Tstone, I don't recall saying that Western civilization was better than the alternative because they had the better use of the wheel. And yes, the snow-shoe is a very creative, useful invention. Given time, the American Indians would have developed their own science, technology, and industry.

But, since we're debating pre-Columbian American Indian culture and contemporary European civilization, allow me to make a simple comparison: the sum total of all American Indian achievements of science in the year 1491 is VASTLY inferior to the sum total of all Western achievements of science. As we go farther on in the centuries -- skip ahead to, say, 1800 ;-- the gap only increases.

Of course resources are important and essential. Even I'm not so ignorant to assert otherwise, but of the two -- human genius and natural, undeveloped resources -- the first is infinitely more important.

A pristine, undeveloped, natural enviornment, no matter how lush, cannot possibly feed enough people to allow them any division of labor, which is the basis of all civilization and human achievement.

An utterly barren waste, devoid of resources, can nonetheless, with the proper application of human ingenuity, feed a large nation. Case-in-point, Israel. Israel has turned deserts into farmland by using modern agricultural science. Consequently, it has a division of labor in that all of its population isn't engaged in looking for food sixteen hours per day, and Israel is therefore one of the most advanced countries in the world.

Human genius in a place devoid of natural resources, can provide for many more people than hunting-and-gathering in a lush enviornment. Both are important, but the one is more important than the other.

And without the intervention of the human mind, they would still be useless plants and chemicals. The improvement of human ingenuity provides by far the larger part of its value than the natural component.

Black-and-white is good. Nobody has ever discovered a shred of truth by viewing things as shades of grey.

And again: even in the most resource-rich enviornment, nature provides only raw materials. It cannot provide shelter for ants unless the ants force it to.

So, I clarify my position: insofar as nature provides raw materials, I respect it, but nature has never done anything good for humans without human intervention forcing it to do so. I think that you and I can be in agreement on that point.

I did not say that I myself am better because I live in a technological society rather than a savage one. I said that a technological society is better than a savage one. I'm fortunate that I live in the better society, not "better" because I had the good fortune to be born here.

Now we're starting to get into the main problem that I have with Nature-followers: how do you define "nature"? As resources, as the physical laws, as some abstract entity, as the enviornment, or as the sum total of everything? (Which is just saying that everything is due to everything, which really isn't a position at all.) I've met people who hold each different positions, and each definition leads to a completely different concept. "Nature" as a concept is nearly impossible to properly define.

So, depending on your definition, no, nature did not enable us to develop consciousness and reasoning. If you subscribe to the atheist position, then life is simply a chance phenomenon -- and to define chance and probability as nature, I think, is a far too wide definition of the word "nature." If you subscribe to the deist position, then life is designed, which is a concept entirely outside pure "nature" (by some definitions).

And even if you're completely right (not likely, since I, arrogant as I am, don't even consider myself completely right), we can owe no debt of gratitude or respect to random chance.

Meaning, how dare we evil humans not die when we're supposed to? How dare we contribute to creating more life?

You're right, though: we've forced the earth to produce more efficiently. We're nowhere near a negative return, though; the majority of habitable land is still uninhabited, and a very great deal (I don't know exactly what percentage, but it's probably about 50%) of farmable land is still unfarmed. And even in China, agricultural science is still advancing so that we're getting larger returns of food for less and less effort, space, and resources.

As long as we don't nuke everything, we and the earth will be fine.

I don't consider keeping people alive a double-edged sword.

Our ecosystems are not stressed. None of those things that you've mentioned are happening in any severe quantity.

Judging by the price of wheat and beef (really damn low), I would say that the supply is up, which means that our ecosystem remains quite capable of supporting us all. The only places where this is not the case are the less advanced, inaccessible places (which are, correspondingly, still very underpopulated, which in turn means, again, that the ecosystem there is not stretches thin).

More food for humans, then. Venison makes several good meals for an entire family. So, this imbalance doesn't risk destroying us, particuarly since deer are nearly unheard of near the farms that produce food for us. Let them eat grass in the woods, and let us eat them.

