The interview, the ONE interview, that Bezmenov had was with a John Bircher. Doesn't that just make you question his credibility and your credulity - just a little?
@juris_imprudent: Unless you are suggesting that the interviewer falsified the quote, it doesn't influence my view of the quote one bit. The guy said what he said. Attacking the messenger is false logic.
As I read it, and I've researched Bezmenov just a little, he believed in an "international Communist conspiracy" because he was part of it, being stationed in India to do exactly what he described in his interview - ideological subversion.
The Birchers also believed in that "international Communist conspiracy," so no, I'm not surprised that he was interviewed by a Bircher. They were probably the only ones who would listen to him - and give him an outlet. Bezmenov did later write a number of books under the name Tomas David Schuman
Was Bezmenov paranoid?
Look around you today.
As Stephen says, the message is not necessarily tainted by the source.
I'm beginning to wonder if he was paranoid enough.
The point is that Bezmenov sold/told his conspiracy tale to a group that couldn't eat that puppy chow up fast enough. As a counter-intel op, what could be more perfect than to provide the perfect foil to the Birchers.
I suggest you read Drucker on why education has been circling the drain. That is a perfectly adequate explanation without requiring international communist conspiracies. Considering I don't believe anyone here is a "9/11 Troofer", the lack of skepticism for a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy to sap our vital essences does surprise me.
As a former Intel type, what Bezmenov says is consistent with internal Soviet Era policies, tactics and attitudes of which I have personal knowledge.
I think that the pubilcly acknowledged polices of the NKVD, KGB, etc constitue a confirmed multi-generational (70 years covers multiple generations correct?) conspiracy to "sap our vital essences".
Now, the fact they would have liked to accomplish those objectives, does not necessiarly mean they were a major (or any) factor in the degradation of our education system.
Disinformation operations existed and I've seen the results show up in major media as "confirmed" stories. What impact they had compared to home grown "good intentions" from Useful Idiots is what is debatable.
...the lack of skepticism for a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy to sap our vital essences does surprise me.
You've not been reading, then.
It's NOT that we believe in "a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy." What we, or at least I believe is that the Beautiful Lie was planted and found fertile ground many decades ago. No conspiracy has been necessary, past the initial groundwork. That particular weed has grown with very little outside help necessary, because we - just as Bezmenov noted - haven't torn it out by the roots. It has, as he said, spread beyond their wildest dreams.
This may be the most embarrassing thing I have ever written — and looking back on my writing, there is a lot of competition for that dubious distinction — but when I became a reporter, it was almost a holy calling. We really believed we were doing good. We informed the public and helped make democracy work. We exposed wrongdoing wherever we found it. We reported without fear or favor. As a columnist, I tried to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I warned you that this would be embarrassing. We loved what we did, and we did it with passion. We were proud. We felt — I am just going to go ahead and say it — honorable. There were wrongdoers. Fakers, plagiarists, those with private agendas who wished to slant the news. When found, they were often fired. Even when they were subjected to a lesser punishment, their sins were made clear as a lesson to the rest of us. (At a few papers, those who wished to slant the news were publishers or editors who wished to please their publishers. They were rarely fired. But their numbers were few.) The lines were not muddy. You played it straight. Even if you were a columnist and allowed to publish your opinions, you were expected to be fair and accurate. At the end of the day, you often went home feeling good. And when people asked what you did, you replied with pride, not shame. It was, as I said, almost a holy calling. (And often accompanied by a vow of poverty.)
THESE are the people that the Beautiful Lie reaches. These are the people who convince themselves that what they are doing is good, and pure, and right, and that the Constitution is an outdated document that hinders our government from helping people, making us all equal and providing "social justice." These are the people who choose public education as a career, seeing that, too as their job to train the next generation to "make democracy work." It is their "holy calling" as well.
Those of us not so affected by the Beautiful Lie go out and get jobs, start businesses, go bowling on Fridays, tinker with our cars.
But the beleivers in the Beautiful Lie want to save us from ourselves. It's their crusade.
No multi-generational conspiracy is needed beyond parents passing their belief in the Beautiful Lie on to their children.
But now, as I said, it's been going on so long that we have a supersaturated solution, and such crystallizations as JournoList can spontaneously occur. Like-minded people are available in droves to form the memberships of SEIU and ACORN, or the faculties of major universities where it's just wonderful to be "diverse" as long as you think like they do.
Go back and read The George Orwell Daycare Center. What "conspiracy" was responsible for that?
"But the beleivers in the Beautiful Lie want to save us from ourselves. It's their crusade."
There is just nothing novel about that, nor was it the result of outside forces planting a noxious weed in our shining garden on the hill.
Dewey preceded Gramsci. Bezmenov proceeds from Gramsci, not Dewey. You've traced the trajectory from Dewey to where we are today. Bezmenov is irrelevant.
Or, look at it another way. There was nothing communist about the vast majority of Progressives, and many were virulently anti-communist. You can get all the dysfunction without any of the conspiracy.
"No conspiracy has been necessary, past the initial groundwork."
Uh-huh, because you also quote Bezmenov: "This time [the] subverter does not care about your ideas and the patterns of your consumption; whether you eat junk food and get fat and flabby doesn’t matter any more. This time—and it takes only from two to five years to destabilize a nation"
Which btw was in 1985, right? So, two things: 1) [the] subverter - I think Bezmenov is talking about an active participant, at the very least the Twilight Zone aliens playing with the power grid and not some distant observer, and 2) 1985 - that would be 25 years ago, or 20 years after his projected timeframe and we haven't quite followed the pattern as predicted. If we were so ready to be toppled over, I would think a desperate and dying Soviet regime would've pulled the trigger before it's final collapse.
Remember, I'm not disagreeing with the existance of the rot - just the cause and the particular narrative of its progression from IMO a dubious source.
Well, now the comment system has eaten one of my comments.
Let's try again:
The reason I keep quoting Bezmenov is because he is one of the few people who accurately describes what has been happening, regardless of its origin or intent, and what it can (not will, but can) lead to if not opposed.
Yes, Dewey precedes Gramsci, but both are preceded by the Beautiful Lie, and both advanced it in their own way.
You state: "If we were so ready to be toppled over, I would think a desperate and dying Soviet regime would've pulled the trigger before it's final collapse." I think it can be successfully argued that by the time the Soviet regime finally realized it was dying, it was too late to pull the trigger.
What I've been arguing in here is that the Beautiful Lie was planted about a century ago, was watered and fertilized, and has spread, as Bezmenov notes, more wildly than anyone could have imagined. Bezmenov argues that some trigger could be pulled to switch from demoralization to destabilization, but my argument is that at some point the entire system becomes unsustainable, unstable on its own, and destabilization is the result, followed by crisis.
And you know, you should never let a good crisis go to waste.
We have reached a point, I argue, where we have a supersaturated solution: enough people now are - to use Bezmenov's word - demoralized (unreachable by fact and logic) that group organization of these people can occur, in effect, spontaneously. The communication technologies of today make this possible and nearly effortless, as evidenced by JournoList, etc.
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't happen only on the Left, but they're the ones with the common urge to save us all from ourselves. Wanting to be left the hell alone isn't exactly a collectivist position.
You object to me quoting Bezmenov not for what he says, but for who he says it to. I don't care who he said it to. He accurately described what was going on. It's more than possible he was wrong about why it was so successful, but his observation that it was successful was correct.
"It's more than possible he was wrong about why it was so successful, but his observation that it was successful was correct."
Actually I object based on the premise that it was a deliberate act, either by internal or external forces opposed to what we consider good. That keeps it fundamentally a conspiracy, directed by some malevolent entity/group. That is too Manichean a perspective for my taste.
I would also say that this entire line of thought contains nothing that de Toqueville did not observe/comment upon.
Leftist/collectivists are simply modern day Hobbesians. We are Lockians. Does that help put in context why I don't get my knickers twisted up about Gramsci et al?
And we see why homeschooling and, too a lesser extent, private and charter school strike such fear in the demoralized. Just imagine, a kids growing up without the constant indoctrination of their peers! Kids that are, on the average, taught American principles! Frightening. Might just start to undo the damage done.
To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.
I'd put it "in favor and in the interests of liberty," but can't argue otherwise. In any case...workin' on it (had to start with myself, which was chore enough, and not done yet).
These traitors in the media aren't the only ones who've made a list.
They need a refresher course in 18th century history, Kevin, and I think you are the perfect candidate for, at the very least, developing the syllabus, if not delivering the material in your...distinct manner.
Seriously, these asshats simply do not care about that stuff. All they see is the bright, shiny lights of what the promise holds, and not a single eye is cast upon the realities of what it might take to achieve those promises. Hint; they'd be willing to use you and me as the grease for their socialist wheels...but you already know that.
Cue the Designated Village Idiot in five, four, three...
Before we get carried away with the "traitor" bit, remember that Bezmenov's main point was that most of the people so programmed are acting uncritically and unconsciously.
They genuinely believe that what they are doing is best for society. They deserve our opposition and our pity, but not hatred.
Hatred should be reserved for the relative few who know precisely what they are doing.
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate -- and quickly. -- Robert Anson Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
"From a distance, one's adversaries seemed as fiends, but with a closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one's own. Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot."
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
_A Canticle for Liebowitz_ (1959)
I think, therefore I am not as educated to be, the library is open go read. I do think Home Schooling was a step in the correct direction, but solid families can get around the problems in current education, if they turn off the television. Most of 'what American Knows' comes from the idiot box, too sad. NYT writes about Appleseed Project, and misses the point but it comes from the same dissatisfaction with the America around and the what we want to be. How else would there be a Tea Party movement?
As I'm sure you have noticed, a big chunk of the disagreement between left and right is what they consider a valid line of argument at all. And a lot of the difference, I believe, lies in "critical thinking", which I (and I suspect many others here) consider a fatally flawed concept.
"Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true."
"Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness."
While I have long thought this idea to be fatally flawed, I have often found difficulty illustrating precisely why I consider it so. I think perhaps I've found an answer.
