[Skinny Bob]

There's a pendulum in politics. Swing too far to the left, it rebounds, and swings too far to the right. and vice versa, in a never ending process going from one extreme to the other, and back again only to repeat. Now, the concept offered in this treatise is far from perfect, it's really just the first draft of an idea (not claiming it's original, either). All modern economies/nations are a mix of private and public enterprises, so this is not new, it's just recognition there is no such thing as a pure capitalistic nor pure socialist nation.

But where does the pendulum rest? Well, an actual pendulum, it rests upon arrival at the center. I feel this is a great metaphor for the political forces of the right and the left.

But, to reach the center, once we figure out where that center is, I believe we must do it deliberately, as, without deliberation, the pendulum will continue to swing. There is disharmony and disfunction when the pendulum never rests. The trick is to put it to rest, in the center. in Russia and China it has swung too far to the right. With Trump, it was swinging far to the right, but the electorate said NO, and chose Biden. But, we have to be wary of swinging too far to the left, as well. So, let's define things.

So, the place where the equilibrium of both forces are achieved is in the center.

Now, this is not to be confused with 'centrism' as a political ideology, so what it is is the right balance of socialism and capitalism. So let me define what I mean by these things. I mean a government run enterprise is a socialistic enterprise, and a privately run enterprise is a capitalistic enterprise. Most western nations ( if not all of them ) are mixed economies, various ratios of both.

That's how I am defining them here. There are other definitions, and the wiki entry on socialism is 150 pages long, so let's keep it simple. Many on the right accuse democrats of being 'socialist' in the hope people will associate this with the totalitarian countries, and thus reject it and vote for republicans, This is not being truthful, of course, because no democrat favors anything to do with totalitarianism, contrary to what many on the right are asserting. But, that's another argument.

Now then. I'm going to make some opinionated declarations, based on my empirical observation of history.

Socialism, without capitalism, will collapse.

Capitalism, without socialism, will devour itself.

So the trick is to understand what each does the best, and let each do just that.

It's a public enterprise versus private enterprise thing.

A public enterprise works better for what I will call, 'the negative markets'.

What do I mean by that?

These are things we need, and needs are things we absolutely must have, though we may, or may not want them.

Okay, you don't want your house to be on fire, so we need a fire department to deal with it

You don't want someone to steal or rob you or murder you, so we need to have a police, sheriff, and FBI to deal with such things.

We don't want foreign countries to attack us, so we need a military to deal with it.

Now, there are a few areas that can be done by both government and private, such as education.

Public education is the guarantee that everyone will be educated, poor or affluent. Private education is not denied for anyone who can pay for it.

So, it's mostly things we do not want, but need someone to deal with it, or public service for those who cannot afford the service, but which service is needed for everyone in order to achieve a literate, educated, nourished and healthy citizenry. This could include health care, food and housing, though all of these will have a large private counterpart.

And, on the other side of the equation, we have what I will call 'the positive markets' these are things we want, such as shoes, clothes, cars, cars washed, carpets cleaned, lawns mowed, toys, goodies, food, boats, jewelry stuff we want and desire for our happiness, etc.

So, public enterprise, negative markets ( mostly), things we need (socialism)
private enterprise, positive markets ( mostly ) things we want. (capitalism)

In short:

Socialism for needs,
Capitalism for wants.

Note that there are shades of grey, and options for one or the other. The concept of 'socialism for needs, and capitalism for wants' is not a rigid concept, adjustments can be made, depending on the wants of the electorate. It is a starting point, a guiding principle, a point of reference for clarity when things get foggy.

One country might favor government run critical and strategic services, such as post, railroad, and banking, healthcare, and another country these privately run, noting that in the vast majority of the 50 or so western countries, the health care model is some variant of universal health care.

And the dynamics of public enterprises are quite different than a private enterprise.

With a private enterprise, you must reward productivity and penalize non-productivity, and you must do this or go out of business.

