Ms. Demeanor November 23, 2011: Capitalism's Collateral Damage

http://www.alternet.org/story/153197/5_rules_for_talking_ows_with_your_conservative_relatives_/comments/

By Olivia LaRosa

My comment regarding the article above:

Collateral Damage

As someone who has changed hearts and minds, may I add my 2 cents worth? Only a constant patient application of facts will work on someone who is not of an inherently authoritarian character. 

I was raised as a libertarian Republican. That ideology lasted exactly as long as it took me to enter the adult working world and find out that my dad was full of it. So I have approached this argument from all sides. 

Our natural allies are libertarian Republicans and libertarian capitalist "decline to state" voters. Kinda like Ron Paul, but without the fascist Xtian John Birch connections. Once these allies understand that:

a) there is no such thing as the "Invisible Hand" of God on the free markets
b) that free markets will never exist, because a power vacuum attracts predators

they begin to pay attention to actual events rather than "faith-based" capitalist polemics; they may come around in surprising ways. 

They come to realize that the collateral damage that globalized capitalism inflicts on people, places and things is too high a price to pay for its benefits.

How Did You Grade the Lame Duck Session?

By Olivia LaRosa
December 22, 2010

Recently, I have been amusing myself by posting to the Wall Street Journal online community regarding select Questions of the Day. Today, the WSJ asked us how we graded the Lame Duck congressional session. I gave it a "D" for bad political theater. The only decent work of the session was passing the START treaty and repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." What an embarrassing policy!

In response to: He continues to lead the country from the far left and will push just as hard as he can in this direction as long as he is in office. The notion that President Obama is more centrist than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is ludicrous - though a useful fiction for him. They are all cut from the same socialist cloth.

I replied: I find myself boggled by people who still think that the lowest taxes support the best society. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. (I gave the lame ducks a D.) The goods that you have, the education you received, the roadtrips you take, the fire department nearby, and so on, were at least partially subsidized by the taxes that your parents and grandparents paid. Furthermore, most of the stories told about how lowering taxes will help the US aren't quite what actually happens. Please take a look at this article for examples.
The 9 Biggest Conservative Lies About Taxes and Public Spending
http://www.alternet.org/story/149265/the_9_biggest_conservative_lies_about_taxes_and_public_spending

And in answer to the same man who asserted that Obama was a socialist, I talked about the TWO political axes: right-left, and authoritarian-libertarian. You can take the fun quiz too!

