So which is it? Is voting our refuge of last resort, when trying to change things? Or is it neither a “wise or admirable philosophy”?
I’ll tell you what I suspect. I suspect the answer depends on which argument **Scylla **is currently trying to win. And I’m sure you’ll now return to this thread with some kind of bullshit rationalization as two why these two obviously contratdictory statements are actually quite consistent with each other.
Anyway, as for the rest of it – well, clearly we have virtually no points of agreement. I suspect continuing this debate would be a waste of time for both us.
With that in mind, therefore, I bid you goodday, until our next meeting!
'Scuse the aneurism, but this is immensely stupid. Undefined and half-baked? I really wonder how you reached that conclusion. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt (and assume that you didn’t see that my position went against yours and use that as the single important argument in determining its value) and explain it again, slowly and carefully.
Argument 1: Big business and wealthy special interest groups have more influence in politics than individual citizens or citizens groups; this influence is tied almost directly to the amount of money they have. This is evidenced by the very clear correlation between how much money special interest groups pump into politicians and the actions of those politicians. Causation is, in this case, ridiculously obvious.
Argument 2: The influence of money in politics has a detrimental effect on the execution of the will of the people. This is again evidenced by the strong correlation mentioned above.
Argument 3: People have different levels of wealth, and therefore, following from arguments 1 and 2, a widely different ability to influence politics.
Argument 4: As the results of the above three arguments, the democratic system in the USA has been widely subverted. Instead of serving the will of the people, it serves the will of the people only when it is convenient to those who actually give it money. There should be regulation in place to stop this kind of buying and selling of politicians, but sadly, there are not.
Does that make things any clearer? Does that clarify the “We are the 99%” comments? Do you understand now that this is a complaint about a systemic abuse of the American political system more than anything else, and that there are very real problems present?
…No, of course not. You can’t, it would mean that you had argued yourself into a corner! Quick, think up an excuse! :rolleyes:
You named two: voting and using money. What other legal ways are there? Illegal ways I can imagine blackmail, kidnapping, and murder… But legally? What the hell are you supposed to do other than vote (which, as we have established, doesn’t matter quite as much) or lobby with massive amounts of money (which, as we’ve established, is not really an option for most people, even when grouped together)?
Normally, the way democracy works is that people vote in favor of interests that they care about. We shouldn’t need further routes than our votes. When a method (especially one that is far, far more exclusive to possessions and class) becomes more valuable than votes for influencing politics, it is a problem. Back in the day it was referred to as Bribery, and it was considered a criminal activity. Nowadays? Eh, no problem. Just do what you want!
Pfft. “Just vote in people who aren’t corrupted!” “Name me 10 people who have been voted in who aren’t corrupted.” “Uh… no, can’t do it. Anyways, you’ve kinda defeated yourself here.” Yeah, I know it’s not referencing this paragraph, I just find this a hilarious juxtaposition.
Wow, I… I’m really kinda flabbergasted by this. “It’s bad. But it’s always gonna be bad, so why should we even try to check the power of the wealthy in our legal institutions?” Scylla, I get the feeling that in the era of McCarthyism, you’d be the one getting FBI investigations, not me. I don’t even know what communists and totalitarian regimes have to do with this–I’m trying to convince you that a system to break this cycle of brutal, overt corruption and bribery has to be put into place. A constitutional amendment overturning that absolutely ridiculous Citizen’s United ruling, for example. Some limit on how much a candidate can get in donations from single groups or corporations. But this isn’t necessary because… Wealth is just another form of power, and it’ll be corrupt no matter what?
Do I really have to explain why this is stupid? The thing that they want to take for themselves is the fucking government. You know, by ensuring that it actually performs THE WILL OF THE FUCKING PEOPLE. You know, the way it’s FUCKING SUPPOSED TO. If that’s unreasonable to you, then I suggest you spend some time in an African dictatorship or communist China.
You’ve got a biased news media massively overportraying a few singular criminals who are using the movement as cover, the portrayal of the group from said mass media as a group of hippie commies (seriously, did you see that one Karl Rove ad? It couldn’t have been more dishonest about the movement!), and cold weather (the actual, genuine concern). Seriously, the coverage that this movement has gotten from the mass media has been so ridiculously bad, it’s not even funny. These reports of rape and drug use are both incredibly fringe within the movement and fairly unsubstantiated – what we have is a shitload of anecdotal evidence of rapes, drug abuse, murders, assaults, arson, and satanistic sacrificial rituals, and a whole bunch of video evidence of the police pepper-spraying little girls, tear-gassing vets in wheelchairs, and generally abusing the fuck out of a movement which has done nothing but exercise its first-amendment rights.