But, with a nation, a public enterprise, the dynamics are different. If you penalize the poor, and overly reward the rich too much, and penalize the poor too much for too log, whereupon the government becomes oppressive and caters to the rich, you could wind up with masses of people with pitchforks marching Washington, you could wind up with revolutions, and the outcomes of revolutions are never good. We demand, much more so, accountability and transparency of our public servants much more so than of our private entrepreneurs. Try doing a FOIA request on a corporation. Now, nothing is perfect, as it is written, the Declaration of Independence did not declare America to be a perfect union, only that we try and be a more perfect union. And yes, there is corruption, but it knows no borders between the public and private, and this is a subject for a nother thread, I'm dealing with philosophical concepts here.

( There is the grey area of the non -profit corporation, which is a hybrid, but I will not get into this here )

You've never heard these terms (negative and positive markets ) because I just made them up, to illustrate a concept. So, don't hark back and say you've never heard of them. Of course you haven't, I've coined the ideas to illustrate my political philosophy.

So, the idea is, socialism for individual needs and needs of society, and capitalism for individual wants, and wants of society.

So, the idea isn't a centrist philosophy, the idea is the right balance of socialism ( government run enterprises ) and capitalism, ( privately run enterprises, and this includes corporations, LLCs, partnerships, and sole proprietorships, independent contractors), i.e., the idea is NOT to do away with either side of the pendulum, but achieve an equilibrium of both political forces. Finding the sweet spot, is what it is all about ( for me, anyway ) and that is the eternal struggle between the right and left, and there yes yet to be one leader who understands it fully, let alone explain it well to the electorate, so that everyone can agree on it.


That is the general idea of my political philosophy, and, as such, it is not really a socialist philosophy, because true socialism is the pendulum too far to the left, where it will ultimately fail. All the way to the right is total anarchy which will never be anarchy, it will be an plutocracy/oligarchy because, in a libertarian world, capital will find it flowing to fewer and fewer hands, and power controlled by fewer and fewer people. So, this is why I don't agree with conservatives and libertarians.

This can be true, (authoritarianism/totalitarianism) in a different way, in terms of central control, with communism/socialism and too far to the left, as evidenced by Soviet Russia, Cuba, N Korea, etc.

However, in my view, the farthest and safest place away from both extremes is the most inert point, and that is the center. Because that is the ONLY place the pendulum can rest.

The trick is, where, exactly, is the center? Where is that sweet spot and is it achievable? That is where the real debate is.

For me, America (I am an American) will not achieve it without universal health care.

[Tainari88]

@Skinny Bob I read your entire posting.

You make a lot of great points. Where I really differ from you is that the US is not some center balanced society. It is a society that has been swinging into capitalistic shitty policies and far right policies for a long time now.

This talks about the realities of where the US is in real terms.

To counter the heavy to the capitalist shit side you need a lot of hardcore socialists on the left to get the negative markets to respond. Because the reality is that there are only about three declared socialists in the US congress and the senate only has Bernie Sanders. It is not some balanced in the middle political nation. It is all capitalism devouring itself. They tried to do the child Tax Credit and it was proven to half poverty in the US for children and low income families. They needed to approve it. They could not do it even though the supposed Democrats were the majority of the Congress at the time. Why? Manchin and Sinema. The Democratic party is full of far right voting members who pose as liberals and so on but they are just Republican far right freaks in reality. The Democratic party is not even in the middle. They are moderate conservative right party people in the European spectrum.

So get the far LEFT way more of us need to be in there to balance all that shit out. But, if you have a bunch of fearmongering assholes who hate free universal health care, decent education and halfing child poverty in the USA and affordable housing for the many who can't afford free market crazy mortgage interest rates and Wall Street firms buying enormous amounts of rental units in order to dominate it all and not have regular people buying affordable starter homes? It is all dysfunctional.

So being fearful of socialism has to go!!

Why? Because the USA is not balanced in the middle. It is on the capitalism gone wild side of the spectrum.

Here:

Americans think the country is mostly this or that. It is not. It is going into an oligarchy constantly. Middle-class people? They have to work two jobs each sometimes to really be in that sweet spot of $100,000 through $150,000 for solid middle-class status where you can get your lawn mowed, cleaning company coming in once a week, dry cleaning, pay easy bills and save at least 15% for retirement, etc. No student loan debt either because your ass is basically disqualified for it if you owe any student loan debt at all.