I am far left. I know so because I took a test at http://www.politicalcompass.org. I score at -10, -9.875. I am a libertarian socialist. People get confused about political orientation because we think that there are only two directions to go; left, or right. That constitutes one political axis. There is another, though. It is the authoritarian/libertarian axis. Obama is no more of a socialist than say, Evan Bayh or Bill Clinton. His political acts place him in within the right/authoritarian corner of the political compass. So, it makes no sense to call Obama a socialist or a Marxist when he clearly isn't either one. Here's another example: people can be left/authoritarian like Mao Ze Dong or Joseph Stalin. Or they can be right/authoritarian like Hitler, Mussolini, Hosni Mubarak, Benjamin Netanyahu, Hugo Chavez, etc. Ron Paul is the most prominent example of a right/libertarian. Take the fun quiz and see for yourself where you stand, alongside major historical figures.

~~~~~

In response to this post:

One of the biggest conservative lies is that money simply grows on trees. Taxes can be lowered to zero and the economy will benefit. Borrow from the Chinese to pay for huge deficit spending and pay off the bonds by printing money (quantitative easing). The result will soon be hyperinflation.

Conservatives don't seem to care. But some people do, like many Tea Party activists, who seem to realize what a downward spiral our country's in.

I replied: The Tea Party knows that something's wrong, but they don't know what it is. They have been captured by bumper-sticker politics. If the answers are simple, then we are not talking about the problems of human beings. Sad to say, the Tea Party movement simply plays into the hands of the political agenda of transnational corporations. The political agenda of transnational corporations is to corrupt governments for the sake of profit, as their charters provide. I wish that the Tea Partiers would interrogate their basic assumptions. We need GOOD government, not what we have now. It's impossible to manage a nation of 300 million people without decent people managing the day-to-day business of keeping America together. You don't get that result by ranting about bureaucrats or term limits. You get that result by educating folks on what it really takes to run a pluralistic democracy.

Ron Paul wins CPAC straw poll; US Super-rich Get Five Times More Income Than In 1995

Shocked, and not shocked, by today's morning headlines. Ron Paul, the man with half-a-lick-o-sense, won the Conservative Political Action Committee's vote for President of the US 0f A. Ron Paul is my ally, although he doesn't know it. Paul is a capitalist libertarian. I am a socialist libertarian. The main difference between Ron Paul and me is that he believes in the fairy tale of a free market and I most definitely do not.

Markets are never free. They operate in tandem with governments. I agree that production that is not controlled by governments is better than production controlled by governments, in theory. But have you seen all the junk at the dollar store? People should have to take out a permit to manufacture and transoceanically ship those ugly figurines.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/tk-wins-cpac-straw-poll.html?wprss=thefix

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-ridley/the-peoples-guide-to-the_b_126807.html

The people's guide to plainguage:


>>>>>>>>>
If you supported a war that is costing $2.4 billion a day, you're a patriot who wants smaller government.
If you oppose the war, you're a defeatist who wants big government.

Democrats who balance the budget and lower unemployment are tax and spend liberals.
Republicans who run record deficits and crash the housing market are fiscally responsible.

If you chant 'Drill, Baby, Drill" you are positing an effective and responsible energy plan, science and logic be damned. If you chant "Yes, We Can" you are a mindless automaton.

If you're a Democrat and you prefer wine over beer, you are an "elitist."
If you're a Republican and you prefer a beer heiress over your first wife, you are a "committed family man."

When you waste a million dollars on just one tomahawk missile you are seeking to SAVE American lives.
When you want to utilize a million dollars for stem cell research you are seeking to DESTROY the American way of Life.

If you're a Republican, all of your errors and misjudgments are for history to decide.
If you're a Democrat, all of your errors and misjudgments are for voters to decide.

If you're a Democrat who has been in the Senate for two years, you are a Washington insider who will only give us more of the same.
If you're a Republican who has been in the Senate for 26 years, you are a Washington outsider and the candidate for change.

If you're a Democrat and promise to cut the taxes of 95% of all Americans, you're raising taxes.
If you're a Republican (in a state with no state income tax and no state sales tax) and give a $1,200 rebate from oil income to all taxpayers, you're cutting taxes.

If you are a black you are only voting for Obama because he is black too. If you are white and voting for Obama it is because you have white guilt. If you are not voting for Obama you are patriotic and a proud American.

If you are Sarah Palin, you have no idea what the Bush Doctrine is.
If you are an Iraqi, you know exactly what the Bush Doctrine is.

Jesus was a community organizer.
Pontius Pilot was a Governor.

On the Two Libertarianisms

Let’s talk about libertarian conservatives for a bit, since David Broder, in Congress Finally Stands Up, mentions the phrase. There are two different kinds of libertarian, not just one. My friends like to joke that libertarians are Republicans who like to smoke pot. We met a few of those in law school.

I call myself a libertarian as well. But I am a social libertarian, not a capitalist libertarian. Libertarians often claim that they have no religion. I beg to differ. They are fundamentalists in the same way that religious conservatives are: they believe in the propaganda of capitalism whole-heartedly, without a clue as to what they are supporting.

Any student of Adam Smith, the so-called father of capitalism, would know that Smith supported public works and the public commons. He spoke of “enlightened” self-interest, not unmitigated greed and avarice, as a satisfactory social order. Paraphrasing Smith, any time you see three businessmen talking together, you can bet they are up to no good.*

The fact is: there are TWO political axes, not just one. There is left and right. Then there is libertarian and authoritarian. You can find out where you place on the grid of political thought by going to http://www.politicalcompass.org and answering a few simple questions.

After you take the test, let’s engage in dialog about what your placement on the grid really means.

*"People of the same trade seldom meet together", Smith writes, "even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or some contrivance to raise prices."