Obviously just clicking “Preview” isn’t enough. You actually have to correct errors.:smack:
binarydrone wrote:
Call me stoopid, but, if there are 290 mil merrikins, with oh, 2 mil incarcerated, isn’t that something like .007% of the population? If we had 25% of the world’s total incarcerated prison population where exactly would 1.5 [Dr. Evil] bill-yun [/Dr. E] be hangin’ out? Is there a total number somewhere?Being it’s the Pit, I didn’t want to blatantly use the C-word…
Either that or it testifies to the superiority of our law enforcement. <shrugs>
Or our drug laws, which have nothing to do with the fact that our country is a democracy and capitalist.
I could just as easily say that we have more prisoners than communist countries because we don’t kill them anywhere near as often.
Binarydrone
“I also firmly believe that something has to be done about the huge gap between the rich and the poor. I understand (and share) the reservations that a lot of people have about just redistributing wealth (basically taking money away from folks that feel that they have earned it), but that does not mean that I am unwilling to admit that this is a problem (as so many posters here seem to be).”
Well, I would also agree that there is a problem. The problem, though, is not that Joe makes too much but that James makes too little. So instead of taking money away from James, we need to find a way to get Joe to earn more. That way, BOTH people win.
Binarydrone, I will repeat that I’m not picking a fight with you. You made an assertion: that the rate of incarceration is higher in the US than anywhere else in the developed world, and that “the system”, whatever that is, must be at fault. I asked you for details, and, since it is you and not me who made the assertion, it is up to you to show that the assertion is valid. Thus my asking (not demanding, as you put it) for your suggested reforms.
Well, the fact is, so do I. What I don’t believe is that much useful is served by constant whinging about unfair everything is, if one is unprepared to suggest alternatives. Just to get things back on-topic, another thing I don’t believe is that blithering numbskulls like Chumpsky should squawk so much about others’ “lies and half-truths” when said person has proven repeatedly that he couldn’t make a truthful statement if he read it from a script.
As for hostility, well hey, welcome to the Pit. Believe me, if I felt any hostility toward you, you’d know it.
Thus endeth the hijack.
Since the poor hamsters had so much work yesterday, I couldn’t post a reply. I hesitated, since this deals largely with internal politics of Sweden, which might not be of too much interest from the rest of the Dopers.
But the insult makes it impossible for me to ignore this. To re-cap: I answered Chumpsky about his list about things needed to be done by saying that Sweden did most of them, which led to mass-unemployment, high inflation, interest rates of 500% and the country going nearly bankrupt.
Henry B responded with the above quotation.
In 1992 the Swedish currency - krona - came under attack from forreign and domestic speculators. The reason it did, was that many Swedish banks had many riskly outstanding loans - both to private citizens and to companies. In an effort to protect the krona the Swedish National Bank - Riksbanken raised the interest rate, briefly, to a whopping 500%. The idea was to make it difficult for the speculators to sell short.
The effect was devastating. It led to unemployment rates in the mid 90’s of about 15%. A few of the banks almost went under, but were saved with tax money. The national deficit skyrocketed. And the boom of the late 90’s brought the country up to par, not prosperity. With a new recesion, it looks as if we are gonna get hurt again.
Now Henry B is correct in noting that a conservative/liberal government was in office when this happened. To blame them is making it way too easy. The head of Riksbanken at that point was Bengt Dennis, a socialdemocrat, appointed ten years earlier by the socialist government. Until a year earlier, the chairman of Riksbanken was a former secretary of finance, during the Socialist rule.
And all the problems started in 1986, when banks in Sweden were de-regulated, creating a mess not unlike the Savings and Loan mess of the US. In 1986, socialists were in government and Riksbanken was its tool.
As for me reading history - I was part of writing in at the time, working as a journalist for Sveriges Radio, the NPR of Sweden, hardly known for its right-wing bias.
Of course, I wont convince Henry B, but I hope that other Dopers who take the trouble to read this, will not go away with the impression that I’m worthy a ‘fuck you’ from him and being called ignorant [in other words].