Suppose your family owns a mountain in central Colorado. There is a long history of gold and silver mining in the area, and your family's mountain is said to contain one of the richest veins of gold in the state, although the mine has been considered "played out" for well over a century. Why? Because at depth, the vein is encased in some seriously tough rock, which is surrounded in turn by rock that is "rotten" and comes apart disturbingly easily. Miners gave up because they couldn't get the gold out without blasting, and couldn't blast without bringing the entire mountain down on their heads.
Well you don't know anything about mining or gold, but you do know that mining techniques have changed a lot in a century and a half, so you hire a geologist to check things out for you. He says yes, it is possible to mine the gold, but the cost of the techniques (not to mention catastrophic insurance coverage on the miners) would make it one of the least profitable mines in these mountains.
Now... is there any question that this situation is unfair? Your family is having to deal with risks and expenses that no one else in the country is putting up with.
So according to the idea of "critical thinking"...
the geologist's report should not be accepted as true, because it's unfair. Possibly he should be sued for damages, or at the very least shouldn't get paid for his assessment, since he chose to submit an "untrue" report. Or,
you shouldn't have to pay higher insurance costs to reflect your miners' increased hazard, because that's unfair. Or,
you shouldn't have to use special (and expensive) techniques no one else has to use, because that's unfair. Or...
See? Once you stop thinking analytically and start thinking critically, not only do you immediately throw the "it IS" of reality out the window in favor of the "it should be" of fairness, you also (as a direct result of that) immediately swallow the assumption that it's acceptable to insult the integrity of someone's work, or require someone else to cover your increased risk instead of covering it yourself, or even put people at risk of death by mine collapse, whatever, anything and everything can be freely sacrificed on the alter of your sense of fairness.
In short, "critical thinking" assumes that all of our mothers were deliberately lying to us when they explained that life isn't fair. Critical thinking assumes that either "unfair"="inaccurate" or "unfair"="doesn't actually exist at all".
I think this explains much of why Mark and most of the rest of us have so much trouble understanding one another. We (on both sides) keep claiming as truth things that our target readers consider fantasy at best, if not deliberate falshood.
"We (on both sides) keep claiming as truth things that our target readers consider fantasy at best, if not deliberate falshood."
To quote myself, I have stated here many times that reality is what it is regardless of whether or not you like it, and that any analysis you make of what reality is must square with ALL the relevant facts, else it cannot be correct.
To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts.
Actually, the reason why we have trouble understanding one another is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me. DJ, for example, is not capable of this. He will never EVER admit that any whiff of liberal/progressive/ideology has worked even though it has at various times in our country's history. Equally as stringent, he will never EVER admit his own ideology is flawed. I have seen GOF, Kevin, Mastiff, and juris all admit flaws. I have yet to see DJ, Unix, and many others here admit any significant error...errors with results that can plainly be seen. An example of this would be his clinging to the CRA as a major cause of our financial problems even though reality (meaning the thinking economic world) knows this to be propaganda.
This would be why DJ and some others here do the Rove and claim that I can't admit significant error. Speaking of the Rove, here's another one...
To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts.
DJ, that is you in a nutshell. You'd imagine reality through the lens of an Ayn Rand fantasy. It's not. You bemoan the "gubmint" and yet it's the very same government that allows you a way of life that is filled with freedom. No doubt the government is flawed like any other institution but it is decidedly not this bizarre reality that we see here in yet another Bezmenov post. Kevin, if Bezmenov was right and you are comfortable with his theories, why the constant need to continue defending the argument? The fact is that juris is spot on right with his analysis. Your views, as well as others in this thread are consistent with my avatar on here, which is John Birch material.
Here is a simple fact for all of you: our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office. It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways. We pulled ourselves out the worst Depression in our history, defeated the greatest army the world had ever seen, built the national highway system that drastically improved our economy, and DEFEATED the threat of communism around the world. Our economic system and way of life proved to the world that "Welfare Capitalism" works and socialism does not. We have found a way to strike a balance between private and public interests. It's not perfect all of the time but we certainly have fared better than nearly every country in the world.
So, FDR (a president that brought us closer to socialism than ever before) did not lead us to the Bezmenov reality. We turned out just fine and private industry is still humming along...largely ignored by our gouvernement par sédimentation (a point of Kevin's that I do think is more valid today than ever before). So, I ask you all this question: how is it that we came so close to socialism under FDR and yet defeated communism and created massive private wealth? If Bezmenov was right, wouldn't we all be wearing brown shirts right now?
As you continue to believe Bezmenov's drivel, you prove that--honestly--you are not about solutions but about attempting to win an argument. And a seriously flawed and moderatly paranoid one at that.
is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me.
Yet you insist that corporations use force. Or every lunatic that pops up in the news is immediately filtered into a libertarian/conservative/Tea Party right-wing-nut.
I will grant you the "good capitalism" conversion. You haven't really decided what should replace it, but at least you recognize you were only nostalgic for an extremely unusual (and non reproducible) period.
My goodness. Who could have guessed that you would respond, yet again, with one of your Standard Responses? This time, it's your Standard Response #9, the "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response.
You've seen it before, haven't you, teacher boy?
A little boy stands on the playground during recess, posing with an air of faux sophistication, his arms folded, nose in the air, eyes closed, and head turned slightly aside. He says to the urchin who dared malign his perfection, "I know you are, but what am I?" He repeats it, over and over and over, no matter what he hears.
This time, your Standard Response #9 was in response to my comment to Grumpy:
"To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts."
Yet again, you are hoist on your own petard. Yet again, you have been bitten in the ass by your habit of the Quick Response of the Moment. Yet again, you have failed to consider the unintended consenquences of your own words. Y'see, little boy, your comment has validated my statement.
Don't see it, do you?
Your modus operandi is evasion. You simply ignore or deny anything that does not square with your view of what reality ought to be, which is, in the context of your comment, that everyone should bow to the magnificence of your towering intellect and accept that what you say is true simply because you say it is true.
Yet again, I point out that you are dealing with grownups here, and you will not succeed by imitating that little boy on the playground.
>Actually, the reason why we have trouble understanding one another is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me.
This is a trend for you isn't it? You make a declaration about how wonderful your thought processes are, and then you actually seem to think that your own (hugely inflated, btw) estimation of your capabilities, by itself, actually counts for something. Here's another life hint Mark - people with high capabilities don't need to annouce how wonderful those capbilities are, beause said capabilities speak for themselves when they are used. Your demonstration of those capabilities has been.. less than compelling.
>Here is a simple fact for all of you: our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office. It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways.
I think this sentence is a better explanation for why we have trouble understanding one other. You continually speak utter nonsense. A "simple fact" would be that 1+1=2, or that TCP port 80 is the most common port that HTTP traffic goes over. There is nothing simple about the claim that our government was quite robust over some time period. Robust in what way? General stability? Fiscal policy? Regulatory certainty? How and why does this robustness translate into succeeding "in many ways"? You are a typical poseur Mark - you try to talk big to mask the precious lack of understanding beneath. Add a dash of narcissistic self worship, and you end up with a creature who's reality is .. whatever he wants it to be. For the nth time Mark - words mean things, and you don't get to redefine them at your whim.
>At least I'm around to refudiate you.
The only thing you have ever convincingly "refudiated" (ha! a Palin dig! Good one!) is the notion that you possess a basic level of competence.
It's not simply a conversion. It's a recognition that Reagan had the forsight to see the shift in our society (similar to the one that went from agrarian to manufacturing) and do something constructive about it that produced definable results that were clearly successful. Much of the ideology that is preached on here has failed to do that. In fact, Greg Mankiw, well known economist and Bush Admin guru, spoke in one of his books about Smith's "invisible hand" and how it "worked its magic." Imagine if a liberal or progressive had used such terms to describe solutions to problems. Or me. It would be derided with impunity. Long diatribes about unicorn farts and fantasy land would unfold in various threads across Cult land. Bruce Bartlett was correct: the shameless idealist of today is not a liberal but a conservative...a blood brother to the hippies of the 60s...ideas that have no practical application to reality...nor any business in reality like your quotes from Bezmenov.
Corporations do use force to get what they want, juris. Why you don't see this is inexplicable.
spoke in one of his books about Smith's "invisible hand" and how it "worked its magic." Imagine if a liberal or progressive had used such terms to describe solutions to problems.ed
Mark, have you considered Scientology?
Right now, if you converted, it would be an improvement in your mental function.
You do realize that you just demonstrated - again - how utterly unread you are on the subjects you discuss and claim authority on?
No, you never do, no matter how bloody blatant your blathering is.
As it goes, Smith's Invisible Hand is far more than what you're insinuating, and it's backed up with definitions and explainations.
You would just say it, and then ignore any and all requests for explaination of what you're talking about. Smith certainly did not do that.
Smith was using allegory to explain how these things end up working. He was writing for people with no formal schooling.
They understood him.
You can't.
And you defend the educational system here and attack us for being skeptical of it.
Just like Douglass. A man born in slavery, who taught himself to read and write. And your system produces students (and teachers) who need footnotes ... because they don't know the words he's using.
Perhaps because you still haven't been able to actually produce a case of such? Centerpoint/RMR was a massive fail - even your fellow lefties saw that. No better with the chemical companies in Louisiana, or debt collectors in Minn. Not once have you been able to provide an example of a corporation that was a law unto itself, that could use force with impunity.
Perhaps because it is a religious belief for you, and like some zealots who see God everywhere, so it is with corporate force and you.
I have yet to see DJ, Unix, and many others here admit any significant error...errors with results that can plainly be seen.
But you cannot point out. Clearly. Without redefining words.
I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology.
Which is more? 22 or 15?
Has the FCC been made smaller since Reagan?
What's the definition of verbatim?
our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office.
What changed when Reagan took office? See the FCC comment above. I'll wait for you to change your mind with the facts.
It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways.
You presume that we succeeded, because we were "robust" - hell, Mark,have you considered that maybe that robustness was the subjugation of minorities? After all, civil rights didn't seriously start changing the mechanics of the system until the later 1970s....
