The 99% Spring... Get ready for it... The previous antics were just a test for the big call

Originally posted by Kali74
reply to post by Deplume

 

They've been active all winter. Just because you didn't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. They're quite active today as matter of fact, let's see if you can find out what they're doing today.

Yeah, they're actively being escorted off the premises of St Paul's Cathedral to the delight of the majority of British citizens.

reply to post by curious7


Yes, that happened but so did a lot of other things Occupy, here in the states...I bet none of you who claim to know the secret people behind the scenes, even have the ability to find out what.

Originally posted by ANOK

All socialists are power hungry authoritarians. They fear walking alone, since that will threaten their exercise of authority over others, which is why they tend to run in packs. They are fearful little men, who find refuge in crowds. They expect the weight of "the masses" to bend to their will.

What a load of nonsense. I'm not sure how to even reply to such paranoid nonsense.

You could reply, but you can't refute it, so I suppose no response is technically the right tactical response. Merely claiming something is "nonsense" while being unable to refute it with any sort of counter argument does not fall under the heading of "response".

The problems in Central America had nothing to do with the workers ownership of the means of production. What they call socialism has nothing to do with the traditional socialism I am talking about.

Of course not. They were just screaming that crap because they had to have something to scream, I suppose. As it turned out, the state seized all property, so the campesinos STILL never got the means of production they were promised if they'd rise and fight.

You have to learn to look at socialism as an economic system outside of all the BS that has been attached to it due to failed political systems over the years. Socialism is not the problem, it's when it is violently apposed by forces greater than itself that causes the failure.

Yeah, violent opposition often leads to problems, doesn't it? Perhaps they ought to attempt to address the reasons for that violent opposition before they start cutting throats.

Socialism, anarcho-socialism actually, was working very well in Spain, it was the fascist right that caused it to fail because it's them that wanted ultimate power and control.

When the workers own the means of production, it would be very difficult for a single authority to gain ultimate control.

It hasn't proven to be all that difficult so far.

I apologise for the school comment.

Accepted. It's behind us.

Again, what you went through is not what I am talking about. Revolution is not a requirement for socialism. Capitalism is far more violent, and has killed far more people than anything that can be incorrectly associated with socialism. From the obvious, wars in the ME, property crime, starving in Africa, to the not so obvious like millions of industrial accidents. The list is long, but you can probably justify them, can't you?

Neither socialism nor capitalism has ever killed any one. People kill people. It's the lengths that people are willing to go to in order to push their pet system that kills other folks, not the system itself. Revolution is only required where resistance is met, and when you go to confiscating people's stuff and giving it to other people, there is going to be resistance. The only way it will ever work is starting from scratch, before anyone has anything to defend.

ONE of us is naive, that's for sure. You seem to be laboring under the illusion that organization can somehow be unorganized or disorganized. That appears to be the same mistake OWS made, yet you've not learned from that. Organization without a hierarchy of power structure is not an organization at all - it's a self-destructive mob.

Rubbish. You can't use OWS as an example when we have years of examples that prove you completely wrong.
Central to anarchist thought is that we can organise without top down authority. Obviously they didn't listen you.

Central to anarchism is the belief that people can organize themselves to efficiently meet their needs, without top-down hierarchies, coercion, or rewards and punishments. People will make mistakes, because we are imperfect, but we can learn from our mistakes and improve over time. This is the belief in freedom. Anarchism is usually presented as the most extreme form of a belief in freedom. It has often been said that anarchism is a synthesis of classical liberalism — carried to its extreme — and socialism. Another historical name for anarchism (and antistatist Marxism) is “libertarian socialism.”

theanarchistlibrary.org...


What are some of those examples proving me wrong? Where are they? They've never listened to me because I've never found one to speak to.

You only think like that because that is what you've been taught (conditioned) to believe. Freedom under capitalism is a privilege of the wealthy capitalist owners, not 'we the people'.

I'm not a "wealthy capitalist", nor do I have any aspirations to wealth - what good is it? You live, you get rich, and still you die, and all that wealth then belongs to someone else. Why gather it up to begin with and loose sleep over it? Even so, I'm free, and it's not a privilege, it's a right. I don't ask anyone's permission.