So? You need those far-left Commies and Socialists in larger numbers to pressure the Kochs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and the BANKERS. Because otherwise, that shit from the chart will continue on forever until it hits the skids.

It is not getting better Skinny Bob. They need the far left kicking ass for the negative markets fast. Because without us? The pendulum is going to swing so much to the right and the elitist one percenters that the nation is going to become a problem. In this video the poor in the USA make about 12k a year. That is similar to Mexicans living lower middle class status in a nation that is way cheaper to live in. The Mexican level of poverty is not far off from that number. It should concern you.

[Skinny Bob]

@Skinny Bob I read your entire posting.

You make a lot of great points. Where I really differ from you is that the US is not some center balanced society. It is a society that has been swinging into capitalistic shitty policies and far right policies for a long time now.

This talks about the realities of where the US is in real terms.

To counter the heavy to the capitalist shit side you need a lot of hardcore socialists on the left to get the negative markets to respond. Because the reality is that there are only about three declared socialists in the US congress and the senate only has Bernie Sanders. It is not some balanced in the middle political nation. It is all capitalism devouring itself. They tried to do the child Tax Credit and it was proven to half poverty in the US for children and low income families. They needed to approve it. They could not do it even though the supposed Democrats were the majority of the Congress at the time. Why? Manchin and Sinema. The Democratic party is full of far right voting members who pose as liberals and so on but they are just Republican far right freaks in reality. The Democratic party is not even in the middle. They are moderate conservative right party people in the European spectrum.

So get the far LEFT way more of us need to be in there to balance all that shit out. But, if you have a bunch of fearmongering assholes who hate free universal health care, decent education and halfing child poverty in the USA and affordable housing for the many who can't afford free market crazy mortgage interest rates and Wall Street firms buying enormous amounts of rental units in order to dominate it all and not have regular people buying affordable starter homes? It is all dysfunctional.

So being fearful of socialism has to go!!

Why? Because the USA is not balanced in the middle. It is on the capitalism gone wild side of the spectrum.

Here:

Americans think the country is mostly this or that. It is not. It is going into an oligarchy constantly. Middle-class people? They have to work two jobs each sometimes to really be in that sweet spot of $100,000 through $150,000 for solid middle-class status where you can get your lawn mowed, cleaning company coming in once a week, dry cleaning, pay easy bills and save at least 15% for retirement, etc. No student loan debt either because your ass is basically disqualified for it if you owe any student loan debt at all.

So? You need those far-left Commies and Socialists in larger numbers to pressure the Kochs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and the BANKERS. Because otherwise, that shit from the chart will continue on forever until it hits the skids.

It is not getting better Skinny Bob. They need the far left kicking ass for the negative markets fast. Because without us? The pendulum is going to swing so much to the right and the elitist one percenters that the nation is going to become a problem. In this video the poor in the USA make about 12k a year. That is similar to Mexicans living lower middle class status in a nation that is way cheaper to live in. The Mexican level of poverty is not far off from that number. It should concern you.

We agree on the state of the US, actually. I never claimed the US has got it right. And I agree it has swung far too much on the neoliberal (unfettered free market) side of things. My post was aspirational and asks the question, what is the right balance of left v right? I end on the note that I think, at the minimum, it should include universal health care. In the USA, the upper 50% own 97% of the nation's wealth (source Fed Reserve wealth distribution tables) and that's due to American swinging too far to the right. We need a Bernie Sanders style President (or the man, himself) and more liberals in congress and the Senate. But, convincing the electorate when the right has a strong propaganda machine, that is the difficult part.

[Tainari88]

We agree on the state of the US, actually. I never claimed the US has got it right. And I agree it has swung far too much on the neoliberal (unfettered free market) side of things. My post was aspirational and asks the question, what is the right balance of left v right? I end on the note that I think, at the minimum, it should include universal health care. In the USA, the upper 50% own 97% of the nation's wealth (source Fed Reserve wealth distribution tables) and that's due to American swinging too far to the right. We need a Bernie Sanders style President (or the man, himself) and more liberals in congress and the Senate. But, convincing the electorate when the right has a strong propaganda machine, that is the difficult part.