That's not my belief, by the way (But there is some more than cursory academic work on that subject, actually. Basically, under the "Peter Principle" concept, minorities in a caste system are always kept under their level of incompetence, and thus there's decrease in production when the caste is removed...) But it's every bit as valid as what you just said, and you can't argue against it. (No, really, you can't. Please don't try.)
We pulled ourselves out the worst Depression in our history
No, we didn't. The spending of FDR was digging the hole deeper and deeper - until WWII. The "war spending", the removal of almost all men aged 20-30 from the work force, and the industrial ramp-up for the war - as well as selling goods and arms at to those at gunpoint did. After the war, we had the only industrial capacity that wasn't bombed to shit and back.
As usual, your understanding earns a failing grade.
defeated the greatest army the world had ever seen
When did we fight the Red Army?
built the national highway system that drastically improved our economy, and DEFEATED the threat of communism around the world.
Defeated? You sure? You don't even know what it *is*. How would you know if we defeated it?
We defeated the Russian economy, sure. But there's plenty of threat of communism - even if you don't know what it is.
As to my admitting error...
I know you haven't ever considered it, but maybe, just maybe, I haven't had to admit error, because I know what words mean, and thus my ideas are better thought out?
22. 15. Which is more, Mark? Which one did you claim is more?
Unix, before I toddle off to bed, two points. First, your slightly unintelligible response serves only to "beat me" in "the argument." It doesn't actually address any of the core facts of my points that I presented. Second, it completely fails to recognize the obvious. There has been an unbelievable amount of wealth that has been created in this country and continues to be created every day. This could not be done if your assertions (shared by many here) was true....that FDR, Obama etc created or are propagating a socialist state bent on destroying private wealth with power concentrated in the "gubmint." If that is the case, why have we seen such an increase in private wealth? Or an increased stratification in wealth?
No, Unix, the numbers prove you to be wrong. The image below is courtesy of Ed Wolff and the Fed analysis that were the basis of the Citigroup document I put on here awhile back with the bonus of being updated to today.
So, let's see an example of critical thinking regarding your ideology. I've already offered one of mine.
It doesn't actually address any of the core facts of my points that I presented.
On the contrary, it demolishes your main point.
I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology.
And I proved you were not.
Second, it completely fails to recognize the obvious.
In your fantasy world.
There has been an unbelievable amount of wealth that has been created in this country and continues to be created every day.
Has been is one thing. Continues to be is another. Furthermore, the concept of wealth creation, you've just proven, is inexplicable to you. Question, teacher. Who first defined wealth creation?
Furthermore, you are on record, repeatedly against the very things that create wealth, for the unfair way it's distributed - just as you did again.
This could not be done if your assertions (shared by many here) was true
Utter rubbish. You have no authority, in fact, have demonstrated illiteracy of the economics you cannot serve as a authority. This is your religion, it is your mantra, but it is, as usual, proof of why you fail.
....that FDR, Obama etc created or are propagating a socialist state bent on destroying private wealth with power concentrated in the "gubmint."
LOOK! A PONY!
First up, if you're going to talk about "unintelligible responses", it would serve you well - were you able to argue - to stick to what I said, rather than beating strawmen. But even in this case, your own strawmen demonstrate your lack of intellectual rigor. (Rigor mortis, maybe.)
Second, I'll take that strawman, because not only is it not paranoid because they're out to get us, let's look at some object examples. What? Why are you running?
G.M.C. Chrysler. Those alone make mockery of your strawmen - where private wealth and private contracts were - illegally - destroyed and given to politically connected people and groups.
Mark, the USSR created wealth. China creates it every day. The question isn't the existence of wealth. The question is which produces more and benefits people more. You know, if you'd shut up, and READ A BOOK, we wouldn't have to keep pounding basic knowledge at you.
If that is the case, why have we seen such an increase in private wealth? Or an increased stratification in wealth?
Because of the government control, dumbass. Guess what one area of the country right now has under 10% unemployment, and has seen an increase in wealth in the last 2 years?
Washington, DC. That's it. Only place. That is, for the "stratification" argument. Increase in wealth, well, there's not been one is in the last 3 years. Except by some very specific people, and guess what... They're all government connected.
You're trying to make a whole bunch of arguments, when you don't understand the background, or have the knowledge to make even one. There's a reason you're not changing my mind, and it's not (just!) because I'm stubborn.
No, Unix, the numbers prove you to be wrong. The image below is courtesy of Ed Wolff and the Fed analysis that were the basis of the Citigroup document I put on here awhile back with the bonus of being updated to today.
Ah, the Citigroup Document.
Your Holy Grail. Your Bible.
I have, on many occasions, spoken to you of it, and you have ignored me. You've yet to deal with the understanding of what it is, instead making it what you want it to be.
Your chart means.. what? It proves nothing as to the "robustness" of our "Welfare government". Not. A. Thing.
Because you can't critically think, you can't even begin to understand that.
You want to show me, and other's PROOF? OK. Show us those charts for other governments. Show us progressions. Show us a LOGICAL ARGUMENT.
It would help not to have your key piece of information be from 2 analysts nobody's ever heard of. But even if they're 100% right, it doesn't prove what you claim it does.
And speaking of claims, which is more, 22 or 15?
Funny how you don't seem to know that.
But, oh, don't dare insult the EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. "Adam who?"
Unix, until you cease trying to "win the argument" and actually address my points, I'm done with you.
Anyone else? I've extended a challenge above, presented key facts, and asked several questions...the main one being how can there be so much private wealth in a country that is supposedly descending into socialism/communism?
Why was it that in Soviet Russia there were such things as private Dachas and Zil limousines?
Private wealth, its accumulation and retention in Socialist nations comes from being well connected to government. Something you've noted happens here as well, have you not? (Here's a hint: Citigroup has gotten something on the order of $45,000,000,000 from the Feds - that is, taxpayers - in bailout money.)
As for "being done," I've been done with you for a long while, but you keep hanging around.
Marxaphasia, you consistently, repeatedly, and predictably refuse to answer simple questions posed to you by other people (for example, you have yet to answer a set of very basic questions I posed to you on another comment thread just a few posts down), and yet there you stand, crawling up on your oh-so-pathetic hobby horse, whining about people treating your inquiries with the same disdain.
I am not at all sorry to say that you do not even have so much as a crutch to lean upon, and the imbalance of questions being asked versus questions being answered is significantly to your detriment.
Regarding your question, the entire basis of it is fallacious to begin with - no one here has ever claimed, to my knowledge, that the country is 100%, entirely, and totally socialistic. As such, the presence and growth of personal wealth is hardly unusual, especially in light of Kevin's observations. However, neither does that presence and growth of personal wealth negate the possibility that our country is tending in a decidedly socialistic direction (see: GM)... and here I thought you were a "progressive" who got all pissy when people refused to see the world in shades of grey?
Speaking more generally, the preponderance of "facts" presented in your opening comment on this thread consisted of nothing more than self-aggrandizement and ad hominem attacks - what was that about "winning the argument" again?
Mark, you just showed ignorance of who Adam Smith was, and what he did.
And you've been lecturing (*ahem*) us on economics for 3 years.
And you don't know who Adam Smith is.
And you think citing his "invisible hand" is identical to what you do when you repeat what Michael Moore told you.
Yeah. You might be done with me, but as I told you before, you will not win, you will not sully this site with your blather unanswered.
You've been ignoring what we've said to you for years. You're not changing anything.
You're still a fool, a callow youth despite your age, and you're utterly ignorant, and you cannot admit to any - ANY weakness in your arguments, or your messiahs, and you prove as a result that you don't know what you're talking about.
And then you tell us we don't know enough to say the educational system is unsalvagable. Which pretty much proves us right.
Wait, wasn't Markadelphia recently arguing that the wrong people were getting rich due to bad capitalism? Now he demands that we defend that same system?
Truly a dizzying intellect.
Did Markadelphia ever answer which is greater, 18 months or 126 months?
Or if we can only take the part in the Constitution that defines how to amend it as written while interpreting the rest however we want?
Kevin, you aren't seriously comparing the "private" estates in Soviet Russia to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, are you?
I think we are in agreement regarding bailout money. But, again, the problem there was not that they were too big to fail but too interconnected to fail (copyright Jim Manzi). This happened because of deregulation not more regulation. When insurance companies started selling mortgages along with the financial industry inventing things like CDOs, that's when the problems started. I don't want my insurance agency to be able to do that. I don't want my bank to be allowed to fuck around with my money with the government out to lunch on a long snooze. This would be why your government par sedimentation is more accurate.
Look at the graph above. In a socialist or communist nation, the wealth would not be distributed so unevenly. Now, if you are arguing that the government redistributes money to favor the top one percent then we may be able to find some agreement.
Russell, sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault. It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy. Given how the current system is set up, I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.
"In a socialist or communist nation, the wealth would not be distributed so unevenly."
Yeah, this is why Kim Jong Il is the single biggest customer in the world of Hennessy cognac, while the proles of North Korea die of starvation. From each according to his ability, to each according to his clout; that's how socialism and marxism work in the real world.
The Right Honorable Member from Minnesota is once again dodging; alternatively, he fails to understand the difference between "data dump" and "analysis." The request was posed to the Right Honorable Member that he could demonstrate better understanding of this data set than the Citigroup data he has apparently been eating with ketchup lo, these many months, and prove that he is at least capable of arguing in good faith.
Sic transit gloria Markadelphia. (shrug) Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time.
I'll see your Lancet Study and raise you a CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm
"The primary reason for the United States’ higher infant mortality rate when compared with Europe is the United States’ much higher percentage of preterm births. In 2004, 1 in 8 infants born in the United States were born preterm, compared with 1 in 18 in Ireland and Finland. Preterm infants have much higher rates of death or disability than infants born at 37 weeks of gestation or more (2-4, 6), so the United States’ higher percentage of preterm births has a large effect on infant mortality rates. If the United States had the same gestational age distribution of births as Sweden, the U.S. infant mortality rate (excluding births at less than 22 weeks of gestation) would go from 5.8 to 3.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, a 33% decline. These data suggest that preterm birth prevention is crucial to lowering the U.S. infant mortality rate."
