Al Gore Wins the Presidency!

[Comrade Anklebiter]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Communism communism, communism communism communism. Communism? Communism, communism? Comm, unisom.

Communism!

Well here's the thing, instead of taking over the means of the production, why don't we skim off a little bit more of the results ?

Well, you can certainly try. And I'll support it. Marx only knows I've been to more liberal-called "Stop the Cuts! Tax the Rich!" rallies than probably two-thirds of you added together. But I don't think it will work.

Communism!

[thejeff]

LazarX wrote:

meatrace wrote:

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Of course, it would seem that those two arguments would cancel out to a certain extent. If the minimum wage goes up, then the low wage workers will get less benefits, but their actual total income (wages+benefits) won't go up as much, thus there will be less economic stimulus.

here's where your comparison fails. when workers transit from low wage to a higher wage the total translates to more consumer spending as opposed to higher WIC checks. More consumer spending means more manufacturing and more jobs. which feeds into higher growth.

Not if the difference in wages was being made up by the WIC checks. If it was, then consumer spending doesn't grow.

Spending of welfare money is still spending, just like spending of wage income.
Now, for those making minimum wage, but not getting benefits or only benefits they don't lose with the increased wage, they'll actually have more money to spend.

WIC spending is straight survival spending. And again people living on the WIC level are generally also forgoing a lot of basic necessities as well as what would be considered luxury items such as movie entertainment, recreation etc. If I'm making a few more bucks per hour, I might take a trip to the movies once every other week instead of four times a year or less. It's not only how much you buy, but what you buy that impacts the economy.

And having LIVED under an extreme low wage economy, I'd still rather have my working poor wage.

Youre not understanding. A wage boost will make them intelligible for WIC, they'll spend money from their raise on groceries that WIC used to cover, and hypothetically no net stimulus.

It's still a win for society over all. WIC spending is taxpayer funded. Non-wic spending is funded by the worker themselves. And a raise that's meaningful will still put most people ahead. You're also leaving out one important fact. Paying for your...

Oh absolutely. It's still a good thing, for either reason. You just can't claim both reasons at the same time.

To the extent that it cuts welfare spending, it won't boost the economy.

[Andrew R]

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Communism communism, communism communism communism. Communism? Communism, communism? Comm, unisom.

Communism!

Well here's the thing, instead of taking over the means of the production, why don't we skim off a little bit more of the results ?

Well, you can certainly try. And I'll support it. Marx only knows I've been to more liberal-called "Stop the Cuts! Tax the Rich!" rallies than probably two-thirds of you added together. But I don't think it will work.

Communism!

Why don't all of you that want communism band together and pool your resources and show us that even a couple hundred of you can pull it off for a few years. I know why, most want someone else's money and labor, not to give freely of theirs.....

[Comrade Anklebiter]

I've got $200 and a used Towncar. Anyone else want to throw in?

[Gaberlunzie]

Yes, just like in a world with communistic ownership models it would be possible for capitalists to bunch together.

Hint: you cant have societal islands with different ownership structures in a world that is otherwise dominated by something else.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Also, stream-of-consciousness-wise, me and my local comrade buddy met this kid, last summer I think, who was all up on his Krugman and Richard Wolff and he's probably reading Picketty now, but anyway, he'd been reading Jacobin and whatnot and was all like, "But, communism, really? The dictatorship of the proletariat?" And me and my local comrade, in our workboots and crappy company-provided workpants nodded our heads enthusiastically in the Dunkin Donuts lobby, and were like, "Yeah, it's the only way."

We recruited his younger brother last night. Huzzah! Now the NH branch of the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) has seven three dozen members!

Forward to socialism!
Vive le Galt!

[thejeff]

Gaberlunzie wrote:

Yes, just like in a world with communistic ownership models it would be possible for capitalists to bunch together.

Hint: you cant have societal islands with different ownership structures in a world that is otherwise dominated by something else.

Though there have been (at least semi-)successful attempts. Some communes. Worker owned cooperative businesses and the like.

[Krensky]

I'm sure the football headed one knows the right term, but there were several successful Jewish communes in NYC for a while. I thought kibbutz was the term, but I seem to be mistaken.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Sorry, I don't. I know Oneida, the Mormons, the Grange movement, and the various socialist immigrant workers insurance societies and whatnot, but, alas, I don't know the term you're looking for.

Forverts!

Added wikipedia page for learning!

[Calybos1]

Communism has been fairly successful in China, but I wouldn't want us to adopt their approach.

Socialism, on the other hand, has worked great in pretty much every social democracy in the world. We need to move the U.S. in that direction ASAP.

Plus, it would provide countless hours of free entertainment as foaming reactionaries who don't understand the difference between socialism and communism rant and rave about Stalin.

[GregH]

Calybos1 wrote:

Socialism, on the other hand, has worked great in pretty much every social democracy in the world. We need to move the U.S. in that direction ASAP.

Plus, it would provide countless hours of free entertainment as foaming reactionaries who don't understand the difference between socialism and communism rant and rave about Stalin.

You do realise that its the existence of those "foaming reactionaries" which pretty much dooms socialism from ever taking hold in the US.

(Or rather, the general public reaction to said reactionaries - the fear that they are right.)

[Calybos1]

Yes, but they won't be with us forever.

"All social progress is made, not by convincing reactionaries that they are wrong--this is impossible--but by simply waiting for them to die off. Then the next generation grows up wondering what all the fuss was about."

