Dumb. But leave aside the truly silly notion that confiscating everything from the rich will make the rest of us wealthy. The former USSR, Cuba, N. Korea, Zimbabwe, and even Venezuela put paid to that notion.
Instead, let's think about the speech itself. This guy has apparently hand-written his talk on torn-out notebook paper. He should've just memorized it, but failing that, a slightly more high-tech solution would have been more impressive. After all, are we supposed to turn the world economy over to somebody who can't even use a word processor?
And who came up with the studio set? It looks like a 5-year old put it together. You'd think people serious about world revolution and all could spend a bit of effort and a few bucks on a proper desk and sign.
I don't know who the intended audience for this video is, but it has to be a very small one.
How would it be "confiscation" from the rich? Working people create our society's wealth. Socialists say we ought to control it. Zimbabwe and Venezuela are capitalist states, I don't know why you're using them as examples against socialism. The Soviet Union was, and North Korea is, a deformed workers' state where the workers do not exercise political control over society - yet there are concrete gains that they have made there that should be defended.
I'm so very sorry you don't care for the production quality of the video. Unfortunately nobody in Socialist Action receives corporate kickbacks so we cannot afford any class A news studios. No, there was no printer; some of us have bills to pay that take precedence over the creature comforts that consumer electronics provide.
It isn't about taking over someone's iPod or nice car. Those things don't oppress people.
It's about taking over the means of production; the large factories and farms. A socialist government would facilitate handing them over the workers and community under democratic control.
Capitalism has proven to be a failed system with it's skyrocketing unemployment, massive foreclosures, and 50 million people without health care.
In Venezuela we are seeing the most democratic *start* of socialism going on today. Poor peasant farmers who worked the land for generations for wealthy land owners now collectively own the land they work on.
Factory workers who were paid poverty wages by foreign corporations now own and run the factory democratically. The state pays their utility bills and together they plan production.
Is Venezuela socialist? Not yet, but we're begging to see it there.
And fuck the government of North Korea. That place is Stalin's wet dream. While it's great that they're holding out against American imperialism, the people there need to overthrow the Pharaohs that run it.
Amen to that comrade, The USSR and N. Korea, along with china are the three biggest problems with the perception of "socialism" today. When in truth, all three function vastly closer in operation to fascism than socialism, or at least modern socialism.
Capitalism has it's benefits, but unrestrained it subjugates the middle and lower classes, simply because it can, and it's more economically efficient for the bottom line of the CEO's and more importantly the company itself.
We live in an era of exploitation via externalities. A corporation does what is best for the bottom line even if that is harmful to the greater public. Just look at what happened in bolivia with the privitization of water. the impovrished people there had their homes reposessed because they stole water from the bechtel corporation, and by stole water I mean they collected rain water.
There must exist a fine balance of the efficiency of capitalism which brings with it rapid industrialization and technology growth, and the freedom and liberty that are afforded by socialism.
In fact our own government has realized this point, and has instigated sever reforms over the past hundred years to cope with the excesses of capitalism, but due to the perceived threat of communism, that reform was staunchly limited even though the USSR eventually turned into a fascist tyrannical state, which is the opposite of socialism.
another point that needs to be made is that socialism is in fact an economic structure and not a governmental one, and CAN be implemented without the aid of the government. In fact in several "corporations" in america, the company CEO is elected by the workers there.
At the end of the day, I think what needs to be done to see socialism take hold in america is to realize that the average american is taught the USSR, china and N. korea as examples of socialism when in a strict sense they are only socialists/communists in name only and the average american has no clue what real socialsim actually is.
at it's heart socialism is democratic control of the means of production by the people, and it's spirit is that of equal work(or rather work times skill) for equal pay and this is where many people think socialists are after the "money of the Rich". We aren't we just know that a good portion of the rich never deserved half their pay when the hardest working americans are paid on average 1000th that of their richer corprate CEO and hedge fund manager types, when CEO's don't work much harder than they do, and hedge fund managers do LESS work and bring absolutely no production to society.