Followed up by a doctor's report on Materinty Care and how the USA has been using very agressive and invasive procedures since the 1990s: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/bfm.2009.0086?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org
Age of the mother is an important factor.
Is there an issue? Yes, but the idea that government run health care is the solution is lunacy.
Also, I couldn't find anywhere in the Lancet study provisions for morbidity based on citizenship status. Think that doesn't matter? How many illegal aliens are in the US vs Sweden? How many of those get treated exactly the same way as a citizen? More and all.
Oh, here's a post that agrees with me, but he's got references and numbers: http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-royal-fisking-mortality-v.html
"That is, citing infant mortality numbers without proper context: in many countries (even "developed" ones), infants with severe or fatal conditions aren't even counted as live births (or are aborted when diagnosed), whereas we do everything we can to save such innocents. One may argue the efficacy of such an attitude, but we value life."
“Russell, sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault. It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy. Given how the current system is set up, I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.“
And this means what, exactly?
Let’s parse it out. “sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault.“ First, and we’ve asked this before, define ‘good capitalism’. Explain your ‘ideas’ how we can ‘return’ to this state’? How are ideas at fault? Wouldn’t it be the person with those ideas be at fault? And why are you sad? Are you sad that you are at fault? Or are you sad that you have to admit it?
“It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy.”
What shift? How did it happen? Did someone lead the shift? Who? Did it happen to the entirety of the economy? Define ‘our economy’. Why can’t ‘it’ happen? Is ‘it’ the ideas at fault? Or the ‘return’? How did we go through the shift?
“Given how the current system is set up,”
Wait, didn’t you say there was a shift? Is the ‘system’ different from ‘our economy’? If not, was it set up recently because of the shift?
“I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.“
If we are descending further into something, does that mean no shift happened to change the ideas at fault? You see, I’m getting confused at this point. Could you define ‘plutonomy’? I mean, I know Ajay Kapur defined it in the Citigroup document, but I can’t find any other accepted definition. And now you are going to have support the notion that stratification is fixed in the US. I am going to assume you mean socio-economic stratification. (Which, btw, is a Marxist idea.) Also, you are going to have to explain how this prevents US citizens from voting for representatives, since socio-economic stratification combined with plutocracy (which is a defined term) leads to disenfranchisement of voters.
I believe that those of us with cognitive capabilities can probably agree that the Markism regarding the distribution of wealth in socialist/communist nations is a new high(low?) in his personal "look how much smarts my degree has imparted in me" sweepstakes.
Last time I checked, North Korea was essentially a dictatorship putting on the bizarre mask of communism. The official ideology of North Korea is not Marxist-Leninist but Juche...the core tenets of which are that man is the center of everything and is independent and self reliant. This, of course, is a joke because Kim is essentially the emperor of that country. In addition, I believe I have stated several times on here that Marxism ultimately failed because there is no such thing as a classless society. Conflict theories in general are failures and serious analysis of societies and cultures should take on a more functionalist or interactionist perspective.
But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it.
My comment above was more in reference to a countries like Norway, Sweden, or even Canada which many here would consider socialist, correct? These countries have much more equality of income and state control over the private sector than we do. So, to say that we are like them, given the data I have provided above, is ludicrous. To say that we are descending into at Soviet style government is borderline psychotic.
I'll offer some more evidence that our private corporations are doing just fine and, in fact, rule the day: the Citizen's United Case. If our government is descending into Bezmenov's "reality," how do private coporations now have the same rights as individuals?
I'll offer some more evidence that our private corporations are doing just fine and, in fact, rule the day: the Citizen's United Case.
If I ever find a lamp with a Djinn in the sand, my first wish will be that you be enlightened as to what "offer" and "evidence" means, and that you're incapable of using them incorrectly ever again.
"But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it."
Lessee, it's Wednesday. I give the troll another day of him bleating out stupid, us pounding away for grins, and then he'll run away for a week or two, until he swoops in to poop on a thread and kicking off another round of this.
Sure, it's repetitive, but although one could wish for better opponents, one does the best with what one has.
I still find it funny that the troll acts like none of this has ever happened before!
"...Last time I checked, North Korea was essentially a dictatorship putting on the bizarre mask of communism. The official ideology of North Korea is not Marxist-Leninist but Juche..."
Oh, jeezis, talking about differences of Juche (which he knows nothing about) and Marxism (a process that he can't define, nor understand); he can't even SEE the similarities of both. Instead, he takes the NORKS' definition of what they refer to as philosophy and government as being true.
Just when I think Marxy can't amaze me any further with his fuckwittery, he actually manages to do so.
One has to admit it's an achievement, of a sort...kind of like making Jimmy Carter look presidential (not competent -- no power on Earth could do that -- but presidential, after a fashion).
But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it.
But that's exactly what we did. As well as demonstrated a sense of humor, knowledge of history, the world, reality, and the failures of the school system.
All in all, that's a helluva trick for so few words.
And we got to demonstrate that you don't think at all before speaking.
My comment above was more in reference to a countries like Norway, Sweden, or even Canada which many here would consider socialist, correct?
They're farther down the road, yes. By the way, since you are so keen on Norway or Sweden, let's point out that the "Sharing" is far, far, far less. As a matter of fact, Sweden was recently compared to Mississippi. The Mississippi citizens, on average, were far better off than the Swedes. Check out where Mississippi is, compared to the rest of the USA.
These countries have much more equality of income
ANd when we say that's what you want, you claim we're making things up. You'll be saying that by next week, and you'll have memory-holed this. After all, consistency doesnt matter, as long as you get the political power.
and state control over the private sector than we do.
Did.
So, to say that we are like them, given the data I have provided above, is ludicrous. To say that we are descending into at Soviet style government is borderline psychotic.
Oh, for sure. After all, has Obama been seen promoting a super-small car with no consumer demand, being forced on the marketplace?
I do not think you know what that means: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder-fact-sheet/index.shtml
"While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone."
So tell us again why you keep coming back here? Aside from entertaining us, that is?
...how do private coporations now have the same rights as individuals?
Which is to this day being demonized and demagogued by the left, up to and including both you and the President. And yet you support unions having the same rights concerning political speech as individuals, and seem to completely miss the concept that both unions and corporations are, in fact, made up of individuals. Apparently you and President Present think unions members are people, but stockholders and business owners are not.
But, again, the problem there was not that they were too big to fail but too interconnected to fail (copyright Jim Manzi). This happened because of deregulation not more regulation. When insurance companies started selling mortgages along with the financial industry inventing things like CDOs, that's when the problems started. I don't want my insurance agency to be able to do that. I don't want my bank to be allowed to fuck around with my money with the government out to lunch on a long snooze.
So what you're saying is that citizens should be restricted in how they invest, financial institutions should be restricted in how they invest, and financial institutions should be restricted in what kinds of investments they are allowed to accpet.... all so that the government can unwillingly cosign the American taxpayer as payee to whatever political bullshit game they dream up (like still insisting that Fannie, Freddie and the FHA be allowed to make taxpayer guaranteed "liar loans") without the damage from that stupidity spreading everywhere else.
Deliberately making bad choices with taxpayer money, in which taxpayers are prohibited by law from declining to invest in, is not the problem. Allowing anyone except the government to rob you at gunpoint in such a manner, that's the problem.
Right?
I have a question, Mark. If you demand honest investing practices from all investors, including government agencies such as Fannie/Freddie, and actually enforce them, is the interconnectedness still a problem?
Damn text conversion to smileys... that's supposed to be a closing parentheses.
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JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2010/07/yuri-bezmenov-was-right.html (79 comments)
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The interview, the ONE interview, that Bezmenov had was with a John Bircher. Doesn't that just make you question his credibility and your credulity - just a little?
@juris_imprudent: Unless you are suggesting that the interviewer falsified the quote, it doesn't influence my view of the quote one bit. The guy said what he said. Attacking the messenger is false logic.
As I read it, and I've researched Bezmenov just a little, he believed in an "international Communist conspiracy" because he was part of it, being stationed in India to do exactly what he described in his interview - ideological subversion.
The Birchers also believed in that "international Communist conspiracy," so no, I'm not surprised that he was interviewed by a Bircher. They were probably the only ones who would listen to him - and give him an outlet. Bezmenov did later write a number of books under the name Tomas David Schuman
Was Bezmenov paranoid?
Look around you today.
As Stephen says, the message is not necessarily tainted by the source.
I'm beginning to wonder if he was paranoid enough.
The point is that Bezmenov sold/told his conspiracy tale to a group that couldn't eat that puppy chow up fast enough. As a counter-intel op, what could be more perfect than to provide the perfect foil to the Birchers.
I suggest you read Drucker on why education has been circling the drain. That is a perfectly adequate explanation without requiring international communist conspiracies. Considering I don't believe anyone here is a "9/11 Troofer", the lack of skepticism for a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy to sap our vital essences does surprise me.
As a former Intel type, what Bezmenov says is consistent with internal Soviet Era policies, tactics and attitudes of which I have personal knowledge.
I think that the pubilcly acknowledged polices of the NKVD, KGB, etc constitue a confirmed multi-generational (70 years covers multiple generations correct?) conspiracy to "sap our vital essences".
Now, the fact they would have liked to accomplish those objectives, does not necessiarly mean they were a major (or any) factor in the degradation of our education system.
Disinformation operations existed and I've seen the results show up in major media as "confirmed" stories. What impact they had compared to home grown "good intentions" from Useful Idiots is what is debatable.
...the lack of skepticism for a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy to sap our vital essences does surprise me.
You've not been reading, then.
It's NOT that we believe in "a sustained (multi-generational) conspiracy." What we, or at least I believe is that the Beautiful Lie was planted and found fertile ground many decades ago. No conspiracy has been necessary, past the initial groundwork. That particular weed has grown with very little outside help necessary, because we - just as Bezmenov noted - haven't torn it out by the roots. It has, as he said, spread beyond their wildest dreams.