The cold weather could actually be a problem, though.
The average Joe is dead. The reason we have an average of 43k is because the overall wealth and population in this country has stayed fairly typical. But that doesn’t mean that income inequality is not at an all-time high. Just to make this clear, though, here are two sets of numbers that average out to around 50.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The row that comes closer to American wealth distribution is the top one. Just sayin’. Furthermore, owning a home used to be a hallmark of success… But having your own house doesn’t help you if you can’t turn the heat on in December.
Oh geez, there’s two different contexts there. I’m surprised you would have trouble wrapping your head around the concept that there are certain things where exercising. Your franchise doesn’t help. I.e. the elected president is going to invade Iraq and I don’t want him to, and certain others where it will. I.e. getting the people you like elected.
You seem to think you’ve gotcha’d me as if I’d said one tool is useful for all things.
Frankly, I’m surprised and disappointed at you in this thread. You’ve invested a lot in the cheap rhetorical tactic, and not much in substance.
Is this true? Well I can think of no example in recent history of larger coffers than Philip Morris. Consistently though they have been losing political ground because of the will of the people.
Green initiatives are not exactly friendly to large industrial conglomerates but the green movement has gained and continues to gain vast political power, and win many of the changes it has sought.
Ralph Nader basically took on big auto by himself… And won.
I could give many more examples.
So no. Part 1 cannot be said to be consistently true
I think this probably tends to be true. Not because of #1, though.
I suppose they have a greater ability to wield influence in ways that use money, but again, your argument is not consistently true. As a quick example, Baltimore and Atlanta are both cities where you have a rich predominantly white minority, and a poorer predominantly black majority. It is the latter group that typically gets its candidates into office, not the former.
I agree that there is a lot of corruption and the need for reform. As I’ve shown in my previous post and this one, it’s my belief that you are being simplistic in your blame and attribution of your primary root cause.
Yeah, but I think you are wrong and naive and simplistic, and I think it’s really an excuse to go after rich people because your arguments don’t actually hold water when examined critically. And, you are not 99%. I’m pretty sure that a majority of the population rolls their eyes at the occupy nonsense.
You can start a new political party to get your voice heard… Like the tea party. Even if it never gets a candidate elected, it’s existence is an exercise in political power. You can use the court system and the media to bring attention to instances of corruption and cronyism. Administrations have fallen with such with hardly the need for any camping out. You could start a union, or a PAC, like moveon.org.
Need I go on?
You’ve mistated my argument. I am not saying embrace or accept corruption :rolleyes: I really don’t see how you get that from what I said. What I said is that corruption is not a function of wealth, but of power and human nature.
No. You kind of ignored the substance of my last post, and went on with this hypocrisy thing, and then said goodbye. I’m not feeling obligated to expound beyond saying that when I say a pitchfork is a poor tool for hauling water, but later recommend one for loading hay… I’m not feeling the hypocrisy you would like to attribute to me.
God, don’t you just love it when he bats the big, brown, innocent eyes?
Witness the Tea Party Express. Almost instantly, the Tea Party had an organization, with press releases, professional event planners to coordinate rallies, with professional stage handlers, trucks, sound men, the whole magilla. Where did the money come from? Tea Party Express didn’t exist long enough to gather a huge flood of individual small donations, but were blessed with the civic virtue of such men as the Koch Brothers, may the Goddess wither their peckers like worms on a hot griddle.
And suddenly, you have the announcement from Dick Armey that the Tea Party movement was solidly behind Comcast and Verizon in the whole “net neutrality” issue. Did you know that the Tea Party totally loves the cable company? Did they? Tea Party Express is gone now, its bones bleach in the sun, peed upon by passing caravans…
And Tea Party Nation! Another massive display of populist fervor. You would remember them from offering the Malign Sarah a half million dollars to give a keynote speech. Unlike Tea Party Express, which was a machine for spending money, Tea Party Nation was a machine for gathering money. The prospective victims got wise, and their “events” and “rallies” stumbled, faltered, lay down and died.
Tea Party Patriots still exists, and may be the only remnant of the populist fervor that was the birth of the Tea Party. Mostly, they host blogs and bloggers. They have no money. They had no stance on net neutrality.
You can look all this up, if you chose. For now. With the rise of Citizens Buttfucked and the Super PAC, you have a vanishingly small chance of finding out who spends what for whom, and why.
Shouldn’t be that surprised you don’t know any of this. For a bright guy, you have an amazing lack of curiosity.