We're still here, and all of those disasters have yet to make a dent in our numbers.

Killer bees have no natural enemies in this state, and they're all over. We're not starving to death from enviornmental collapse because of it, though. A general rule of thumb is that it's a lot harder to fuck with nature in any real degree than most of us think.

*blinks* This is true, irrelevant though it is to our current discussion.

Simple hygiene prevents the contraction of most virii, regardless of whether it's a mutant strain. Good nutrition builds a healthy immune system, which is highly useful against even a mutant virus. So, yes, I'm appealing to a natural, innate defense against mutant virii.

But at the same time, bacteria are tiny, fragile little things. They're easy to kill, no matter how new or unknown, once we find a way to do it. Simply heat -- taking a very hot bath, for instance -- kills great numbers of microorganisms. And eventually, we'll find a scientific cure against mutant virii. The little bastards don't have god-mode.

I agree with you here. Slash-and-burn operations, I'm sure that we agree, are a waste of natural resources. There are more responsible and, in the end, cost-efficient ways to take what we need.

There is no living creature yet discovered that is capable of doing anything better than humans, once we set our mind and resolve to the problem. If you can find an example which I cannot refute, then I will admit that human pride is undeserved.

That's a beautiful sentiment, but, in my cold and black-and-white way, I demand proof and examples.

No matter how beautiful, a cave does not equal or even approach a Victorian mansion complete comfortable furniture, plumbing, and electricity. Not to mention running water for reasons of hygiene.

You just blew my mind, man.

Maelstrom,

Sorry that I didn't respond to you directly, but there's not much that I can argue with you about. I'm against "shitting where we eat" -- I simply think that the enviornment is more resilient than we give it credit for, and that human interests come before those of trees.

But, as I mentioned, I'm against things like slash-and-burn operations and strip mines; let there me no mistake about that.

I gotta say, the tapir quip was bloody brilliant.

As far as citing human sacrifices as evidence of barbarism, and of technilogical infancy, I don't follow. It's a religious and cultural thing. The aztecs were firmly convinced that their gods gave blood to mankind to bring life on this planet, with the provision that it was a temporary loan man had to pay back. If man didn't pay, the sun would die.

Basically, they thought man's life was due to the gods, as a return payment. Without the sacrifice the gods would suffer and the world would end.

in terms of development and civilization: They had advanced math engineering, health care (evidence of Surgery and dental care were found on excavated remains), art, all the bells and whistles. The steps of the one of the pyramids is a prime example. The stone quetzalcoatl is placed so that the sun's rays flow up the snake as the sun rises, I believe on midsummer day.

In 400AD, with around 200,000 inhabitants Teotihuacán was the sixth largest city in the world. Trading relationships were established with Monte Albán in Oaxaca and the Gulf Coast - there is little evidence of any hostility during the years of prosperity. (You will not see any depictions of warfare or human sacrifice in the carvings and murals at Teotihuacán). http://www.pennyjohnson.com/web/Mexi...1/Pyramids.htm
The mass sacrifices described by the spanish began after a drought and famine caused their priests to claim that the gods were angry at being neglected. His words are preserved in the library at paris, I believe. I read a translation of the speech years ago. It happened a few hundred years before Cortez landed in Mexico.

You can't confuse cultural and religious beliefs with the technilogical advance or lack of progress of a people.

I think there are alot of things you and I agree on, but I see you enjoy being provocative! :P

Let me assure you, I'm no "tree-hugger". I see no reason NOT to exploit our natural resources for the betterment of mankind. But, again, we also need to replace what we take, because those resources are not indefinate I also don't buy the crap that PeTA puts out that cow farts are reducing the ozone layer).

However, I disagree with you, when you say that we're not seeing the results of that wanton exploitation. Slash and burn aside, look at places like Love Canal. Look at studies on "Cancer Clusters". There's more, but I see no point in digging it all up. You'll either look for it yourself, if you're really interested, or you'll dispute my claim and leave it at that. ;)

As for the lack of food....well, the US is supposedly the richest nation on Earth, yet we have -HUGE- numbers of people starving to death right here.

re: the advancements Isreal have made in cultivation...Keep in mind, the ME (including Isreal) was once a very lush area of the world. Quite fertile. Until the Romans salted the earth.