As I understand it, there are around 8 million people in prison ( as of the cite in my earlier post) on the planet. The United States hit the 2 Million prisoners mark back in (I am pretty sure) 1999 i.e about 25% of the world’s prisoners are American.
Also, El_Kabong, I can defiantly appreciate your stance that I should be prepared to offer suggestions and alternatives if I want to complain about something. That said, I also think that identifying that there is a problem and talking about it (or in your world view, " whinging about unfair everything is") is important. I also note that while you seem to excel at picking the points of others apart, you seem to be resisting answering explicit and direct questions that I have asked of you. I challenge you to answer the following:
[ul]
[li]In that my impression is that you disagree with my position that the disproportionate number of Americans incarcerated indicates that there is a flaw with our current system of government and economics, what alternative explanation can you offer?[/li][/ul]
Monty Said:
I remember that you sent me to the pit once because of my english grammar. Thank your god that I don’t like revenge 
In fact Mexico is a clear example of a democratic country. At least according to the political correct definition of democracy that is common in this decadent times: a country is a democracy if Bush jr says so. Before that, a country was democratic if there were periodical free elections. And you can also use the cold war definition: If a country belongs to the U.S.A. sphere then it is democratic (to be fair the comunist also believed they were democratic so let’s not use the cold war definition).
Therefore you can choose the definition of democracy you want, and Mexico will still be a democratic country. Of course there is the true definition of a democracy but if you use that I don’t think any country today would be considered democratic.
One last issue I am a “Capitalist pig” myself (although I consider most american as fanatics in economy as Osama in religion). I also believe that Chumpsky while a bit naive, is a fresh wind in the SDMB.
The thing I find most disturbing is the fact that every time he speaks of IDEAS he is asked for a cite. Whatever happened to the idealism in this god forsaken planet? If he asks for a more equal society some economy professor (or someone trying to impersonate one, sorry Airman) ask him to provide the economy measures Chumpsky would take to achieve that objective and how that measures would impact in society.
I ask again what happened to plain old Idealism? How many of you believe that we live in an equalitarian society? Not many in here knows me at all mostly because eventhough I log in every single day I don’t write much (I am more of a reader, and besides my english sucks ) but I love history specially Roman one. The fact that most impressed me about the decline and final demise of the old empire is the stagnation of ideas. And I am really worried when the best defense of the capitalist system that I have found in this board (where there are lots of very bright people) is that: “it is better than the alternative”. If that is the level of intelectual achievement of the 21 century we are doomed.
Estilicon, thank you!
I sent you to the pit because you were an ass about it. What I made here, I believe, is what’s called a typo. You might want to pull your head out and notice that I have never tried to school you in Spanish, especially since I realize that I’m not all that good at Spanish. You, OTOH, were trying to school me in English when you have what’s commonly referred to as barely enough working knowledge of it.
Yes, I realize that the noun & adjective in Spanish agree in number and gender.
FTR, I still consider you to be both an ass and a jerk.
Most of us grew up and realized we lived in the real world. Idealism is all fine and dandy but so long as it isn’t tempered by realism it will remain a pie in the sky dream.
Marc
Well, here’s the thing; I haven’t explicitly disagreed with your position. I merely asked for clarification.
As a matter of fact, however, I don’t necessarily think that there is some sort of fundamental flaw in the current system of government and economics that results in a high rate of incarceration here. This particular topic has been argued over and over in GD, and I’m not going to chase up cites, but one thing that we would have to come to grips with is that many European countries with basically the same political and economic structure as the US have much lower incarceration rates. If there is something inherent in the political and economic system that is directly responsible for the number of imprisoned, why the difference in Europe?
If anything, since so many people in the USA seem tempted to commit crimes against their fellows, I’m damn glad that there’s a relatively efficient system to reduce the effects of their depradations. I could buy that there is some sort of fundamental flaw in the way parents bring up their children, perhaps. I can buy that there is some fundamental flaw in our social behavior that somehow promotes the idea that rampant violence and criminality is acceptable. But inherent in this political system, and no other? Sorry, just don’t get what you are driving at.
