Greatest ideological to progressive change: DEMOCRACY=CAPITALISM

[NAO]

The greatest obstacle in most American's minds to progressive change is the (deliberately cultivated) conflation between democracy and capitalism.

The idea that political freedom = unregulated markets (and the converse conflation, that socialism = totalitarianism) serves to both inhibit domestic progressive reform in the US and serves to justify military intervention in the service of multinational investors abroad.

I don't think Iraq was about "spreading democracy"; nor do I think it was just "about the oil". Many autocratic countries and many countries with vast oil reserves (Saudi Arabia meets both criteria) have not been invaded.

Iraq nationalized it's oil and prohibited foreign investment into it's economy. THAT was why they had to be invaded.

Domestically, the raiding of the public sector and the privatization craze are done under the guise of increased freedom, but no one askers "who becomes more free and at whose expense?". The answer is that people who receive income from investments and ownings become wealthier and more free, and people who receive income from their labor become poorer and less free. If unchecked, this trend continues until "third worldization" is achieved, where high unemployment, and more significantly UNDEREMPLOYMENT, work to produce a social order that has in inherent economic coercion that is more cruel and more forceful (albeit less obvious) than a full-blown military dictatorship.

Political behavior is free - there are free elections - but social behavior and life overall is largely constrained by an economy that forces people to scramble to make ends meet.

[G2099]

The Socialism of Social Security

And/or Social Security Socialism

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=social+security+socialism&btnG=Google+Search

[NAO]

7. Milton Freidman is a putz; my Christian High School used his books as text

Yes, way back in the early 1980's my Christian High School used Milton Friedman's books as textbooks for government classes.

People wonder why so many have such deeply ingrained right-wing beliefs, but these people have been working it HARD for over 30 years.

The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

The Swift Advance of a Planned Coup: Conquering by Stealth and Deception - How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Power
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm

[blogbear]

1. True to a large extent but "an economy that forces people to make ends

meet" does not have to lead to 'Scrooge' types or a'dog eat dog' mentality..

[NAO]

4. It always does because scarcity of work is used to drive down wages

When there is high unemployment/underemployment, companies pit workers against each other in competition for jobs.

Getting a subsistence job amounts to being the low bidder and as people become more and more desperate the wages go down more.

Is there any other possible reason why our government does not immediately and permanently expand the public sector to provide full employment? There is work to be done, and there is money to do it.

[blogbear]

6. What you say is true about work to be done and money to do it..Many

folks in the service sector anymore venture out on their own consequently..

[NAO]

2. There is no necessary relation between capitalism and democracy

There is a deeply held common sense notion that democracy=capitalism, capitalism=democracy. There is also a corollary notion that socialism=totalitarianism. In reality, there is no relation between capitalism and democracy. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems, while democracy and totalitarianism are systems of government.

It is entirely possible, and is in fact common, to have totalitarian states with capitalist economies. These are often fascist, repressive countries with military dictators that are supported by the US. Conversely, it is possible, and common, to have democratic countries with socialist economic systems. Most advanced industrialized nations were social democracies or could be said to have democratic socialist governments.

This conflation of capitalism and democracy, and the automatic association of socialism with totalitarian communism, is a large part of people's adherence to right-wing politics and their belief that progressive reforms would be "anti-democratic".

[ret5hd]

3. i have been preaching this for years...

when i speak (or type) of it, i usually am met with an odd silence...i don't know whether what i am saying is so obvious that people think to themselves "well, duh you idiot. a little slow, are you" OR that people think i am some kind of nut.

the right speaks in a code. anytime they speak transpose the words:

"capitalism" for "democracy"
"unregulated international monetary transfers" for "freedom"
"u.s. installed puppet government" for "elections"
"subjugation" for "peace"

etc etc etc

[NAO]

5. the conflation of electoral system with economic system is deliberate

It's very deeply held - to the point that it seems utterly intuitive and anything else seems like nonsense.

Ever since Reagan, there has been this mystical worship of 'the free market'.