And philosophy, by it's very nature, -cannot- be black-and-white. :P

Usually. I don't sit here and think, "Hm, I'm going to go piss people off with my ideas," but it usually just turns out that way.

Oh, good. I apologize for assuming that you were like that; I'm just tired of arguing with people who look at me like I'm a monster because I use wooden furniture.

And yes, we need to replace what we take, at least to a certain extent. Requiring lumber companies to plant so many seedlings for so many trees cut down seems reasonable.

True, but this is due more to economic inequality than to the enviornment being unable to sustain our numbers. The total amount of food-stock in circulation in the US is more than enough to feed 300 million people if perfectly distributed, but some people hold more of it than others. (I do NOT advocate wealth redistribution, by the way -- as though anyone here could accuse me of that.)

[quotere: the advancements Isreal have made in cultivation...Keep in mind, the ME (including Isreal) was once a very lush area of the world. Quite fertile. Until the Romans salted the earth.[/quote]

True, but most of the salting was centered around population centers like Jerusalem. Long before the Romans came along, there were vast stretches of desert, including the Negev and Sinai. Israel has, to some extent, claimed some of this barren land as farmland.

I hate modern philosophy for just that reason.

Philosophy is the ultimate science of black-and-white. It is the search for absolute truth that transcends all other petty concerns and circumstances.

And Aristotle is on my side :P. Roughly paraphrased: "A is A, always has been A, and always will be A. If it ceases to be A, then it is not A.

"That which is not A is not A, nor will it ever be. If it ceases to be not A, then it becomes A."

Aristotle was always very black and white: something either is, or it is not. There is no in-between on anything.

Nah. I'm an evil capitalist, not a rabid white-supremacist. Sorry that you got the wrong impression, though.

I'm afraid that I don't follow. Why would anything further produce an economic challenge and allow an aggressor an advantage? I've always thought that it would be the exact opposite, but I'm likely misunderstanding you.

I can probably agree with you on the bit about Colonialism (if by colonialism we mean imperialism), but Catholicism? I think that that's a little bit of an exagerration. Through all of the centuries, all of the inquisitions and pogroms, the number of those killed by the Church has never even begun to approach the number of those killed during fifteen years of Nazi rule.

Yea, that's the point. Slaughtering 10,000 captives every year (five times the number of people that died during the ENTIRE Spanish Inquisition), on average, is just a teency little problem.

And you're right: it was their culture. Which, while saying nothing about their level of technology, says very effectively that their culture was fucked up and cruel.

I'm not going to give them a free pass on that because "it's their culture." The fact that they considered mass sacrifice a-okay says a lot about their moral development, if not their scientific development.

...all with an average life exspectancy of about 30 years. Yea, they had great health care.

This is true. Astronomy is among the first of all arts learned by any civilization, and I would be rather surprised if even the Aztecs were without it. But I would be more impressed if their great feats of engineering, the temples, hadn't been used to cut out thousands of beating human hearts on a yearly basis.

And remember: the level of engineering achieved by the Aztecs, was slightly below that of the Egyptians more than 2,000 years before Columbus sailed. So there's still quite a large achievement gap there.

The rest of the American Indians were even more worse off.

Is it any better to slaughter people by the thousands for entertainment, like the romans did in the Circus Maiximus to the criminals, barbarians, christians (not catholics) than to do it for religious beliefs?

As for the wheel, it simply had no use in rainforest terrain and in the Andes. It's just impractical. A sledlike cart would suit the environment a lot better.
Necessity is mother to industry (invention or imagination). Their technology was perfectly adequate to their environment, where they were light years ahead of the West in biotechnology (shaman or medicine-man's knowledge and use of herbs and infusions and mind-altering substances) and architectural techiniques (Notre Dame is trully beautifull, but aside from some vitral colors we still cannot reproduce to this day, but Machu Pichu is a lot older, mechanically unexplained and impossible to reproduce to this day in its masonry techniques if not just the enigma on how they got the boulders up there in the first place).