Let me quote from Politico's Roger Simon (no, the OTHER Roger Simon) :
This may be the most embarrassing thing I have ever written — and looking back on my writing, there is a lot of competition for that dubious distinction — but when I became a reporter, it was almost a holy calling.
We really believed we were doing good. We informed the public and helped make democracy work. We exposed wrongdoing wherever we found it. We reported without fear or favor. As a columnist, I tried to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
I warned you that this would be embarrassing.
We loved what we did, and we did it with passion. We were proud. We felt — I am just going to go ahead and say it — honorable.
There were wrongdoers. Fakers, plagiarists, those with private agendas who wished to slant the news. When found, they were often fired. Even when they were subjected to a lesser punishment, their sins were made clear as a lesson to the rest of us. (At a few papers, those who wished to slant the news were publishers or editors who wished to please their publishers. They were rarely fired. But their numbers were few.)
The lines were not muddy. You played it straight. Even if you were a columnist and allowed to publish your opinions, you were expected to be fair and accurate.
At the end of the day, you often went home feeling good. And when people asked what you did, you replied with pride, not shame.
It was, as I said, almost a holy calling. (And often accompanied by a vow of poverty.)
THESE are the people that the Beautiful Lie reaches. These are the people who convince themselves that what they are doing is good, and pure, and right, and that the Constitution is an outdated document that hinders our government from helping people, making us all equal and providing "social justice." These are the people who choose public education as a career, seeing that, too as their job to train the next generation to "make democracy work." It is their "holy calling" as well.
Those of us not so affected by the Beautiful Lie go out and get jobs, start businesses, go bowling on Fridays, tinker with our cars.
But the beleivers in the Beautiful Lie want to save us from ourselves. It's their crusade.
No multi-generational conspiracy is needed beyond parents passing their belief in the Beautiful Lie on to their children.
But now, as I said, it's been going on so long that we have a supersaturated solution, and such crystallizations as JournoList can spontaneously occur. Like-minded people are available in droves to form the memberships of SEIU and ACORN, or the faculties of major universities where it's just wonderful to be "diverse" as long as you think like they do.
Go back and read The George Orwell Daycare Center. What "conspiracy" was responsible for that?
"But the beleivers in the Beautiful Lie want to save us from ourselves. It's their crusade."
There is just nothing novel about that, nor was it the result of outside forces planting a noxious weed in our shining garden on the hill.
Dewey preceded Gramsci. Bezmenov proceeds from Gramsci, not Dewey. You've traced the trajectory from Dewey to where we are today. Bezmenov is irrelevant.
Or, look at it another way. There was nothing communist about the vast majority of Progressives, and many were virulently anti-communist. You can get all the dysfunction without any of the conspiracy.
"No conspiracy has been necessary, past the initial groundwork."
Uh-huh, because you also quote Bezmenov: "This time [the] subverter does not care about your ideas and the patterns of your consumption; whether you eat junk food and get fat and flabby doesn’t matter any more. This time—and it takes only from two to five years to destabilize a nation"
Which btw was in 1985, right? So, two things: 1) [the] subverter - I think Bezmenov is talking about an active participant, at the very least the Twilight Zone aliens playing with the power grid and not some distant observer, and 2) 1985 - that would be 25 years ago, or 20 years after his projected timeframe and we haven't quite followed the pattern as predicted. If we were so ready to be toppled over, I would think a desperate and dying Soviet regime would've pulled the trigger before it's final collapse.
Remember, I'm not disagreeing with the existance of the rot - just the cause and the particular narrative of its progression from IMO a dubious source.
Well, now the comment system has eaten one of my comments.
Let's try again:
The reason I keep quoting Bezmenov is because he is one of the few people who accurately describes what has been happening, regardless of its origin or intent, and what it can (not will, but can) lead to if not opposed.
Yes, Dewey precedes Gramsci, but both are preceded by the Beautiful Lie, and both advanced it in their own way.
You state: "If we were so ready to be toppled over, I would think a desperate and dying Soviet regime would've pulled the trigger before it's final collapse." I think it can be successfully argued that by the time the Soviet regime finally realized it was dying, it was too late to pull the trigger.
What I've been arguing in here is that the Beautiful Lie was planted about a century ago, was watered and fertilized, and has spread, as Bezmenov notes, more wildly than anyone could have imagined. Bezmenov argues that some trigger could be pulled to switch from demoralization to destabilization, but my argument is that at some point the entire system becomes unsustainable, unstable on its own, and destabilization is the result, followed by crisis.
And you know, you should never let a good crisis go to waste.
We have reached a point, I argue, where we have a supersaturated solution: enough people now are - to use Bezmenov's word - demoralized (unreachable by fact and logic) that group organization of these people can occur, in effect, spontaneously. The communication technologies of today make this possible and nearly effortless, as evidenced by JournoList, etc.
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't happen only on the Left, but they're the ones with the common urge to save us all from ourselves. Wanting to be left the hell alone isn't exactly a collectivist position.
You object to me quoting Bezmenov not for what he says, but for who he says it to. I don't care who he said it to. He accurately described what was going on. It's more than possible he was wrong about why it was so successful, but his observation that it was successful was correct.
"Wanting to be left the hell alone isn't exactly a collectivist position."
I resemble that remark ...
"It's more than possible he was wrong about why it was so successful, but his observation that it was successful was correct."
Actually I object based on the premise that it was a deliberate act, either by internal or external forces opposed to what we consider good. That keeps it fundamentally a conspiracy, directed by some malevolent entity/group. That is too Manichean a perspective for my taste.
I would also say that this entire line of thought contains nothing that de Toqueville did not observe/comment upon.
Leftist/collectivists are simply modern day Hobbesians. We are Lockians. Does that help put in context why I don't get my knickers twisted up about Gramsci et al?
And we see why homeschooling and, too a lesser extent, private and charter school strike such fear in the demoralized. Just imagine, a kids growing up without the constant indoctrination of their peers! Kids that are, on the average, taught American principles! Frightening. Might just start to undo the damage done.
To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.
I'd put it "in favor and in the interests of liberty," but can't argue otherwise. In any case...workin' on it (had to start with myself, which was chore enough, and not done yet).
Cultural espionage writ small.
These traitors in the media aren't the only ones who've made a list.
They need a refresher course in 18th century history, Kevin, and I think you are the perfect candidate for, at the very least, developing the syllabus, if not delivering the material in your...distinct manner.
Seriously, these asshats simply do not care about that stuff. All they see is the bright, shiny lights of what the promise holds, and not a single eye is cast upon the realities of what it might take to achieve those promises. Hint; they'd be willing to use you and me as the grease for their socialist wheels...but you already know that.
Cue the Designated Village Idiot in five, four, three...
Before we get carried away with the "traitor" bit, remember that Bezmenov's main point was that most of the people so programmed are acting uncritically and unconsciously.
They genuinely believe that what they are doing is best for society. They deserve our opposition and our pity, but not hatred.
Hatred should be reserved for the relative few who know precisely what they are doing.
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate -- and quickly. -- Robert Anson Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
And while we're quoting Heinlein, my current sig line seems appropriate here:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice." - 'Heinlein's Razor'
Paraphrasing Clark's Law,
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
I had heard that as Grey's Law. Apparently that paraphrase has gotten common enough to have its own separate derivation.
And that's the second half of my sig line.
;)
"From a distance, one's adversaries seemed as fiends, but with a closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one's own. Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot."
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
_A Canticle for Liebowitz_ (1959)
I think, therefore I am not as educated to be, the library is open go read. I do think Home Schooling was a step in the correct direction, but solid families can get around the problems in current education, if they turn off the television. Most of 'what American Knows' comes from the idiot box, too sad. NYT writes about Appleseed Project, and misses the point but it comes from the same dissatisfaction with the America around and the what we want to be. How else would there be a Tea Party movement?
This is somewhat OT, but...
I've been thinking about "critical thinking".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
As I'm sure you have noticed, a big chunk of the disagreement between left and right is what they consider a valid line of argument at all. And a lot of the difference, I believe, lies in "critical thinking", which I (and I suspect many others here) consider a fatally flawed concept.
"Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true."
"Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness."
While I have long thought this idea to be fatally flawed, I have often found difficulty illustrating precisely why I consider it so. I think perhaps I've found an answer.
Suppose your family owns a mountain in central Colorado. There is a long history of gold and silver mining in the area, and your family's mountain is said to contain one of the richest veins of gold in the state, although the mine has been considered "played out" for well over a century. Why? Because at depth, the vein is encased in some seriously tough rock, which is surrounded in turn by rock that is "rotten" and comes apart disturbingly easily. Miners gave up because they couldn't get the gold out without blasting, and couldn't blast without bringing the entire mountain down on their heads.
Well you don't know anything about mining or gold, but you do know that mining techniques have changed a lot in a century and a half, so you hire a geologist to check things out for you. He says yes, it is possible to mine the gold, but the cost of the techniques (not to mention catastrophic insurance coverage on the miners) would make it one of the least profitable mines in these mountains.
Now... is there any question that this situation is unfair? Your family is having to deal with risks and expenses that no one else in the country is putting up with.
So according to the idea of "critical thinking"...
the geologist's report should not be accepted as true, because it's unfair. Possibly he should be sued for damages, or at the very least shouldn't get paid for his assessment, since he chose to submit an "untrue" report. Or,
you shouldn't have to pay higher insurance costs to reflect your miners' increased hazard, because that's unfair. Or,
you shouldn't have to use special (and expensive) techniques no one else has to use, because that's unfair. Or...
See? Once you stop thinking analytically and start thinking critically, not only do you immediately throw the "it IS" of reality out the window in favor of the "it should be" of fairness, you also (as a direct result of that) immediately swallow the assumption that it's acceptable to insult the integrity of someone's work, or require someone else to cover your increased risk instead of covering it yourself, or even put people at risk of death by mine collapse, whatever, anything and everything can be freely sacrificed on the alter of your sense of fairness.
In short, "critical thinking" assumes that all of our mothers were deliberately lying to us when they explained that life isn't fair. Critical thinking assumes that either "unfair"="inaccurate" or "unfair"="doesn't actually exist at all".