[Andrew R]

Calybos1 wrote:

Communism has been fairly successful in China, but I wouldn't want us to adopt their approach.

Socialism, on the other hand, has worked great in pretty much every social democracy in the world. We need to move the U.S. in that direction ASAP.

Plus, it would provide countless hours of free entertainment as foaming reactionaries who don't understand the difference between socialism and communism rant and rave about Stalin.

Or you could stop trying to wreck america and go to one of these socialist utopias you mention. We won't stop you from leaving i promise

[Freehold DM]

Andrew R wrote:

Calybos1 wrote:

Communism has been fairly successful in China, but I wouldn't want us to adopt their approach.

Socialism, on the other hand, has worked great in pretty much every social democracy in the world. We need to move the U.S. in that direction ASAP.

Plus, it would provide countless hours of free entertainment as foaming reactionaries who don't understand the difference between socialism and communism rant and rave about Stalin.

Or you could stop trying to wreck america and go to one of these socialist utopias you mention. We won't stop you from leaving i promise

calybos, the entertainment has arrived.

[Scott Betts]

Andrew R wrote:

Or you could stop trying to wreck america and go to one of these socialist utopias you mention.

Seriously?

He's in no more danger of wrecking America than you are of improving it.

[BigNorseWolf]

Andrew R wrote:

Or you could stop trying to wreck america and go to one of these socialist utopias you mention.

And subject to your foreign policy? No way.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it, I don't care, as long as we smash capitalism.

[Calybos1]

Fine by me. Democracy is vital to America; capitalism is optional.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

I should probably agree with you, Comrade Calybos, but, alas, it would be hypocrisy. I've already committed myself in another thread to:

"Libertarian, authoritarian, I don't give a f%!!, let's smash capitalism!!!"

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Chris Hedges accused of plagiarism

I already posted it in the books thread, but I felt the need to politroll a bit more.

Apparently, Hedges is being accused of plagiarizing a four-part piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer exposing the rottenness of the Democratic Party machine in Camden, NJ. Hedges published the purportedly plagiarized piece in The Nation and then, later, as my favorite chapter (because it was all about exposing the rottenness of the Democratic Party machine in Camden, NJ) of Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt which he did with comic book dude, Joe Sacco.

God, I hate the Democratic Party.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

(See, Comrade Turner? This thread is still going.)

[MagusJanus]

I hate both parties and think the nation would be better if we tied the leaders of both to a series of stakes and had a massive bonfire.

But, sadly, we have to deal with them.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Also, stream-of-consciousness-wise, me and my local comrade buddy met this kid, last summer I think, who was all up on his Krugman and Richard Wolff and he's probably reading Picketty now, but anyway, he'd been reading Jacobin and whatnot and was all like, "But, communism, really? The dictatorship of the proletariat?" And me and my local comrade, in our workboots and crappy company-provided workpants nodded our heads enthusiastically in the Dunkin Donuts lobby, and were like, "Yeah, it's the only way."

We recruited his younger brother last night. Huzzah! Now the NH branch of the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) has seven three dozen members!

Forward to socialism!
Vive le Galt!

Last Friday, we were peddling socialist newspapers on the mean streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, when a young dude in a uniform for a locally popular pharmacy/convenience store stopped at the table, introduced himself and said "I think capitalism is the root of all evil today."

He joined last night.

Vive le Galt!

Lowell, btw, is one of the weirder cities I have ever peddled socialist newspapers in. Things that have happened to me at the table that have never happened before in twenty years of on-again, off-again communist activism: being asked if we were handing out "bags of weed and cds" (no); watching a woman go directly from our table into a pick up truck to perform sexual favors for money; elderly black gentleman telling us that he's been watching communists on the streets since 1973 and why isn't the world a better place yet?; an inebriated middle-aged white guy giving us shiznit about raising the minimum wage to $15 and then getting a call on his cellphone: "Oh, wait a second, it's my friend, blah blah blah, he's a state senator, let's see what he has to say. Hey blah blah blah, how's your mother, how's your father? Hey, I'm out on the street with some wackadoos who want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour, isn't that crazy? What? It's good? What'd you say? It helps the economy? Uh, hold on a second." He then apologized and told us to keep up the good work.

Also, I don't think I've ever been in a city where none of the hipsters were white. They're all various shades of brown that I can't identify. Part Latino, part Tamil, part Arabic? What? Also, all the Cambodian girls dress like they're goths.

I even stepped into the local gaming store and only two people in there were white.

[Comrade Anklebiter]

Oh, I forgot!

Some time back, before I changed shifts and stepped down as a Teamster steward, I told a pretty funny story about XXXXX, a worker who called a meeting with management to ask them if they understood such concepts as "ethics" or "morality." (Hee hee! That story always makes me laugh.)

I ran into him and his family on the mean streets of Lowell about a month ago. "You know, Doodlebug, in my country you'd be shot in the streets for this." "Where are you from, XXXXX?" "Guatemala." "Yep, we'd be shot in the streets."

He then proceeded to look over our materials, found a book on Marx and started rattling off the components parts of dialectical materialism: "Quantity becomes quality, the negation of the negation, unity of opposites...." !!!

He, alas, didn't want to join.

[Kryzbyn]

Goblins even get shot in the streets!

[FuelDrop]

By the power vested in me by this giant bald bird, the president shall not be the the shiniest of two turds!

[lizzi]

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