The actual age of some of the Pyramids in South America and Egipt is still an ongoing debate. Remember I'm not giving props to south americans on rock size, quarring techniques and transportation logistics. I'm talking deep masonic knowledge here. I'll try to find a picture of what I'm talking about.

Bring it on. I'm on Fire.... :D (baby's on fire, better throw her in the water...)

I prefer Marijuana, beer, a steak and a blow-job to Ecstasy, Coca-Cola, Big Mac and a porn video. And with that phrase alone, I win and you're all my bitches. :D




p.s. sure, I'll have a coke, burger and a wank as often as anyone else, but I know where my priorities lie and don't doubt my preferences for a second. :P

I was gonna say I preferred T-bone steak to Big Mac's, but then I thought about it and left it at steak! :D

The tapit tongue twister was great, but this is brilliant.

Thanks, T-man.


Er... I think I'll just have a happy meal, thanks... :roll:

:D

-Yu wanta da tói dat gouz wid it? :shock:

Pissing people off, and yanking chains is two different things :p

Okay, maybe not. But pissing people off, and getting people to talk are. ;)

Pish! I love good wood furniture. And no apology needed. I admit I sounded like a tree-hugger. It wouldn't be the first time, either. I just acknowledge the "source" of what we have.

Agreed! But at the same time, I do believe we should preserve the "old growth" forests, as well. Not just for the ecology, but becuase we can't really replace them.

Yes, I agree. And no, I don't believe in "wealth redistibution", either. Another name for that is Communism. I'm more of a Socialist (after a fashion). On the other hand, I also don't agree with a corporate CEO buying a new Jag every year, or a Learjet every 5, while his employees down on the line (who are -also- helping make his company prosper) are working 2 jobs just to keep a hovel over their heads, or worse, paying someone in a 3rd-world country $2.00 a day, and a couple of chickens, just so they can have a bigger profit margin. However, this is not all the fault of the CEO, or the shareholders, but also the unions, who've stopped working for labor rights, and become politicians just wanting to line their pockets (And helped price American labor out of the market), as well as the consumer who demands cheaper goods, and the credit card companies who make it easy to get into debt, thus creating a false economy, and......well, I think you get my drift. It's all relative.

And you would not be the first to accuse me of over-thinking an issue.

Buddhism is not exactly modern philosophy. :p (Yes, I'm just being contrary)

There are a gazillion philosophies. Your own personal beliefs will dictate which one you chose to follow.

Doesn't everyone? :D


Oh and forgive me Asurai, but I gotta take one more shot at you: Philosophy is thinking about thinking.
It's closer to art and meditative religion than science. I mean, we're still asking the same questions we did thousands of years ago. Philosophy would have progressed a wee bit more if it were scientific and not a completely subjective thinking matter.

:P

Touche! :D

The ceremonies the Indians performed were just as meaningful to them, spiritually, as the many ceremonies that the catholics still perform today. I don't see much difference between the two, actually. It would be awfully rude to hunt an animal without giving thanks for it, no? Don't the christians say grace before meals, giving thanks for the bounty on their plates?

The part about the water spirits preventing boats from returning? Just laughable. If their boats went over the horizon and came back on a regular basis, they wouldn't have feared 'water spirits'. They did fear things that they'd never seen or weren't familiar with.



Wow, I never realized that the "savages" had a choice between laser surgery and shaman spells, back then!

Yabadabadoo! I never heard of them being likened to cave men before.Miserably poor? Didn't the Aztecs wear gold jewelry?Or maybe the author is suggesting, in his bigotted way, that it is better to be materialistic than to be able to make do with what nature provides and not ask more than your share?Greed is to be commended?