Now, you haven’t said this explicitly, but what you seem to be calling for is a more paternalistic state. Certainly what our dear Chumpsky seems to driving at is a paternalistic state. In fact, it seems what he really wants is nothing less than a revival of the old Soviet state, which I’m afraid I have to oppose because, well, the Soviet state was insufferably boring and dreary, as well as being just as unfair as any other, just unfair in different ways.
To get back to the discussion at hand, I certainly don’t want or need a more paternalistic state; if the majority of the population does, fine, but again, you’ll have to convince a lot of people that such a state provides bennies that they don’t already have. That’s all I’m asking for, really. Uh, but you might want to carry such a discussion forward in a GD thread intended for that purpose, to avoid hijacking this thread any further.
Well, I certainly hope my stream-of-consciousness blathering above corrects that impression. 
When did we attack Sweden, again?
If you’re claiming that
a) Sweden is a socialist country
and
b) All socialist countries have been under constant attack by “the capitalist states” (by which basically, you mean the US)
then it follows that
c) Sweden has been under constant attack by those states, i.e. the US
So, Chumpsky, when was it we attacked Sweden?
Sorry, I sympathize with your concern but the problem is, he doesn’t just speak of ideas; He hurls accusations left, right and center, makes up statistics out of the air, and ignores any questions that he can’t comfortably answer with an insulting diatribe about the evil capitalists. We have to ask for cites because if we don’t, he’ll just make up ‘facts’ to argue his points.
In short, he gets no respect from the majority of posters here because he’s an insufferable jerk, not because of his politics.
On the contrary, I think that I have been pretty clear that I do not agree with chumpskys politics per-say, rather I admire his ability to look at things through a lens of idealism and to at least ask why things can’t be different than they are. I think the underlying point where we do agree is that we both want to know what good it is being the most powerful country on the planet if this is the best that we can do.
If anything, I think that part of why we have so many problems is that the state is too paternalistic.
In regards to Western Europe, and the relative similarities of our systems of government yet wildly different rates of incarceration I have to say that I really don’t know. My impression is that this may have a lot to do with the fact that they do a better job of taking care of their poor than we do, but that is a WAG. An interesting quote from the BBC news country profile on the united states is as follows:
This thread illustrates, in many ways, the difficulties involved in the class struggle in the modern world. The first, and most obvious, point is that anybody who wishes to change the world for the better must fight against 70 years of intense propaganda and indoctrination that we are saturated in since birth. One cannot fully understand the full extent of this indoctrination until one trys to shuck it off and look at things afresh. As I have progressed in my attitudes from a laissez-faire capitalist toward communism, I have noticed with great clarity how many layers upon layers of indoctrination must be peeled off. There are so many misconceptions exhibited in this thread that it simply overwhelms me. It is impossible to deal with them all at once.
The second aspect that must be confonted is a familiar one, but which is heightened to the nth degree in our modern age, namely fear of change. The only consistent argument given in this thread for the maintanence of the capitalist system is one given by Margaret Thatcher, the TINA argument–There Is No Alternative. Or, at least, there is no better alternative. The degree of fear this attitude exhibits is remarkable, and is a direct result of a very conscious effort to drive home the idea that socialism=gulag. In fact, this very idea has been promoted often on this board, by posters who complain that I should take a tour of Stalin’s gulags if I think capitalism should be done away with. Of course, anybody who is opposed to capitalism is anxious to put Stalin’s gulags in its place. :rolleyes:
Since I cannot deal with every objection in this thread, I have tried to come up with one that typifies the rest, namely this one:
This objection is quite revealing. First of all, it is clear that what El_Kabong means when he talks about the Soviet state is the ideological construction created by capitalist ideologues, which can best be summarized as the gulag. It is apparent that by “a revival of the Soviet state,” he does not mean the state forged by the Russian revolution led by the Bolsheviks who created the most democratic modern state in history, one in which women had equal rights with men, one in which anti-homosexual laws were abolished, one where the workers ruled. The reason this revolution was able to succeed is that it was carried out by the workers themselves. Now, here we must be conscious of history and what happened in the USSR.