6 comments:
Dumb. But leave aside the truly silly notion that confiscating everything from the rich will make the rest of us wealthy. The former USSR, Cuba, N. Korea, Zimbabwe, and even Venezuela put paid to that notion.
Instead, let's think about the speech itself. This guy has apparently hand-written his talk on torn-out notebook paper. He should've just memorized it, but failing that, a slightly more high-tech solution would have been more impressive. After all, are we supposed to turn the world economy over to somebody who can't even use a word processor?
And who came up with the studio set? It looks like a 5-year old put it together. You'd think people serious about world revolution and all could spend a bit of effort and a few bucks on a proper desk and sign.
I don't know who the intended audience for this video is, but it has to be a very small one.
So much venom, so little content!
How would it be "confiscation" from the rich? Working people create our society's wealth. Socialists say we ought to control it. Zimbabwe and Venezuela are capitalist states, I don't know why you're using them as examples against socialism. The Soviet Union was, and North Korea is, a deformed workers' state where the workers do not exercise political control over society - yet there are concrete gains that they have made there that should be defended.
I'm so very sorry you don't care for the production quality of the video. Unfortunately nobody in Socialist Action receives corporate kickbacks so we cannot afford any class A news studios. No, there was no printer; some of us have bills to pay that take precedence over the creature comforts that consumer electronics provide.
Just out of curiosity - what "concrete gains" are there in N. Korea worthy of defending?
It isn't about taking over someone's iPod or nice car. Those things don't oppress people.
It's about taking over the means of production; the large factories and farms. A socialist government would facilitate handing them over the workers and community under democratic control.
Capitalism has proven to be a failed system with it's skyrocketing unemployment, massive foreclosures, and 50 million people without health care.
In Venezuela we are seeing the most democratic *start* of socialism going on today. Poor peasant farmers who worked the land for generations for wealthy land owners now collectively own the land they work on.
Factory workers who were paid poverty wages by foreign corporations now own and run the factory democratically. The state pays their utility bills and together they plan production.
Is Venezuela socialist? Not yet, but we're begging to see it there.
And fuck the government of North Korea. That place is Stalin's wet dream. While it's great that they're holding out against American imperialism, the people there need to overthrow the Pharaohs that run it.
Amen to that comrade, The USSR and N. Korea, along with china are the three biggest problems with the perception of "socialism" today. When in truth, all three function vastly closer in operation to fascism than socialism, or at least modern socialism.
Capitalism has it's benefits, but unrestrained it subjugates the middle and lower classes, simply because it can, and it's more economically efficient for the bottom line of the CEO's and more importantly the company itself.
We live in an era of exploitation via externalities. A corporation does what is best for the bottom line even if that is harmful to the greater public. Just look at what happened in bolivia with the privitization of water. the impovrished people there had their homes reposessed because they stole water from the bechtel corporation, and by stole water I mean they collected rain water.
There must exist a fine balance of the efficiency of capitalism which brings with it rapid industrialization and technology growth, and the freedom and liberty that are afforded by socialism.
In fact our own government has realized this point, and has instigated sever reforms over the past hundred years to cope with the excesses of capitalism, but due to the perceived threat of communism, that reform was staunchly limited even though the USSR eventually turned into a fascist tyrannical state, which is the opposite of socialism.
another point that needs to be made is that socialism is in fact an economic structure and not a governmental one, and CAN be implemented without the aid of the government. In fact in several "corporations" in america, the company CEO is elected by the workers there.
At the end of the day, I think what needs to be done to see socialism take hold in america is to realize that the average american is taught the USSR, china and N. korea as examples of socialism when in a strict sense they are only socialists/communists in name only and the average american has no clue what real socialsim actually is.
at it's heart socialism is democratic control of the means of production by the people, and it's spirit is that of equal work(or rather work times skill) for equal pay and this is where many people think socialists are after the "money of the Rich". We aren't we just know that a good portion of the rich never deserved half their pay when the hardest working americans are paid on average 1000th that of their richer corprate CEO and hedge fund manager types, when CEO's don't work much harder than they do, and hedge fund managers do LESS work and bring absolutely no production to society.
Wait.... is that you rex? when did you get a newscast?? and why was I not informed?
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