...The spiritual lifestyle of the Indians was anything but relaxed and simple. Indians lived "in a world of anciety, frustration, inadequacy, and vulnerability, in which the spirits control everything," writes anthropologist Peter Farb. Because they did not understand natural law, Indians lived in constant fear that fickle gods and spirits might take away the things they depended on for life: plants, animals, rain, even the sun.

Constant fear?No.



Serenity? Ha! Only if you consider it serene to worry about how you're going to stretch the few diapers you have til payday and pay bills + rent + food.

Not if they didn't need the lamp or engine.What good would it have been to have a lamp when they already had fire to see by?An engine would've only warned the buffalo of their presence and scared them off.

The indians only worked as hard as any other farmer to grow what they needed.Hell, they taught the pilgrims how to feed themselves, thereby insuring their own doom,unfortunately.What need did they have of wealth?They had everything they already needed. The original DIYers.

Western civilization's sanitation wasn't much better, if at all.

It's hardly paradise.Unless that's refering to all of the wonderful pollution we produce.



It's not yourself that I have a problem with, Asurai, just this author's thinly veiled supremisist leanings.It's quite obvious from his writing that he thinks indians were nothing more than drooling nit-wits afraid of their own shadows.Other than that, I have nothing useful to add to the other debate going on as I agree with points on boths sides.

:D

Plus, I've spent almost 2 hours on this response between changing and feeding kids and whatnot.If I don't leave off I'm going to get a headache.[/i]

Firstly, I'm curious as to what, in your case, is the difference between a Socialist and a Communist.

Secondly, I probably agree. A corporate CEO is entitled to make a substantial amount of profit more than the average Joe working the line, but some amounts are simply exploiting. After all, as you said, they help him to produce the wealth that the company obtains; for all of his planning and organization, he could make hardly a dime without good, hard workers. But at the same time, without the CEO producing wealth and making the company rich, the company wouldn't be creating the jobs that are necessary for the workers to live on. No profit for businessmen, no jobs for workers; no jobs for workers, no profit for businessmen. They're both interconnected to a very significant degree, so neither should screw the other over out of what they deserve.

The unions? The unions today suck.

Oh, no worries about that. I usually do the same, to the extent that most people get utterly sick of listening to me ramble on and on about the minor points and differences of things. (I believe that things are basically black-and-white, but it usually takes me a long, long time to get there.)

Sigh. Sadly true in most cases.

Not particularly, no, and you'll not find me justifying that particular bit of Roman civilization either. (Although sentencing murderers to fight each other to the death is cool.)

This is true, but it was the Western tradition, not the Indian knowledge of herbs, that gave rise to modern medicine. Most of the Western civilization in, say, 1492 was nothing more than potential, but its potential quickly turned into sciences far more advanced than anything else in the world.

And I'm grateful to the shamans for passing down the uses for, say, water boiled with marigold flowers. (I think that that was them, at least.)
It's cheap and easy, if slightly less effective than its Western equivalents.

You suck, Mael.

But beer is a Mediterranean thing.

I forgot to mention that those roman atrocities (as we perceive them today) were contemporary to the Apian Road, the aqueducts, military technology and strategic planning, the republic, the senate, roman law, literature and philosophy and all the things we like about them.

And Nietzsche was a mysoginist sunovabitch, but does it undermine his writings?

Blood and evolution somehow walk side by side even when the 1st doesn't contribute directly to the latters' growth nor is it always rationally justifiable.

The Arabian and subsequent Ottoman empires were ahead of the West in all forms of science and technology, but it still didn't prevent them from turning back on it and burying all their heritage in the sand (besides destroying vestiges of former civilizations - the pyramids survived out of sheer size).
I mean, look at them now.

Believe it: the dark ages can happen again. They happened before in the West and it's happening now in the Middle East.

As with individuals, it's not what you say, think and have. It's not what you're capable of. It's what you do with all of it that matters in the end.