What El_Kabong fears is Stalinism. After the civil war in Russia and the invasion by 14 capitalist states including the U.S., the Russian working class was devastated. Russia’s industry was nil, and it was basically still an agrarian society. These were sort of the opposite of optimal conditions for creating a socialist society. In particular, Russia still faced acute problems of scarcity. The Stalinist counter-revolution aimed to create an immense beauracracy that would solve this problem by rapid industrialization. The problem with this is that all of the ideals of the revolution were sacrificed: power was taken out of the hands of the workers’ councils (the Soviets) and placed in the central bureacracy. This undermined the very core ideas of socialism. While the central authority still claimed to be acting in the workers’ interests, there was no accountability, and essentially they ruled by force.
This basic principle–that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself”–runs through the history of modern socialist thinking. A revolution imposed from above is destined to become a variant of capitalism or a Stalinist perversion. This was predicted by Trotsky, for example, who foresaw the resoration of capitalism in Russia through what Stalin was doing to it. There is a debatable point there, though, about historical necessity. What other path could Russia have taken? Many will argue that Stalin’s harsh rule was necessary to prevent the conquest of Russia. I don’t know. But, virtually every socialist agrees that it was the Stalinist idea of “socialism in one country” that doomed the revolution. Socialism cannot thrive in scarcity–it demands an iinternational brotherhood of workers to overcome the problems of disparities in wealth and the threats of capitalist restoration. Yet, for all of Stalin’s crimes–and there is nobody who defends them–the USSR still contained within it the hopes of millions of workers around the world. It was not quite socialism, but it was something different from capitalism, and it did work.
With regard to those who fear the gulag, Marx, for example, reacted sharply against the paternalism–the conceit of “socialists” who claimed to have “the solution to all riddles lying on their desks, and the stupid outside world had only to open its mouth wide for the roasted pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it.” But he and Engels also began to outline a different way of thinking about socialism, focused not on “dogmatically anticipating” the new world, but rather on “finding the new world” in what existed in the old. Engels later summarized the point this way: “Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of production, the appropriation by society of all the means of production has often been dreamed of…as the ideal of the future. But it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only when the actual conditions for this realization were there. Like every other social advance, it becomes practicable, not by men understanding that the existence of classes is in contradiction to justice, equality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish these classes, but by virtue of certain new economic conditions.”
Specifically, two “new economic conditions” were key for Marx and Engels. One was the development of human productive power to the point that a society of abundance is possible. Socialism can’t exist in conditions of scarcity, because unless there’s enough to go around, there’s certain to be a scramble over who gets what. Capitalism, according to Marx and Engels, raised human knowledge and technology to the point where the potential exists to eliminate poverty, hunger, homelessness and so on.
The problem of scarcity has been solved long ago. Capitalism was once a progressive force. This is something that is often overlooked by capitalist ideologues. Marx, for example, was in awe of capitalism’s power to knock down the old feudal structures, and to “draw all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization.” It is not capitalism per se that is evil. It is the reactionaries who want to keep it around in its dotage after it has outlived its usefulness. Capitalism has solved the problem of scarcity, but now it has become counter-productive. Now, production is hampered by the demands of the market. Production is oriented toward creating profit, and not toward producing what people need. There are countless examples where this is a real hindrance on production, and counter-productive. All of the problems of capitalism–from problems related to over-production, to class-stratification, racism, sexism, homophobia, and it’s incessant imperialist wars–are writ large there for everybody to see. For the narrow ruling class, these are not problems, but positive benefits, but most people at least realize that there is something seriously fucked up with our society.
As Lenin wrote in one of his most famous essays, “What is to be done?” This is the fundamental question. Most will agree that something needs to be done, but what? Here we must confront the power of indoctrination, the fact that the capitalist class owns and controls every means of public discourse and education. The generation of fear of change is quite widespread, and we are constantly told about how awful any alternative to capitalism would be. In its most pure form, it is boiled down to a choice between the current system and the gulag.