I think this explains much of why Mark and most of the rest of us have so much trouble understanding one another. We (on both sides) keep claiming as truth things that our target readers consider fantasy at best, if not deliberate falshood.
"We (on both sides) keep claiming as truth things that our target readers consider fantasy at best, if not deliberate falshood."
To quote myself, I have stated here many times that reality is what it is regardless of whether or not you like it, and that any analysis you make of what reality is must square with ALL the relevant facts, else it cannot be correct.
To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts.
And Doctor Zero strikes again:
http://www.doczero.org/2010/08/the-value-of-a-volt/#more-14609
Actually, the reason why we have trouble understanding one another is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me. DJ, for example, is not capable of this. He will never EVER admit that any whiff of liberal/progressive/ideology has worked even though it has at various times in our country's history. Equally as stringent, he will never EVER admit his own ideology is flawed. I have seen GOF, Kevin, Mastiff, and juris all admit flaws. I have yet to see DJ, Unix, and many others here admit any significant error...errors with results that can plainly be seen. An example of this would be his clinging to the CRA as a major cause of our financial problems even though reality (meaning the thinking economic world) knows this to be propaganda.
This would be why DJ and some others here do the Rove and claim that I can't admit significant error. Speaking of the Rove, here's another one...
To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts.
DJ, that is you in a nutshell. You'd imagine reality through the lens of an Ayn Rand fantasy. It's not. You bemoan the "gubmint" and yet it's the very same government that allows you a way of life that is filled with freedom. No doubt the government is flawed like any other institution but it is decidedly not this bizarre reality that we see here in yet another Bezmenov post. Kevin, if Bezmenov was right and you are comfortable with his theories, why the constant need to continue defending the argument? The fact is that juris is spot on right with his analysis. Your views, as well as others in this thread are consistent with my avatar on here, which is John Birch material.
Here is a simple fact for all of you: our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office. It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways. We pulled ourselves out the worst Depression in our history, defeated the greatest army the world had ever seen, built the national highway system that drastically improved our economy, and DEFEATED the threat of communism around the world. Our economic system and way of life proved to the world that "Welfare Capitalism" works and socialism does not. We have found a way to strike a balance between private and public interests. It's not perfect all of the time but we certainly have fared better than nearly every country in the world.
So, FDR (a president that brought us closer to socialism than ever before) did not lead us to the Bezmenov reality. We turned out just fine and private industry is still humming along...largely ignored by our gouvernement par sédimentation (a point of Kevin's that I do think is more valid today than ever before). So, I ask you all this question: how is it that we came so close to socialism under FDR and yet defeated communism and created massive private wealth? If Bezmenov was right, wouldn't we all be wearing brown shirts right now?
As you continue to believe Bezmenov's drivel, you prove that--honestly--you are not about solutions but about attempting to win an argument. And a seriously flawed and moderatly paranoid one at that.
At least I'm around to refudiate you.
Well, THIS promises to be FASCINATING. *DONT_KNOW*
is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me.
Yet you insist that corporations use force. Or every lunatic that pops up in the news is immediately filtered into a libertarian/conservative/Tea Party right-wing-nut.
I will grant you the "good capitalism" conversion. You haven't really decided what should replace it, but at least you recognize you were only nostalgic for an extremely unusual (and non reproducible) period.
"DJ, that is you in a nutshell."
My goodness. Who could have guessed that you would respond, yet again, with one of your Standard Responses? This time, it's your Standard Response #9, the "Nuh-uh! Am not! You are!" response.
You've seen it before, haven't you, teacher boy?
A little boy stands on the playground during recess, posing with an air of faux sophistication, his arms folded, nose in the air, eyes closed, and head turned slightly aside. He says to the urchin who dared malign his perfection, "I know you are, but what am I?" He repeats it, over and over and over, no matter what he hears.
This time, your Standard Response #9 was in response to my comment to Grumpy:
"To paraphrase you, you're stating that Markadopia's analysis of what reality is must square with what he thinks reality ought to be. Well, this method is tautological, so it's no wonder he always thinks he's right, regardless of any relevant facts."
Yet again, you are hoist on your own petard. Yet again, you have been bitten in the ass by your habit of the Quick Response of the Moment. Yet again, you have failed to consider the unintended consenquences of your own words. Y'see, little boy, your comment has validated my statement.
Don't see it, do you?
Your modus operandi is evasion. You simply ignore or deny anything that does not square with your view of what reality ought to be, which is, in the context of your comment, that everyone should bow to the magnificence of your towering intellect and accept that what you say is true simply because you say it is true.
Yet again, I point out that you are dealing with grownups here, and you will not succeed by imitating that little boy on the playground.
>Actually, the reason why we have trouble understanding one another is that I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology...so much so that I have changed them and altered them to fit the results of reality that I see around me.
This is a trend for you isn't it? You make a declaration about how wonderful your thought processes are, and then you actually seem to think that your own (hugely inflated, btw) estimation of your capabilities, by itself, actually counts for something. Here's another life hint Mark - people with high capabilities don't need to annouce how wonderful those capbilities are, beause said capabilities speak for themselves when they are used. Your demonstration of those capabilities has been.. less than compelling.
>Here is a simple fact for all of you: our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office. It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways.
I think this sentence is a better explanation for why we have trouble understanding one other. You continually speak utter nonsense. A "simple fact" would be that 1+1=2, or that TCP port 80 is the most common port that HTTP traffic goes over. There is nothing simple about the claim that our government was quite robust over some time period. Robust in what way? General stability? Fiscal policy? Regulatory certainty? How and why does this robustness translate into succeeding "in many ways"? You are a typical poseur Mark - you try to talk big to mask the precious lack of understanding beneath. Add a dash of narcissistic self worship, and you end up with a creature who's reality is .. whatever he wants it to be. For the nth time Mark - words mean things, and you don't get to redefine them at your whim.
>At least I'm around to refudiate you.
The only thing you have ever convincingly "refudiated" (ha! a Palin dig! Good one!) is the notion that you possess a basic level of competence.
It's not simply a conversion. It's a recognition that Reagan had the forsight to see the shift in our society (similar to the one that went from agrarian to manufacturing) and do something constructive about it that produced definable results that were clearly successful. Much of the ideology that is preached on here has failed to do that. In fact, Greg Mankiw, well known economist and Bush Admin guru, spoke in one of his books about Smith's "invisible hand" and how it "worked its magic." Imagine if a liberal or progressive had used such terms to describe solutions to problems. Or me. It would be derided with impunity. Long diatribes about unicorn farts and fantasy land would unfold in various threads across Cult land. Bruce Bartlett was correct: the shameless idealist of today is not a liberal but a conservative...a blood brother to the hippies of the 60s...ideas that have no practical application to reality...nor any business in reality like your quotes from Bezmenov.
Corporations do use force to get what they want, juris. Why you don't see this is inexplicable.
spoke in one of his books about Smith's "invisible hand" and how it "worked its magic." Imagine if a liberal or progressive had used such terms to describe solutions to problems.ed
Mark, have you considered Scientology?
Right now, if you converted, it would be an improvement in your mental function.
You do realize that you just demonstrated - again - how utterly unread you are on the subjects you discuss and claim authority on?
No. you don't. You never do. No matt
Sorry. Eee keyboard and touchpad.
Anyway.
No, you never do, no matter how bloody blatant your blathering is.
As it goes, Smith's Invisible Hand is far more than what you're insinuating, and it's backed up with definitions and explainations.
You would just say it, and then ignore any and all requests for explaination of what you're talking about. Smith certainly did not do that.
Smith was using allegory to explain how these things end up working. He was writing for people with no formal schooling.
They understood him.
You can't.
And you defend the educational system here and attack us for being skeptical of it.
Just like Douglass. A man born in slavery, who taught himself to read and write. And your system produces students (and teachers) who need footnotes ... because they don't know the words he's using.
Why you don't see this is inexplicable.
Perhaps because you still haven't been able to actually produce a case of such? Centerpoint/RMR was a massive fail - even your fellow lefties saw that. No better with the chemical companies in Louisiana, or debt collectors in Minn. Not once have you been able to provide an example of a corporation that was a law unto itself, that could use force with impunity.
Perhaps because it is a religious belief for you, and like some zealots who see God everywhere, so it is with corporate force and you.
I have yet to see DJ, Unix, and many others here admit any significant error...errors with results that can plainly be seen.
But you cannot point out. Clearly. Without redefining words.
I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology.
Which is more? 22 or 15?
Has the FCC been made smaller since Reagan?
What's the definition of verbatim?
our government was quite robust from the 1930s up until Reagan took office.
What changed when Reagan took office? See the FCC comment above. I'll wait for you to change your mind with the facts.
It was because they were this robust that we succeeded in many ways.
You presume that we succeeded, because we were "robust" - hell, Mark,have you considered that maybe that robustness was the subjugation of minorities? After all, civil rights didn't seriously start changing the mechanics of the system until the later 1970s....
That's not my belief, by the way (But there is some more than cursory academic work on that subject, actually. Basically, under the "Peter Principle" concept, minorities in a caste system are always kept under their level of incompetence, and thus there's decrease in production when the caste is removed...) But it's every bit as valid as what you just said, and you can't argue against it. (No, really, you can't. Please don't try.)
We pulled ourselves out the worst Depression in our history
No, we didn't. The spending of FDR was digging the hole deeper and deeper - until WWII. The "war spending", the removal of almost all men aged 20-30 from the work force, and the industrial ramp-up for the war - as well as selling goods and arms at to those at gunpoint did. After the war, we had the only industrial capacity that wasn't bombed to shit and back.
As usual, your understanding earns a failing grade.
defeated the greatest army the world had ever seen
When did we fight the Red Army?
built the national highway system that drastically improved our economy, and DEFEATED the threat of communism around the world.
Defeated? You sure? You don't even know what it *is*. How would you know if we defeated it?
We defeated the Russian economy, sure. But there's plenty of threat of communism - even if you don't know what it is.