Remember that shitty Armaggedon flick? The Ruskie goes: "My uncle is very important man. He make the chip that goes on tip of ICBM and finds Washington, NY and LA." or something to that effect.
Not exactly technology put to good use, huh?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have saved many lives, if you insist on seing it in that skewed a perspective. Has the US apologized for murdering civilians to save soldier's lives?
'Cause that's what it came down to. Machiavel was just plain wrong: the ends do NOT always justify the means.

Difference between Socialism and Communism?
Quite simple, really. In the original Marxist theories, it's sort of a foreplay to Communism.
Sound scary? Not really.

Theorettically, communism is a society without hierarchy and ruling government bodies. There is a state and it's composed of the territories inhabitants as well as the territory itself. Communism is a state of affairs where the workers control the means of production directly according to the communities needs and the state exists no more.

Do notice that our industrial/economy driven society pushes us to make shit we never needed and never really will, adding to the toll on natural resources.
Market laws practically force any "rational" CEO to overproduce or underproduce and make cutbacks in order to keep a stable market.

The value of a modern man's work is now subject to market speculation and pure unadultered greed instead of the actual value of what he produced in terms of its benefit to society.

Socialism is the acknowledgement that society can never immediately jump from one state of affairs (monarchy, dictatorshit, imperialism, republic, economy and what not) to Communism.
Therefore, a middle ground is needed = the state represented by a governing body elected by its peers (worker's unions).

Modern day socialism focuses on what the Left forgot when the Berlin Wall came down:

-People are still being exploited to the point of practical slavery, from Madagascar to India and red China.

-People are being repressed (often by people who refer to themselves as "socialist" - Castro and China again as well as many US backed "governments").

-People are being tortured and killed along with their whole family for speaking their mind on what they think is wrong, from Angola, to Nigeria, to Zimbabwe, the Whole Middle East.

Fuck, man, people are starving to death outside your country, and people are going hungry in yours, and don't you dare say they're all lazy bastards sucking on uncle Sam's tit, 'cause it ain't so, as some members here can personally vouch for.

There are still way too many voiceless people at home and abroad for us to pat ourselves on the back for our great achievments.
There is a real need for a real left. Evolution will go nowhere without a "roadmap". Like that one? :)

Unlike what you might have been led to believe, REAL socialism is not about censorship (you know, like you have in the states for "National Security Reasons" or in so called communist countries) of any kind. The last guy who tried to pass a law to allow for state secrets was thrown out on his arse. We were lied to for too long to ever allow it again. The difference between us and the US is that we are aware we were lied to.
It shames and embarasses us to admit it, but it's not like we can deny it.

Socialism today isn't about a single party system (in PT, the socialist party just won the elections and you can bet your ass no one here wants a single party system and it won't happen).
Socialism is about Society. It comes from social. Replace Social with Civil, and you'll get an idea. Communism is about community (yeah right).

I don't believe in communism because people aren't all the same, don't need the same and don't deserve the same.

But I AM a socialist because if I believe all people are NOT equal, I also believe they are all equal when they are born and HAVE THE RIGHT TO THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES in life.

The unassumed gay paedophiliac who was the rightwing party leader in the bypartisan government that just fell in PT, held the ministry of Defence and Sea, and put warships preventing the Women On Waves ship from docking in my country to give out free information about voluntary interruption of pregnancy (abortion), child planning and safe sex. I mean, not even fucking Ireland did that (one point for Sternn).

He also opposed the referee on Abortion, wants the Catholic church to be reinstated as official national religion and wants kids to sing the national anthem as something compulsory in all schools.

We were trampled under a nationalistic fascist dictatorship for 60 years, so no matter how natural the school anthem sounds to an american, it sends chills down the spine of everyone here if not sung or heard at a military, sports or official government event.

Sadly, we now associate these national symbols (like the national coat-of-arms that has been my avatar untill my ass took over), as they were imprisoned, tortured, killed or sent to death camps in african colonies.

You like your anthem? Good. Keep it.

Oh, did I mention the US republican party (or one of their associations and think tanks) congratulated the PT minister on the whole warship crap, and are now going to fund him his own rightwing political party after the incompetent and corrupted government he was part of fell?
I mean, the dude goes to France, puts on a blond wig and rents boys for fun - they call him Catherine Deneuve there.