If that wealth inequality is not dealt with soon? You risk what this woman talks about.

Besides that, the issue with the strong propaganda is that the USA is fueling its economy on war and the Department of Defense. There are a lot of disappeared billions in budgets that no one knows where the money goes to.

A huge percentage of the US budget is about military and defense spending. And propping up already bloated industries and allowing them to dominate the entire economy. What is really useful and productive is getting suffocated.

Then you couple that with people fed up with liberals who are about political correct speech and fluff issues discussed in another thread you quoted there about? And the formula is grim.

The US formula is running out of steam precisely because it believes in capitalist shit theories so strongly and it is very conservative and a highly ineffective society coping with class and race. They keep denying it is a class based society and highly racist. It has thought that the sixties and the Civil Rights Act did well and eradicated the problems the US nation has always had since its inception.

It has not solved and confronted the problems. It has put them in the back burner. Now it is going through change.

Listen to this TED talk woman that another member by the name of Deustchmania first posted here.

There are patterns that are emerging from societies that follow a pattern. When a dominant group is losing a share of power due to changes that are compelling, they react either like a fascist violent response type of thing or they concede to the changes, and restructure the society, adjust in time and regroup and go forward.

Which is your guess the USA is going to do eh?

I disagree with Barbara Walter on some key points. The business community in the US already has corrupted both the Democrats and the Republicans with lobbyists and special interest groups who manipulate for their interests. So the USA gov't has a lot of work to do. Because the Wall Street crowd are raking in the dough and they are not interested in making the system respond to average voters and so on.

That job can only be done through grassroots. It is going to require a lot of work. To avoid a civil war and to avoid ineffective gridlock political fighting.

In the interim if the US can't let go of its theocratic anti democracy types who love Church above state. It can't let go of people hating on socialism when socialism is the counterpoint to Capitalism gone wild and libertarian ideas of individualism gone wild, such as one percenters should be allowed owning enormous amounts of wealth because it is going to magically trickle down and neoliberalism is going to triumph....or they are going to have to face reality. If they want functionality as you say in the middle? That LEFT that they killed off in the Red Scare days of 1950s is going to have to be a new version of the LEFT. The one that can manage to accept everyone and deal with diversity fairly. And realize the heart of capitalism is DISCRIMINATION and lack of power distribution that is about human needs. Capitalism does not give a damn about human needs. It is about owners and nonowners.

So? What is the issue there? Democratize the workplace, get the workers to own their own labor, start using technology and AI to liberate people. Lift people out of poverty. Do universal health care. Do universal K-University educations for state universities and get a balanced economy. One that is not about overbloated people who spout going to Mars to live because taking care of the Earth well means giving up on constant growth and expansion when the climate change issue is going to force people to have to give up on constant American style consumption.

The changes have to be made Skinny Bob.

I do not think the US did a good job being balanced. They got rid of the old socialists from the Franklin D. Roosevelt days. They eradicated the far Left thinking they did not need them at all and since the far left is the political column that is into equality and rights for the working people? Guess what? The rights of the working people got deteriorated. They started being worn down. With the Traffic controllers unions in the 1980s and so on. Less and less worker rights. For what purpose? It is easy to know that answer.

So now you got technological advances. You can use it for GOOD or you can use it for BAD. Just like everything else. Will it be used to squash dissent and violate privacy of all people and have some government Fascist enforcement of laws that the white, Christian, conservative pro capitalist and unequal class conscious shit people with tremendous wealth want to have happen? Or will the USA decide to do UBI and strengthen universal health care, forgive crushing student loan debt scams, and so on?

The American electorate in many cases are not active. Most Americans are not even close to fascist. But there are enormous amounts of them that just do not bother to vote. They often also never got anything close to a decent civic education.

So, again, a lot of work to do in the USA. That is the only solution. Work your ass off getting the nation to avoid a crash and burn fascist dictatorship.

Tump is not the problem. He is a symptom of a greater dysfunction in the USA. The American public wants easy authoritarian and racist shit solutions to a very long process that started a long time ago when the US believed by eliminating an entire political section they could rid themselves of working class people's ability to fight for their own rights in a society that got married to capitalism completely without any real thought behind what is the most practical solution to balance.