The fear of 'government oppression' is used to distract people from the immediate reality of economic oppression. If people stopped to think about it, most would agree that most of the things they are forced into doing are not because of 'government regulations' or 'government interference' but because of their economic factors related to their work situation.

[applegrove]

8. The Dark ages were a time of bad markets and the power (regulations)

in the hands of the elites. If you go too far socialist, you kill the market. So too if you go too far elitist.

The markets belong to human beings. Corporations are just a tool for overseas business. But you know, with the internet... perhaps we can do with less corporations and more coops.

[NAO]

9. The Dark Ages were caused by Religious Ideology in Power, not Economic

over-regulation.

Both religious-political power fusion (as seen in the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages) and private wealth-corporate state power fusion (as seen in fascism and state capitalism) are profoundly anti-democratic trends.

Increasing true democracy would likely result in the increase of regulations on business and corporations to protect people from exploitation and the environment from rapacious destruction.

[applegrove]

11. What exactly is it when all the good information was in the libraries

of the catholic church. When only a chosen few & the rich were taught to read. When feudalism was the law of the land. When slavery (do you know where the name freeman comes from? That was a English local who was free to leave his land and move to a city - but he needed papers and sometimes he was not allowed to enter the city and be a citizen). In cities, the trades had powerful unions (so you got with one if you at connections and apprenticed..and perhaps had something sort of resembling middle class life at the time if you were lucky or impressed someone).

Doesn't matter to me who the elites were. Whether they were the Roman Catholic Church who decided what books and thinking was okay, or the Royals who needed feudalism to keep law and order and procure taxes and raise armies for their wars. They took over the markets and they destroyed creativity and movement.

It was the elites who made the laws. Slavery is a regulation. So is public schools (the lack of the regulation). So is heresy laws that put someone like Galileo in house arrest for the last part of his life. So were the private property laws that allowed the lords to own all the land the cerfs worked on - and to own a good portion of the time of those cerfs. So were the private property laws that allowed the rich to enclose Scottish farmers and kick them off the land they had tended for a few Milena.

All laws are regulations. The middle ages was 'elites gone wild' with laws for themselves.

You can have 'dark ages' either way. The regulations need to be to help the market and to stop the worst abuses of the market. Lack of education or access to preventive health are barriers to markets.

The markets belong to the people. And when they do not, and belong to one Utopia (Royalty was a form of Utopia..for the royals) or another..(socialists, Roman Catholics, neocons or anyone else) the markets go bust or get bad.

Do you really think that creating tribalism in the USA and splitting the country in half..is good for markets? If half the population learns to stop buying from some corporations? If half the world does because they are so disgusted? People will turn to co-ops. And buy from someone in the third world. And these are not companies that will be in the stock-market necessarily. And wealth will go to the consumers and the 'makers'. And the elites in the USA will have been diminished indeed. Corporations have been sold a bill of goods that says that they do not need 'goodwill' (which used to be considered an asset). So some corporations have been drinking their own **** given to them by Utopians and they will loose market share for doing that. And their own dam brand (the corporations that was a citizen of the world) will be debased and diminished.

Regulations that do not favor the whole of the people... will hurt the creation of wealth in the end. Just as they do when there are dark ages everywhere.

Americans are already turning to outside medical help because their own system does not work for them. A universal health care system would lower costs and keep the money going to actual medical treatment rather than the waterfall in the waiting room.

The neocons are fools & Utopians. And at this stage in history.. we should be running from them (Utopians). As many of us already are. Why wouldn't you shop at Costco? Why would you support an American company when it means no jobs and you have no connection to the elites that make all the money off of it?

They managed to motivate the wrong base. They undid their own 'American Brand'. But as long as it means money in their pockets today..the elites do not care. Because like elites everywhere.. they can't see past their own noses. And they drink their own **** and they get lost in their own importance.

I'd love to see and India & a Brazil 'Costco'. A greater percentage of Americans identify themselves with the international community than ever before.

[ClassWarrior]

10. I remember looking at a textbook when I was a teenager...

...lo those many years ago, and thinking that "communism vs. democracy" was an apples to oranges arguement.

NGU.