Thanks America. Thanks for looking out for the interests of my country and its people... NOT!

But that's OK, 'cause we already agreed every government just pulls for his country.

And I do believe people get the governments they deserve.
That's why we got ourselves a new one. We deserved better and desperately need a better one. You guys probably don't know just how bad things are on this side of the Atlantic.

We are going hungry again.
Something that hadn't happened since this country was squeezed dry by the dictatorship in order to sell food to both nazis and allies in WW II, and bled dry to fight a few colonial wars in Africa (where my father died).

I hated a couple of things about Clinton on foreign policy (although I'll admit Madeleine Albright has more balls and integrity than the whole Bush entourage), but at least the world economy was running (as the global market is slave to the Dollar), but now...

Really now, for those of you in the US who work: has your life improved anything since 2000 as a result of your current governments actions? Are you wealthier? Are you better off? Are you safer?

Don't think about saying the recession hit when it did and that Bush just happened to be there, seen as the market went under because there are no business dealings without trust.
Trust was undermined by Enron, amongst other businesses who sponsored Bush his 1st term.
Is Bush to blame for this?

And Asurai, a fair days wages for a honest days work applies to both the factory floor worker as well as the CEO, but if they are incompetent, one gets sacked and the other is given a huge finantial compensation.

Guess which one.

When one of them is incompetent, the whole company suffers and might even go under or be bought out and dismembered (as it often does).

Guess which one.

Worker and CEO symbiotic?
Yeah right!
Tell that to your fellow americans who got laid off because a CEO decided that underpaid, exploited and mute workers in the Chinese communist regime was the best way to cut losses and increase earnings (When does the 101st arrive there to do some liberation?).
A CEO's only order of business is to generate wealth for the company and increase it or cut losses and file for bankrupcy (at any cost, workers included).

Welcome to the jungle, we have fun and games...

The world isn't black and white simply because there is no absolute black nor white.
It's all really just different shades of grey.
Sure, a lot of tones can easily be told apart, but many can't (unless you insist on seing things as you want to see them and not as they present themselves).

Oops. I raved on for a while, didn't I? Ah fuck it, tomorrow I'll just post a different angle of my arse and all will be forgotten (what an arrogant sod)! :?

Seriously now, sorry for going off on a rant.

Marx and the Communist Manefesto aside, Communism doesn't work. Supposedly everyone is equal, and everyone is supposed to get the same share of the money, no matter how hard you work, or how brilliant your idea. There's no reason to excell. There's no reason to -try-. Doesn't matter if you do a half-assed job, or a good job, it's going to be the same pay, either way.

On the other hand, Socialism -does- seem to work. At least in some European countries. Socialism is making sure everyone has the same -BASIC- benefits in medical care, shelter, food and education. What you do with that, is up to you. You can be lazy, or you can excell. You can still make a profit, or you can be dirt poor. You still have your -basic- needs covered. You have the option to do something about adding to the basic medical care, basic housing, etc. But you will not be without those needs covered.

It makes for higher taxes, but in the long run, it makes sound economical sense. Hungry, homeless, desperate people, are -dangerous-. History has shown over, and over, and over again, when the lower class is oppressed, and denied their basic needs, they -will- revolt. Every. Single. Time. People who do not have these basic needs covered, do not spend money on other things, because they have to figure out whether to eat, or pay rent. When there is no basic medical coverage, people will put off going to the doctor for something that can be taken care of easily, in the early stages, thus reducing the number of days missed due to illness, and basic medical coverage will also lessen the instances of people using the emergency room for a clinic, and then not being able to pay, thus raising the cost of medical care for everyone, and raising the cost of insurance. Productivity is up, so more money is being earned at the lower levels, and put back into the economy. Basic needs for food being covered means less loss from theft, and better nutrition, which also ties back into health and productivity. Basic shelter covered, means fewer people on the streets and in shelters, and can reduce violent crime (note I did not say eliminate it).