It is not being balanced to say....never cope with socialism. It is just horrible. Listen to cheap ass propaganda. It has the easy fix.

The Conmen are in charge. The cowards are in charge. The spineless are in charge. The haters are in charge.

The Pendulum is nowhere near the center. Look for the ones who were removed from the scale because they were supposedly useless and a threat to the GREATNESS OF CAPITALISM GONE WILD.

We all have a role to play to get the middle. You will never get there without a socialist column Skinny Bob. Ever.

And Bernie Sanders is a moderate one. Not a radical. It speaks to how far the Capitalism only rabbit hole the USA has gotten.

The civil war can happen. It will not be pretty if it comes to pass. Barbara F. Walter the Civil War Expert thinks business is going to save the USA. What is going to save the USA is getting rid of the racists, the cowards the liars, the thieves and the people who hate democracy because it means they have to accept the opposition as human and have to get some form of peace to happen when war is the only way they are committed to making money. When war is necessary for making money in that mentality? You are asking to end your entire society. Incessant war is not the productive activity they love to think it is. It is the fire of death and the pain of destruction. The destroyer of worlds.

Too bad they never understood that. Ignorant assholes they are.

[Unthinking Majority]

.

[Skinny Bob]

If that wealth inequality is not dealt with soon? You risk what this woman talks about.

Besides that, the issue with the strong propaganda is that the USA is fueling its economy on war and the Department of Defense. There are a lot of disappeared billions in budgets that no one knows where the money goes to.

A huge percentage of the US budget is about military and defense spending. And propping up already bloated industries and allowing them to dominate the entire economy. What is really useful and productive is getting suffocated.

Then you couple that with people fed up with liberals who are about political correct speech and fluff issues discussed in another thread you quoted there about? And the formula is grim.

The US formula is running out of steam precisely because it believes in capitalist shit theories so strongly and it is very conservative and a highly ineffective society coping with class and race. They keep denying it is a class based society and highly racist. It has thought that the sixties and the Civil Rights Act did well and eradicated the problems the US nation has always had since its inception.

It has not solved and confronted the problems. It has put them in the back burner. Now it is going through change.

Listen to this TED talk woman that another member by the name of Deustchmania first posted here.

There are patterns that are emerging from societies that follow a pattern. When a dominant group is losing a share of power due to changes that are compelling, they react either like a fascist violent response type of thing or they concede to the changes, and restructure the society, adjust in time and regroup and go forward.

Which is your guess the USA is going to do eh?

I disagree with Barbara Walter on some key points. The business community in the US already has corrupted both the Democrats and the Republicans with lobbyists and special interest groups who manipulate for their interests. So the USA gov't has a lot of work to do. Because the Wall Street crowd are raking in the dough and they are not interested in making the system respond to average voters and so on.

That job can only be done through grassroots. It is going to require a lot of work. To avoid a civil war and to avoid ineffective gridlock political fighting.

In the interim if the US can't let go of its theocratic anti democracy types who love Church above state. It can't let go of people hating on socialism when socialism is the counterpoint to Capitalism gone wild and libertarian ideas of individualism gone wild, such as one percenters should be allowed owning enormous amounts of wealth because it is going to magically trickle down and neoliberalism is going to triumph....or they are going to have to face reality. If they want functionality as you say in the middle? That LEFT that they killed off in the Red Scare days of 1950s is going to have to be a new version of the LEFT. The one that can manage to accept everyone and deal with diversity fairly. And realize the heart of capitalism is DISCRIMINATION and lack of power distribution that is about human needs. Capitalism does not give a damn about human needs. It is about owners and nonowners.

So? What is the issue there? Democratize the workplace, get the workers to own their own labor, start using technology and AI to liberate people. Lift people out of poverty. Do universal health care. Do universal K-University educations for state universities and get a balanced economy. One that is not about overbloated people who spout going to Mars to live because taking care of the Earth well means giving up on constant growth and expansion when the climate change issue is going to force people to have to give up on constant American style consumption.

The changes have to be made Skinny Bob.