I favor socialism. It is clear that one cannot develop an entire vision in one thread like this, and that even tiny points become wrapped in webs of distortion when they are brought out. But, there ARE alternatives to capitalism, based on democracy, egalitarianism and abundance, most of which go under the banner of socialism. For one take on what socialism could look like in the U.S., here is one take:
Socialism USA
There are, of course, many others, but we should not be so afraid that we are hesitant to even consider any options to the current system.
I never said that Sweden is a socialist country. I referred to “socialistic Sweden.” Sweden has mixed economy, but the Scandanavian countries are far more socialistic than the other western capitalist states. These countries, as part of western capitalist Europe, must be dealt with on a diplomatic basis. For obvious reasons, they cannot be attacked outright. But, one should also note that the socialistic gains made by Scandanavian workers were only made after decades of bitter popular struggle. They were not a gift from on high.
It is true, though, that there has never been a socialist state that has had a day’s peace from capitalist attack. This is a crucial point–we must take it into account when we evaluate how successful socialist states have been.
There are several ways people have tried to deal with this. One way is to simply claim that these states are not socialist. Since Cuba, the USSR, Vietnam, etc. did not have worker control over the means of production, they were not truly socialist states. However, I think this is a bit of cop-out. We should notice that every socialist revolution has faced the same problem, namely of defending itself against the inevitable counter-attack. It seems to be a historical necessity that these states have to create a central authority to defend against capitalist attack. I am not saying that they are great examples of socialist states–far from it! It has always been maintained that a successful socialist system can only be created in the most advanced capitalist states, and with an international worker’s movement. But, in many ways, the states that called themselves socialist did make lives better for millions of people.
All this theory, analysis, speculation… meaningless. Fact is, if you live in a world where you can’t move about freely, or leave for no other reason than because you want to - you live in prison. Your life and existence is nothing more than that of an animal in a cage on a farm somewhere. Period.
Fact is, I’ve spent a great deal of my adult life plying the waters outside the US, picking up migrants. Thousands and thousands of migrants have passed through my hands, either to the US, or back to their homelands. The politics of those policies aside, they come from everywhere, on both coasts. They come over land South from Canada, they come North from Mexico. I’ve seen them them from Haiti, Cuba, DomRep, Pakistan, China, Poland and a few other places. All wanting the chance to make their own life… to live free. That’s all.
And they keep coming. Which to me is good. This is what America is made of - people with the courage and strength to leave their worlds, their families, their “workers paradise” behind, to a place where success isn’t guaranteed. But the right to try, is.
They’ve been coming for hundreds of years now, and they’ll keep coming for as long as this “backwards” nation exists. Bring em on, they’re the salt of the earth. They built this nation; they are still building it.
Funny, no such line to leave.
I’ve been to Cuba, you can have it. I’m sure they’ll have you. They need all the help they can get.
I have no clue what the future holds for me in this country, save this: If I continue to succeed, it is of my own doing. If I fail, it is of my own doing.
Well, some progress there. I’m not really happy over your abuse of a certain rhetorical device, which you use over and over again, of trying to to take my own thoughts away from me by calling them the product of indoctrination; after all, one could say precisely the same of your views. I also think that those who don’t entirely buy into the socialist ideal may perhaps be forgiven, since all they’ve ever known by example is a series of viciously authoritarian, dreary one-party states. And c’mon, the gulag was a fact, not an “ideological construct”. But overall, that actually sounded like a civil attempt at discussion rather than a litany of hysterical accusations. Bravo.
Me, I say it’s too bad that the public at large doesn’t give more serious consideration to socialist ideology in this country, no doubt about it. Too bad as well that so many socialists seem to require a one-party state to implement their proposals, since one-party states always seem to devolve into the very types of oligarchies that they purport to struggle against. Hell, even some two-party states seem to suffer from that problem
Anyway, I’m sure that I, and most people here, would want you to feel free to speechify as much as you like. Personally, though, when I see how the socialist paradise plans to guarantee my freedom of movement (physically and economically), of speech; when I see specifics of its promise to leave me the hell alone in areas where it’s not needed, then I’ll consider discussing this topic further.