BINGO! I see no reason to make that CEO live off the same wages the line worker does. There is education, and skills involved that create the environment and situation that allows the line worker to have a job in the first place. Its all reletive, though. Without the CEO, the line worker would not have a job. Without the line worker making the product, the CEO wouldn't have any profits.

But seriously, if those CEOs who are getting paid obscene amounts of money (including several million when the shareholders decide that CEO isn't making a good enough profit for them...I mean, get real! Where is the incentive to make that company shine, when you know you'll get a nice, shiney golden umbrella when you get canned?) don't need THAT much, and if -some- of that were redistributed down the line, there would be no need of Unions, nor would there be any need of working two jobs, or to export our jobs to a 3rd world country. Everyone would go away happy, and our economy would kick ass.

They're still trying to cash in on the good they did a couple generations ago, and they ain't doing it. At this point, the unions are nothing more than dead weight sucking the life out of American Industry.

Of course! After all, if you consider something from all angles, and argue your side while covering all those angles, who can argue with you?

Well, except someone else who overthinks stuff. :p

Correction....Many of us here in the US are well aware that we've been lied to.

Mael, your rant was well thought-out, and made very good points. In fact, I read the entire rant to my fiance, and he agreed with everything you said (except the part I corrected above).

Thanks babe, but I suspect your post is something like KY jelly being applied on my ass (see avatar :D ) before Binkie reads my post and buttfucks me for it.

Binkie, if you do stumble onto my post, lemme tell you I'm well aware of how one-sided and subjective it all is (not to say flatout Sternnish), and am also aware there are quite a few faults in my reasonings (I know I had a lot better arguements to tie Bush to the recession, the Tsunami and the killing of Jesus if possible :roll: ), but I did it on purpose to provoke discussion. Once more, sorry for ranting and derailing the thread somewhat.

Brilliant post, Mr. M. It's almost redundant to say I agree with all of it. If all socialists were as clear and incisive as you, the world would be ours. Well, I wish.

But, fuck, this always happens with any interesting political thread. I take some days off, and when I check back in, the thread has grown by several pages, and I've totally lost my angle on it. But that's all well and good, it's been an interesting read.

Maybe I'll get back into this later, I can't focus right now.

And what have they ever given
us IN RETURN?
XERXES
The aqueduct?
REG
What?
XERXES
The aqueduct.
REG
Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.
MASKED COMMANDO
And the sanitation!
STAN
Oh yes ... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
REG
All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two
things that the Romans HAVE done ...
MATTHIAS
And the roads ...
REG
(sharply) Well YES OBVIOUSLY the roads ... the roads go without saying.
But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads ...
ANOTHER MASKED COMMANDO
Irrigation ...
OTHER MASKED VOICES
Medicine ... Education ... Health
REG
Yes ... all right, fair enough ...
COMMANDO NEARER THE FRONT
And the wine ...
GENERAL
Oh yes! True!
FRANCIS
Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
MASKED COMMANDO AT BACK
Public baths!
STAN
AND it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
FRANCIS
Yes, they certainly know how to keep order ...

... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

REG
All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine
and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater
system and baths and public order ... what HAVE the Romans done for US?
XERXES
Brought peace!
REG

What!? Oh ... Peace, yes ... shut up!


This is something that seems true no matter what. While I'd have a hard time living like my ancestors did, I can't find it in myself to praise the people that brought all of my modern conveniences to me. It seems like a double standard, no? I do kinda feel like the people in 'Life of Brian' at times. You don't like the way things are done, but you benefit from them being done, none-the-less.

You mean the Great Depression? Yeah, that could probably happen again. People are even laying odds that it will. I don't think it will though, but I'm being optomistic.

Yes, actually. I believe it was when Clinton was in office that we went over and officially apologized for that. I don't know if they ever apologized for provoking us by laying waste to Pearl Harbor first, though. It was a shameful thing to have done. Murdering people that are known to be civilians is wrong, period. The US should never have done it.



I'll comment on the rest tomorrow.