As to my admitting error...
I know you haven't ever considered it, but maybe, just maybe, I haven't had to admit error, because I know what words mean, and thus my ideas are better thought out?
22. 15. Which is more, Mark? Which one did you claim is more?
Unix, before I toddle off to bed, two points. First, your slightly unintelligible response serves only to "beat me" in "the argument." It doesn't actually address any of the core facts of my points that I presented. Second, it completely fails to recognize the obvious. There has been an unbelievable amount of wealth that has been created in this country and continues to be created every day. This could not be done if your assertions (shared by many here) was true....that FDR, Obama etc created or are propagating a socialist state bent on destroying private wealth with power concentrated in the "gubmint." If that is the case, why have we seen such an increase in private wealth? Or an increased stratification in wealth?
No, Unix, the numbers prove you to be wrong. The image below is courtesy of Ed Wolff and the Fed analysis that were the basis of the Citigroup document I put on here awhile back with the bonus of being updated to today.
So, let's see an example of critical thinking regarding your ideology. I've already offered one of mine.
It doesn't actually address any of the core facts of my points that I presented.
On the contrary, it demolishes your main point.
I am capable of critical thought when it comes to several core tenets of my ideology.
And I proved you were not.
Second, it completely fails to recognize the obvious.
In your fantasy world.
There has been an unbelievable amount of wealth that has been created in this country and continues to be created every day.
Has been is one thing. Continues to be is another. Furthermore, the concept of wealth creation, you've just proven, is inexplicable to you. Question, teacher. Who first defined wealth creation?
Furthermore, you are on record, repeatedly against the very things that create wealth, for the unfair way it's distributed - just as you did again.
This could not be done if your assertions (shared by many here) was true
Utter rubbish. You have no authority, in fact, have demonstrated illiteracy of the economics you cannot serve as a authority. This is your religion, it is your mantra, but it is, as usual, proof of why you fail.
....that FDR, Obama etc created or are propagating a socialist state bent on destroying private wealth with power concentrated in the "gubmint."
LOOK! A PONY!
First up, if you're going to talk about "unintelligible responses", it would serve you well - were you able to argue - to stick to what I said, rather than beating strawmen. But even in this case, your own strawmen demonstrate your lack of intellectual rigor. (Rigor mortis, maybe.)
Second, I'll take that strawman, because not only is it not paranoid because they're out to get us, let's look at some object examples. What? Why are you running?
G.M.C. Chrysler. Those alone make mockery of your strawmen - where private wealth and private contracts were - illegally - destroyed and given to politically connected people and groups.
Mark, the USSR created wealth. China creates it every day. The question isn't the existence of wealth. The question is which produces more and benefits people more. You know, if you'd shut up, and READ A BOOK, we wouldn't have to keep pounding basic knowledge at you.
If that is the case, why have we seen such an increase in private wealth? Or an increased stratification in wealth?
Because of the government control, dumbass. Guess what one area of the country right now has under 10% unemployment, and has seen an increase in wealth in the last 2 years?
Washington, DC. That's it. Only place. That is, for the "stratification" argument. Increase in wealth, well, there's not been one is in the last 3 years. Except by some very specific people, and guess what... They're all government connected.
You're trying to make a whole bunch of arguments, when you don't understand the background, or have the knowledge to make even one. There's a reason you're not changing my mind, and it's not (just!) because I'm stubborn.
No, Unix, the numbers prove you to be wrong. The image below is courtesy of Ed Wolff and the Fed analysis that were the basis of the Citigroup document I put on here awhile back with the bonus of being updated to today.
Ah, the Citigroup Document.
Your Holy Grail. Your Bible.
I have, on many occasions, spoken to you of it, and you have ignored me. You've yet to deal with the understanding of what it is, instead making it what you want it to be.
Your chart means.. what? It proves nothing as to the "robustness" of our "Welfare government". Not. A. Thing.
Because you can't critically think, you can't even begin to understand that.
You want to show me, and other's PROOF? OK. Show us those charts for other governments. Show us progressions. Show us a LOGICAL ARGUMENT.
It would help not to have your key piece of information be from 2 analysts nobody's ever heard of. But even if they're 100% right, it doesn't prove what you claim it does.
And speaking of claims, which is more, 22 or 15?
Funny how you don't seem to know that.
But, oh, don't dare insult the EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. "Adam who?"
@#($&(*#&$)@(*#(*$#$
Echo sucks, BTW.
"...the core facts of my points that I presented..."
Still laughing at this one, a day later.
Unix, until you cease trying to "win the argument" and actually address my points, I'm done with you.
Anyone else? I've extended a challenge above, presented key facts, and asked several questions...the main one being how can there be so much private wealth in a country that is supposedly descending into socialism/communism?
Why was it that in Soviet Russia there were such things as private Dachas and Zil limousines?
Private wealth, its accumulation and retention in Socialist nations comes from being well connected to government. Something you've noted happens here as well, have you not? (Here's a hint: Citigroup has gotten something on the order of $45,000,000,000 from the Feds - that is, taxpayers - in bailout money.)
As for "being done," I've been done with you for a long while, but you keep hanging around.
Marxaphasia, you consistently, repeatedly, and predictably refuse to answer simple questions posed to you by other people (for example, you have yet to answer a set of very basic questions I posed to you on another comment thread just a few posts down), and yet there you stand, crawling up on your oh-so-pathetic hobby horse, whining about people treating your inquiries with the same disdain.
I am not at all sorry to say that you do not even have so much as a crutch to lean upon, and the imbalance of questions being asked versus questions being answered is significantly to your detriment.
Regarding your question, the entire basis of it is fallacious to begin with - no one here has ever claimed, to my knowledge, that the country is 100%, entirely, and totally socialistic. As such, the presence and growth of personal wealth is hardly unusual, especially in light of Kevin's observations. However, neither does that presence and growth of personal wealth negate the possibility that our country is tending in a decidedly socialistic direction (see: GM)... and here I thought you were a "progressive" who got all pissy when people refused to see the world in shades of grey?
Speaking more generally, the preponderance of "facts" presented in your opening comment on this thread consisted of nothing more than self-aggrandizement and ad hominem attacks - what was that about "winning the argument" again?
*crickets chirp*
Yeah, I thought as much. Who do you think you are fooling, Marxaphasia?
"Who do you think you are fooling, Marxaphasia?"
Himself.
Self-deception is quite common, but it requires an exceptionally defective cognitive ability for it to work so well.
Unix, until you cease trying to "win the argument" and actually address my points, I'm done with you.
Fool I label you, and fool you prove yourself to be.
So you're going to ignore me, if I keep asking you about thinks you keep ignoring.
And unless I play by your rules - which change without warning, and without notice - you'll ignore me. Huh. I could swear that's what was happening.
Because I've certainly asked you enough, which is more, 22 or 15?
And you don't know the answer? Of course you do, I'm sure. But to answer it brings to light that you were wrong, and refused to admit it.
So you ignore it.
You cite the Citigroup documents - ignoring all that's been said, proving you don't understand them. And won't a
dmit it.
Damn echo.
Anyway.
Mark, you just showed ignorance of who Adam Smith was, and what he did.
And you've been lecturing (*ahem*) us on economics for 3 years.
And you don't know who Adam Smith is.
And you think citing his "invisible hand" is identical to what you do when you repeat what Michael Moore told you.
Yeah. You might be done with me, but as I told you before, you will not win, you will not sully this site with your blather unanswered.
You've been ignoring what we've said to you for years. You're not changing anything.
You're still a fool, a callow youth despite your age, and you're utterly ignorant, and you cannot admit to any - ANY weakness in your arguments, or your messiahs, and you prove as a result that you don't know what you're talking about.
And then you tell us we don't know enough to say the educational system is unsalvagable. Which pretty much proves us right.
Wait, wasn't Markadelphia recently arguing that the wrong people were getting rich due to bad capitalism? Now he demands that we defend that same system?
Truly a dizzying intellect.
Did Markadelphia ever answer which is greater, 18 months or 126 months?
Or if we can only take the part in the Constitution that defines how to amend it as written while interpreting the rest however we want?
Haven't seen a country-by-country analysis of the handling of premature births in infant mortality statistics, either.
Kevin, you aren't seriously comparing the "private" estates in Soviet Russia to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, are you?
I think we are in agreement regarding bailout money. But, again, the problem there was not that they were too big to fail but too interconnected to fail (copyright Jim Manzi). This happened because of deregulation not more regulation. When insurance companies started selling mortgages along with the financial industry inventing things like CDOs, that's when the problems started. I don't want my insurance agency to be able to do that. I don't want my bank to be allowed to fuck around with my money with the government out to lunch on a long snooze. This would be why your government par sedimentation is more accurate.
Look at the graph above. In a socialist or communist nation, the wealth would not be distributed so unevenly. Now, if you are arguing that the government redistributes money to favor the top one percent then we may be able to find some agreement.
Russell, sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault. It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy. Given how the current system is set up, I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.
Ken,
Here is all the data.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2960703-9/fulltext
In a socialist or communist nation, the wealth would not be distributed so unevenly
After getting over my jaw-dropping bogglement, I'll merely say this.
Prove that statement.
(Russell, DJ, Ed, STOP LAUGHING. I'm serious.)
Hell, I'll settle for "Support that statement at all."
"Hell, I'll settle for "Support that statement at all.""
First, get him to define "good capitalism".
I'd already asked him that above, but he was busy ignoring it, since apparently by refuting his argument, I was refusing to deal with it.
Or, ah, something.
"In a socialist or communist nation, the wealth would not be distributed so unevenly."
Yeah, this is why Kim Jong Il is the single biggest customer in the world of Hennessy cognac, while the proles of North Korea die of starvation. From each according to his ability, to each according to his clout; that's how socialism and marxism work in the real world.
And this is why I don't drink and read these comments!
The Right Honorable Member from Minnesota is once again dodging; alternatively, he fails to understand the difference between "data dump" and "analysis." The request was posed to the Right Honorable Member that he could demonstrate better understanding of this data set than the Citigroup data he has apparently been eating with ketchup lo, these many months, and prove that he is at least capable of arguing in good faith.