Now, it could be that we simply define "freedom" differently. My definition doesn't include wealth or slavery to greed.

Continued...

Likewise, I presume...

Originally posted by ANOK

Yes in capitalist organizations. Socialism is a different way of organising that is directly democratic, it doesn't work on the same principles capitalist organisations do. All true left wing ideology is based on bottom-up organisation as apposed to top-down.

Ah. Now we're back to mixing politics with economics, rather than separating them as you suggested in your last post. I am vehemently opposed to democracy. I don't need an entire society telling me what to do, or when or where to do it. I'm fine with them leaving me alone to pursue my own interests, and I don't feel any inordinate need to micromanage anyone else. That sort of life is entirely incompatible with socialism or democracy. A socialist system will atrophy and die without forcing the worker bees to do their specified part at the direction of that system.

"Common ownership" of everything leave NO resources available to the individual with which to direct his own life.

It sounds more like you should be apposed to capitalism not socialism. Maybe my comment about your education wasn't so far off...

Ah. we're back to that again. I probably should have seen it coming. Perhaps it's not as far behind us as I thought.

Again you are misunderstanding what socialism is. Socialism is the workers ownership of the means of production.

How are those of us deprived of our means of production by "the workers" to survive, then? It's the delivery of an ultimatum - we either join the collective (this is why I more commonly refer to socialists and the like as "collectivists" - it covers more ground), or we are starved out. In practice, we are usually shot.

It's not a hive.

Fine. It's a "collective" then, which in practice differs little if any from a hive.

It's not state control.

In the absence of government, the collective is in control, making it in effect the state. It IS state control. If there is no one steering, that truck is gonna wreck.

Workers have to organise in order to have a collective voice against the collective voice of capitalism.

You're right, they have to organize in order to have a collective voice. That is, I believe, sort of built in to the definition. I don't want a collective voice. I've seen where collective voices carry me in my time, and it's not anywhere I want to go. I'm fine exercising MY voice.

Doing it by yourself is the capitalist approach that excludes the community and is inherently self serving.

No. I don't exclude the community - I exclude myself FROM the community. What they do is on them. I don't have to allow myself to be dragged down with them.

There is nothing moral in being a staunch individualist, it's nothing but narcissism out of control perpetuated by the system that it benefits.

I've not claimed to be "moral", nor do I feel any particular need to subsume my "morality" to the definition of it that another has for their own benefit. I'm not too sure of why it is "more moral" to become another cog in the machine to the detriment of ones self and ones family. Throwing my own under your bus isn't a part of my definition of morality.

Second, global corporations disdain civil society. They've created a culture of organizational narcissism, where workers pledge allegiance to the enterprise. Corporate employees live in a bubble, where they log obscene hours and then vacation with their co-workers. Multinationals develop their own code of ethics and worldview separate from that of any national state. Corporate executives don't care about the success or failure of any particular country, only the growth and profitability of their global corporation. (Many large corporations pay no U.S. income tax; in 2009 Exxon Mobil actually got a $156 M rebate.)

5 Reasons Capitalism Has Failed

Ah, I see. You are confusing "capitalism" with "corporatism", which can be closely compared to socialism in that both are victim to a hive mentality, and both have organized into collectives because of that hive mind.

I am a capitalist. I am not a corporatist.

Your gig seems to be that you insist that I join one of those collectives or the other, but that's not going to happen, neither in this life nor the next.

I am not, nor ever will be, a collectivist, either corporatist or socialist.

reply to post by curious7

St Paul's Cathedral to the delight of the majority of British citizens.

Pretty sad the majority of British citizens should delight in curbing freedom of speech and peaceful protest. I hope no one will delight if you find a cause you feel strong enough to protest about gets shut down by the police.

Why would you delight in the collaboration of the church and The corrupt City of London in curtailing peoples freedoms?

reply to post by jibeho

Originally posted by bekod
reply to post by jibeho

 

Oh that's just fine get checks from an unknown source!!!! Taliban and other terror groups come to mind that would be willing to fund the upheaval of the USA, one more reason I do not back the OWS one must know who and how you are being funded .

Hmm....secret funding guiding a movement to civil unrest. Isn't this how Al-Qaeda was used to incite wars across the world? It HAS to be a coincidence! Pay no mind!!