I do not think the US did a good job being balanced. They got rid of the old socialists from the Franklin D. Roosevelt days. They eradicated the far Left thinking they did not need them at all and since the far left is the political column that is into equality and rights for the working people? Guess what? The rights of the working people got deteriorated. They started being worn down. With the Traffic controllers unions in the 1980s and so on. Less and less worker rights. For what purpose? It is easy to know that answer.

So now you got technological advances. You can use it for GOOD or you can use it for BAD. Just like everything else. Will it be used to squash dissent and violate privacy of all people and have some government Fascist enforcement of laws that the white, Christian, conservative pro capitalist and unequal class conscious shit people with tremendous wealth want to have happen? Or will the USA decide to do UBI and strengthen universal health care, forgive crushing student loan debt scams, and so on?

The American electorate in many cases are not active. Most Americans are not even close to fascist. But there are enormous amounts of them that just do not bother to vote. They often also never got anything close to a decent civic education.

So, again, a lot of work to do in the USA. That is the only solution. Work your ass off getting the nation to avoid a crash and burn fascist dictatorship.

Tump is not the problem. He is a symptom of a greater dysfunction in the USA. The American public wants easy authoritarian and racist shit solutions to a very long process that started a long time ago when the US believed by eliminating an entire political section they could rid themselves of working class people's ability to fight for their own rights in a society that got married to capitalism completely without any real thought behind what is the most practical solution to balance.

It is not being balanced to say....never cope with socialism. It is just horrible. Listen to cheap ass propaganda. It has the easy fix.

The Conmen are in charge. The cowards are in charge. The spineless are in charge. The haters are in charge.

The Pendulum is nowhere near the center. Look for the ones who were removed from the scale because they were supposedly useless and a threat to the GREATNESS OF CAPITALISM GONE WILD.

We all have a role to play to get the middle. You will never get there without a socialist column Skinny Bob. Ever.

And Bernie Sanders is a moderate one. Not a radical. It speaks to how far the Capitalism only rabbit hole the USA has gotten.

The civil war can happen. It will not be pretty if it comes to pass. Barbara F. Walter the Civil War Expert thinks business is going to save the USA. What is going to save the USA is getting rid of the racists, the cowards the liars, the thieves and the people who hate democracy because it means they have to accept the opposition as human and have to get some form of peace to happen when war is the only way they are committed to making money. When war is necessary for making money in that mentality? You are asking to end your entire society. Incessant war is not the productive activity they love to think it is. It is the fire of death and the pain of destruction. The destroyer of worlds.

Too bad they never understood that. Ignorant assholes they are.

Regarding the prolonged exploitation of the poor, resulting in some kind of revolution, Nick Hanauer, a top tier 1/10th of 1 percenter, put out a TED talk warning his rich buddies of what might happen (but the video is for everyone) Now, Nick is no right winger, which is interesting since he is a billionaire, but I think you will appreciate his message, check it out:

I agree that Trump isn't the problem. The kind of people who favor him have always been there. I remember back in the 60s the 'John Birchers' (members of the John Birch Society), all of whom were considered fringe by the mainstream Republicans at that time, their views were practically identical to the views held by Trump fans. All Trump did was, sensing this void, that this group had no representation, all he did was exploit it to his advantage. But little do that group know that Trump is really the wrong guy, he's just a con man taking advantage of a group who aren't that well educated in the first place. In Trump, this group found their champion, and, in the famous words of W.C. Fields, who made a humorous twist on a famous quote by Lincoln, Fields remarked, 'You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool some of the people some of the time, and....it's just enough to make a good living!". Trump isn't at all caring about the plight of the little guy, but he knows they can easily be conned out of their cash, and he does it daily via his grifting them for his 'Leadership PAC' which isn't supposed to be used for personal expenses, but the dirty secret in Wash DC is that the DOJ is giving it a blind eye, and most politicians are using it as private slush funds. Trump is the kind of guy that, if there is a way to game the system, he goes at it in a big way, and he is using his Leadership Pac (Save America) to finance his legal bills and no doubt other things and I don't think he is being honest to his base, about it.

