don’t the ole boys clubs usually all stick together? Isn’t money also a powerful tribal affiliation?
Further, “one hand scratches the other” or you scratch my back & will scratch yours” is
of course the recipe for crony capitalism–but also crony socialism, e.g.,ACORN. We in the USA are under attack by the latest form of post Civil War reconstructionism. We all know the evil of the KKK, but very few Americans, at least, know any details about that era, which is startling to say the lease since the KKK was a resistance movement in that context. It sort of reminds me of the gap in information given to the masses when
talking about the origins of the I-P conflict; the masses are given no information by their own “free press” regarding the memory and motives of those Palestinan suicide bombers.
Wow, Citizen, I didn’t know you are one of those people. ACORN is crony socialism? I suggest you look up the formal definition of socialism. See how it differs from the concept of social movements promoting the advancement of group interests.
The Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation is analogous to KKK resistance to post-Civil War Reconstruction? I would never have been able to dream that one up.
What is the source of the “attack by the latest form of post Civil War reconstructionism”? ACORN? I know a good movie you might like, called “Birth of a Nation”.
“The Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation is analogous to KKK resistance to post-Civil War Reconstruction? I would never have been able to dream that one up.”
What’s wrong with the view that the KKK was formed to resist northern occupation during Reconstruction? The parallel to the Palestinians isn’t exact, but it’s much more correct than the view that the Civil War (which is also an incorrect term for what happened!) was fought to free slaves and give them equal rights and standing with whites.
There were many on the Confederate side who wanted to continue the war as a guerilla conflict, and that is one role that the KKK played.
I’m from way down in the Deep South myself, and have lots of nostalgia for Old Dixie (in spite of the slave economy on which it was based). Some of my revered ancestors, unfortunately, were slave-owners. Some of my beloved older relatives from many years ago were probably members of the KKK during its heyday in the 1920′s. But, for all that, I see lots of things wrong with comparing the Palestinian resistance to the KKK – too many things to waste time on here.
There are many people who have the strange idea that the government in this system sort of runs the works, that they gum it up with their (government) activity – however, that is NOT what is taking place. In fact, it has never been the case, ti has ALWAYS been a moneyed elite which the government duly serves. This is always the mistake of those with libertarian leanings, or those who espouse a “pure capitalism” fantasy – there has never been a capitalism which is not state capitalism, ever. The government takes its orders from the few.
Take for instance in Micheal Moores new movie, Capitalism: A Love Affair, he trounces right on the issue. Now, what is funny about Micheal’s position is that he thinks this merely started thirty or forty years ago – he is wrong, it has always been like this. If you want the flavor of what I am saying look carefully at this clip from his movie, scroll down the page a little and play it –
SPEED IT UP
It is self-explanatory. Now if you want to live like this that is certainly your business, but if not and you are tired of it, than we need to address the REAL problem in this country – and this elite system which has been franchised all over the world.
I don’t like to argue capitalism v. socialism because neither has existed in anything near a pure form, and any system will always have privileged elites who possess the lion’s share of the wealth and power.
I can’t imagine a system that will put an end to class or economic conflict, and to argue a better way is just to argue a possible conflict. That said, I still prefer Western culture.
Well that is a nice sentiment Todd, there is only one problem – you cannot bifurcate culture from capitalism. If you live in the USA as an example, you have a culture of capitalism. It is impossible to separate, pick and choose, it is like a woman saying she is only partially pregnant. However the sentiment is nice, a nice fantasy.
V, I’m not sure what you are getting at. What system do you believe can lead to a truly compassionate and egalitarian elite?
Neither. That’s not the proper question, which would be “What system do you believe can lead to a truly compassionate and egalitarian SOCIETY?” Again, neither, in its pure form.
“I don’t like to argue capitalism v. socialism because neither has existed in anything near a pure form ….”
George W. Bush’s America was a nation about as close to a purely capitalistic economy as the world is likely ever to see. That’s what was wrong with it, along with the fascist political ideology.
CMI, Bush II’s America was no more capitalistic than Clinton’s. In a strict capitalist model, the essential role of the government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and avoid interfering in the market.
Public education, entitlements, health and safety regulations, wars of choice, bailouts, and a manipulated money supply all distort the free market.
Bush’s wars, for example, were incredibly profitable for well-connected contractors, but their profits are the result of coercive transfer payments (i.e. taxes), not free-market competition on the capitalist model.
DavidF, I largely accept what you wrote, but none of it refutes what I wrote.
One reservation about your statements: The concepts of capitalism and free markets are related but not identical. Unfettered capitalism tends to breed unbridled monopoly power in many markets with significant barriers to entry, which leads to unfree markets – which lead to loss of capitalism’s putative benefits in providing the optimal allocation of resources for maximizing the general welfare.
Even neoclassical free-market economists will admit this (except for some neanderthals at the U. of Chicago).
CMI, I’m not expecting to see anything close to a truly compassionate or egalitarian elite or society, since both phrases mean nothing.
I’ve done my fair share of manual labor and skilled and unskilled work for petty, mean and exploiting owners, and I’ve also seen the uselessness and destructiveness of lazy, petty, grossly overpaid and purposely unmotivated union workers. In short, I understand how organized management/owners and organized labor can cheapen the value of work. IOW, I understand what it means to be exploited in a cynical way. I also understand what it means to have the government and management together working against me in the form of racial and gender quotas, and the use of legal and illegal immigration to keep me in my place. I wouldn’t say our system is anywhere close to pure capitalism for the vast majority of the population. At the same time, it isn’t the worst system.
“Call Me Ishmael October 6, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I’m from way down in the Deep South myself, and have lots of nostalgia for Old Dixie (in spite of the slave economy on which it was based). Some of my revered ancestors, unfortunately, were slave-owners. Some of my beloved older relatives from many years ago were probably members of the KKK during its heyday in the 1920’s. But, for all that, I see lots of things wrong with comparing the Palestinian resistance to the KKK – too many things to waste time on here.”
I didn’t make a comparison to the South during Reconstruction and Palestine, other than to say that Palestinians and Southerners both use/used guerilla tactics against an invader with largely mixed results, which is true.
I guess it’s also worth stating that industry was developing in the antebellum South, and the region was only behind when compared to the North and a few other leading industrial nations, all of which lacked the South’s raw materials. Clearly, there was much more to the war than assuring an egalitarian exietence for a group of people that most people on each side of the conflict agreed were inferior. That’s largely true also.