Sic transit gloria Markadelphia. (shrug) Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time.
I'll see your Lancet Study and raise you a CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db23.htm
"The primary reason for the United States’ higher infant mortality rate when compared with Europe is the United States’ much higher percentage of preterm births. In 2004, 1 in 8 infants born in the United States were born preterm, compared with 1 in 18 in Ireland and Finland. Preterm infants have much higher rates of death or disability than infants born at 37 weeks of gestation or more (2-4, 6), so the United States’ higher percentage of preterm births has a large effect on infant mortality rates. If the United States had the same gestational age distribution of births as Sweden, the U.S. infant mortality rate (excluding births at less than 22 weeks of gestation) would go from 5.8 to 3.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, a 33% decline. These data suggest that preterm birth prevention is crucial to lowering the U.S. infant mortality rate."
Followed up by a doctor's report on Materinty Care and how the USA has been using very agressive and invasive procedures since the 1990s: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/bfm.2009.0086?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org
Age of the mother is an important factor.
Is there an issue? Yes, but the idea that government run health care is the solution is lunacy.
Also, I couldn't find anywhere in the Lancet study provisions for morbidity based on citizenship status. Think that doesn't matter? How many illegal aliens are in the US vs Sweden? How many of those get treated exactly the same way as a citizen? More and all.
Oh, here's a post that agrees with me, but he's got references and numbers: http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-royal-fisking-mortality-v.html
"That is, citing infant mortality numbers without proper context: in many countries (even "developed" ones), infants with severe or fatal conditions aren't even counted as live births (or are aborted when diagnosed), whereas we do everything we can to save such innocents. One may argue the efficacy of such an attitude, but we value life."
“Russell, sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault. It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy. Given how the current system is set up, I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.“
And this means what, exactly?
Let’s parse it out. “sadly I have come to admit that my ideas regarding a return to good capitalism were at fault.“ First, and we’ve asked this before, define ‘good capitalism’. Explain your ‘ideas’ how we can ‘return’ to this state’? How are ideas at fault? Wouldn’t it be the person with those ideas be at fault? And why are you sad? Are you sad that you are at fault? Or are you sad that you have to admit it?
“It can't happen due to the shift we have gone through in our economy.”
What shift? How did it happen? Did someone lead the shift? Who? Did it happen to the entirety of the economy? Define ‘our economy’. Why can’t ‘it’ happen? Is ‘it’ the ideas at fault? Or the ‘return’? How did we go through the shift?
“Given how the current system is set up,”
Wait, didn’t you say there was a shift? Is the ‘system’ different from ‘our economy’? If not, was it set up recently because of the shift?
“I fear we are going to descend into further stratification and cement our plutonomy.“
If we are descending further into something, does that mean no shift happened to change the ideas at fault? You see, I’m getting confused at this point. Could you define ‘plutonomy’? I mean, I know Ajay Kapur defined it in the Citigroup document, but I can’t find any other accepted definition. And now you are going to have support the notion that stratification is fixed in the US. I am going to assume you mean socio-economic stratification. (Which, btw, is a Marxist idea.) Also, you are going to have to explain how this prevents US citizens from voting for representatives, since socio-economic stratification combined with plutocracy (which is a defined term) leads to disenfranchisement of voters.
So, I say again, this means what, exactly?
"So, I say again, this means what, exactly?"
What do you expect Random But Important Sounding Gibberish to mean, exactly?
Oh, nothing, really.
I found it amusing to try to parse this all too typical example of his "thinking" :)
"I found it amusing to try to parse this all too typical example of his "thinking" ..."
So did I.
But, doesn't he sound totally all like, sophisticated, and stuff ...
Like, totally!
I bet that blathering plays well to his State mandated, captive audience.
I believe that those of us with cognitive capabilities can probably agree that the Markism regarding the distribution of wealth in socialist/communist nations is a new high(low?) in his personal "look how much smarts my degree has imparted in me" sweepstakes.
I believe that those of us with cognitive capabilities can probably agree . . .
There we go being all "culty" again. *DONT_KNOW*
Last time I checked, North Korea was essentially a dictatorship putting on the bizarre mask of communism. The official ideology of North Korea is not Marxist-Leninist but Juche...the core tenets of which are that man is the center of everything and is independent and self reliant. This, of course, is a joke because Kim is essentially the emperor of that country. In addition, I believe I have stated several times on here that Marxism ultimately failed because there is no such thing as a classless society. Conflict theories in general are failures and serious analysis of societies and cultures should take on a more functionalist or interactionist perspective.
But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it.
My comment above was more in reference to a countries like Norway, Sweden, or even Canada which many here would consider socialist, correct? These countries have much more equality of income and state control over the private sector than we do. So, to say that we are like them, given the data I have provided above, is ludicrous. To say that we are descending into at Soviet style government is borderline psychotic.
I'll offer some more evidence that our private corporations are doing just fine and, in fact, rule the day: the Citizen's United Case. If our government is descending into Bezmenov's "reality," how do private coporations now have the same rights as individuals?
I'll offer some more evidence that our private corporations are doing just fine and, in fact, rule the day: the Citizen's United Case.
If I ever find a lamp with a Djinn in the sand, my first wish will be that you be enlightened as to what "offer" and "evidence" means, and that you're incapable of using them incorrectly ever again.
I'll offer some more evidence that our private corporations are doing just fine and, in fact, rule the day
Pardon my cynicism, but I'll believe that when I see it. Quoting articles of faith from the leftie orthodox bible won't cut it.
how do private coporations now have the same rights as individuals?
And we're the ones with insular blinders on. Right.
Ready yet to answer which is more, 22 or 15?
"But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it."
Yet again, you validate my statement.
How was recess yesterday, little boy?
Lessee, it's Wednesday. I give the troll another day of him bleating out stupid, us pounding away for grins, and then he'll run away for a week or two, until he swoops in to poop on a thread and kicking off another round of this.
Sure, it's repetitive, but although one could wish for better opponents, one does the best with what one has.
I still find it funny that the troll acts like none of this has ever happened before!
"I still find it funny that the troll acts like none of this has ever happened before!"
Funny, yes. Surprising, no. After all, you said it yourself:
"Sure, it's repetitive, but although one could wish for better opponents, one does the best with what one has."
That applies to him, too; y'see, it's all he can do.
"...Last time I checked, North Korea was essentially a dictatorship putting on the bizarre mask of communism. The official ideology of North Korea is not Marxist-Leninist but Juche..."
Oh, jeezis, talking about differences of Juche (which he knows nothing about) and Marxism (a process that he can't define, nor understand); he can't even SEE the similarities of both. Instead, he takes the NORKS' definition of what they refer to as philosophy and government as being true.
Just when I think Marxy can't amaze me any further with his fuckwittery, he actually manages to do so.
One has to admit it's an achievement, of a sort...kind of like making Jimmy Carter look presidential (not competent -- no power on Earth could do that -- but presidential, after a fashion).
But hey, nice try in playing "gotcha" (typical) and going for the "argument win" (very typical) rather than defending your ideology or demonstrating critical thought regarding it.
But that's exactly what we did. As well as demonstrated a sense of humor, knowledge of history, the world, reality, and the failures of the school system.
All in all, that's a helluva trick for so few words.
And we got to demonstrate that you don't think at all before speaking.
My comment above was more in reference to a countries like Norway, Sweden, or even Canada which many here would consider socialist, correct?
They're farther down the road, yes. By the way, since you are so keen on Norway or Sweden, let's point out that the "Sharing" is far, far, far less. As a matter of fact, Sweden was recently compared to Mississippi. The Mississippi citizens, on average, were far better off than the Swedes. Check out where Mississippi is, compared to the rest of the USA.
These countries have much more equality of income
ANd when we say that's what you want, you claim we're making things up. You'll be saying that by next week, and you'll have memory-holed this. After all, consistency doesnt matter, as long as you get the political power.
and state control over the private sector than we do.
Did.
So, to say that we are like them, given the data I have provided above, is ludicrous. To say that we are descending into at Soviet style government is borderline psychotic.
Oh, for sure. After all, has Obama been seen promoting a super-small car with no consumer demand, being forced on the marketplace?
Oh, well, now that I mention it.....
"borderline psychotic"
I do not think you know what that means: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/borderline-personality-disorder-fact-sheet/index.shtml
"While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone."
So tell us again why you keep coming back here? Aside from entertaining us, that is?
...how do private coporations now have the same rights as individuals?
Which is to this day being demonized and demagogued by the left, up to and including both you and the President. And yet you support unions having the same rights concerning political speech as individuals, and seem to completely miss the concept that both unions and corporations are, in fact, made up of individuals. Apparently you and President Present think unions members are people, but stockholders and business owners are not.
How does that work, anyway?
But, again, the problem there was not that they were too big to fail but too interconnected to fail (copyright Jim Manzi). This happened because of deregulation not more regulation. When insurance companies started selling mortgages along with the financial industry inventing things like CDOs, that's when the problems started. I don't want my insurance agency to be able to do that. I don't want my bank to be allowed to fuck around with my money with the government out to lunch on a long snooze.
So what you're saying is that citizens should be restricted in how they invest, financial institutions should be restricted in how they invest, and financial institutions should be restricted in what kinds of investments they are allowed to accpet.... all so that the government can unwillingly cosign the American taxpayer as payee to whatever political bullshit game they dream up (like still insisting that Fannie, Freddie and the FHA be allowed to make taxpayer guaranteed "liar loans") without the damage from that stupidity spreading everywhere else.
Deliberately making bad choices with taxpayer money, in which taxpayers are prohibited by law from declining to invest in, is not the problem. Allowing anyone except the government to rob you at gunpoint in such a manner, that's the problem.
Right?
I have a question, Mark. If you demand honest investing practices from all investors, including government agencies such as Fannie/Freddie, and actually enforce them, is the interconnectedness still a problem?
Damn text conversion to smileys... that's supposed to be a closing parentheses.
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