I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, if you can clearly explain to me the actual difference in context between the two statements I quoted above – and not some analogical difference, but the actual difference. I honestly don’t see it. In the one case, you tell me I’m naive if I expect to effect social change by voting, that such a philosophy is neither wise nor admirable. In the other case, you clearly claim that voting is really all one needs to do to effect social change. As far as I can tell, the context is exactly the same, namely, whether or not there is any justification for the OWS protests.
I’m not accusing you of hypocrisy, by the way. I’m accusing you of inconsistency, of logical incoherence. I’m asking you to take a step back and realize that these two statements contradict each other. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you a hypocrite at all – or, well, not much more than the rest of us. It’s true that I think many conservatives are hypocrites, and maybe some of that attitude is coming through my posts directed at you.
I DO think you’ve lost your moral compass, however. I’ve thought that ever since you defended Bush for lying us into a war. And I do confess, as time goes on, that I’m having more and more trouble believing that you honestly believe some of the things you say you believe. They’re just so odd for someone to actually believe – like the idea that we should give up certain constitutionally guarenteed rights because they’re now obsolete.
Finally, with regard to the substance of your last post – I most certainly did NOT ignore it. But what more is there to say between us on this issue? I’ve laid out the strongest argument I have as to why I don’t think you should despise OWS. You’ve argued as strenously as you could as to why I should despise them. I’ve convinced you of nothing, and none of your arguments have persuaded me. We’re at a dead end here, as far as I can see. I’ve not got anything new to say, and continued discussion would just be going around in circles, probably exasperating to both of us.
I can respond to your post if you want me to, but I think you know we’re going to pretty much disagree on everything, and you can probably even predict part of what I’ll write before I even write it. So for the sake of a modicum of comity. I say let’s just agree to disagree, until our next debate.
Ayup, and in real dollars, both of those numbers are falling every year.
I didn’t say it was going to be tomorrow, I said I can see the damn trend line.
I suspect that’s been true all thread. Shame, he’s not usually in possession of this big a blind spot.
The average American is scared. He knows he is under siege from the bankers and repubs who want to gut everything they can except for what helps the rich. Look around your neighborhood and see the empty homes. Go to family reunion and see how many relatives are in trouble .
Health insurance goes up for the worker giving greater co-pays and more costs to the worker. Benefits and vacation time is being cut. Big corporations are still offshoring work. Workers wages have dropped or stagnated for a couple decades. Productivity went up drastically. Profits skyrocketed and it went went to execs.
The engine of jobs has been small companies for a long time. Our fine bankers don’t care about that. They have no patriotic or social factors in their calculations.
They are a prime example of what is wrong with America. Corporations are not judged by anything but how much money they make. Little attention is paid to how they make it or what damage it does to the land or the people. That is a fundamental flaw.
The next time Scylla uses, “I was there” as his cite for any current-events-type stuff from the past few years, I think it’s fair for us all to have a good laugh.
Well, that’s two examples, since the middle ‘example’ is too unspecific to count.
Nader ‘took on big auto’ back in the 1960s, in a very different political environment. Wealth - and therefore power - was much less skewed in its distribution then.
That was to Budget Player Cadet and Mr. Svinlesha, respectively. He’s already long since dismissed everyone else as beneath him. Guess nobody here is worthy of debating Scylla.
To be ruthlessly fair, they didn’t start it, the original Tea Party movement can fairly be said to be “grass roots”. That is not a compliment, necessarily, simply an observation. People like the Koch Brothers, may the Goddess plague them with trumpeting farts at all dignified proceedings, simply exploited the opportunity. They stole the brand.
Does the Tea Party even exist any more, outside of that brand? We are solemnly advised that Rick Perry is the TP candidate, no, wait, its Michelle Batshit, no, its… Its not that they don’t have leaders, or an agenda, they got oodles of that stuff. Reminds me of a crew chief I knew once, had a hat with a legend on it: “I am their leader. Where are they?”
The Koch Cabal and their minions own the brand, they can issue a press release tomorrow declaring the Tea Party’s unwavering support for corporate personhood and the primacy of property as the single most important human right. Who’s going to tell them they can’t?
In this, at least, the OWS goofy insistence on benign anarchy has a point: your leaders cannot be bribed and compromised if you have none, they cannot negotiate away an agenda that is not written. Can’t work, of course, compromise is finally necessary, progress is an ongoing exchange of compromise.
But, by damn! its good to see a flash of idealistic spirit in the mouldering corpse of American politics! By damn it is! If nothing else comes of it, this was worth the doing.