I think we are on the same page on a lot of ideas, and I'm extremely aware of America's shortcomings and why they exist. The problem is systemic. There are enough people on the left that, if their vote was equal to 'one person, one vote' we'd have Bernie as president a long time ago. But the framers of the constitution were unable to predict that, in centuries to come, demographics would shift in such a way as to give rural areas the advantage, and rural areas are dominated by the right.

The solution, in my view, what we have to do, first, to get from here to there, is to make every vote equal. We have to correct the deficiency of the electoral college. One solution is the 'National Popular Vote Interstate Compact' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... te_Compact).
There is another systemic problem. American constitution allows for only 2 senators per state. California, with almost 40 million people has 2 senators. Now, take some (I'm' guessing about) 20 rural states to equal the population of California, and those states, with an equal population, have 40 senators. The framers wanted to give the smaller states a stronger voice with the 2 senators per state, idea, but there is no way in the world they could have predicted that in the distant future, there would be such a thing as a state with 40,000,000 people in it.

Had they understood this, I'm certain there would have been a provision in the constitution to accommodate this issue, without diminishing the voice of the smaller states.

In the Senate, the constituency of 50 Democrat Senators exceeds that of 50 Republican Senators by roughly 40 million people. So, we need to remedy both the discrepancy in the Senate and in the electoral college. Naturally, Republicans will resist because it will diminish their unjustly gained power. But, if we ever do manage to correct this deficiency, it is for the better because the vote would then more accurately reflect the wants and desires of the electorate.

[Skinny Bob]

If that wealth inequality is not dealt with soon? You risk what this woman talks about.

Besides that, the issue with the strong propaganda is that the USA is fueling its economy on war and the Department of Defense. There are a lot of disappeared billions in budgets that no one knows where the money goes to.

A huge percentage of the US budget is about military and defense spending. And propping up already bloated industries and allowing them to dominate the entire economy. What is really useful and productive is getting suffocated.

Then you couple that with people fed up with liberals who are about political correct speech and fluff issues discussed in another thread you quoted there about? And the formula is grim.

The US formula is running out of steam precisely because it believes in capitalist shit theories so strongly and it is very conservative and a highly ineffective society coping with class and race. They keep denying it is a class based society and highly racist. It has thought that the sixties and the Civil Rights Act did well and eradicated the problems the US nation has always had since its inception.

It has not solved and confronted the problems. It has put them in the back burner. Now it is going through change.

Listen to this TED talk woman that another member by the name of Deustchmania first posted here.

There are patterns that are emerging from societies that follow a pattern. When a dominant group is losing a share of power due to changes that are compelling, they react either like a fascist violent response type of thing or they concede to the changes, and restructure the society, adjust in time and regroup and go forward.

Which is your guess the USA is going to do eh?

I disagree with Barbara Walter on some key points. The business community in the US already has corrupted both the Democrats and the Republicans with lobbyists and special interest groups who manipulate for their interests. So the USA gov't has a lot of work to do. Because the Wall Street crowd are raking in the dough and they are not interested in making the system respond to average voters and so on.

That job can only be done through grassroots. It is going to require a lot of work. To avoid a civil war and to avoid ineffective gridlock political fighting.

In the interim if the US can't let go of its theocratic anti democracy types who love Church above state. It can't let go of people hating on socialism when socialism is the counterpoint to Capitalism gone wild and libertarian ideas of individualism gone wild, such as one percenters should be allowed owning enormous amounts of wealth because it is going to magically trickle down and neoliberalism is going to triumph....or they are going to have to face reality. If they want functionality as you say in the middle? That LEFT that they killed off in the Red Scare days of 1950s is going to have to be a new version of the LEFT. The one that can manage to accept everyone and deal with diversity fairly. And realize the heart of capitalism is DISCRIMINATION and lack of power distribution that is about human needs. Capitalism does not give a damn about human needs. It is about owners and nonowners.

So? What is the issue there? Democratize the workplace, get the workers to own their own labor, start using technology and AI to liberate people. Lift people out of poverty. Do universal health care. Do universal K-University educations for state universities and get a balanced economy. One that is not about overbloated people who spout going to Mars to live because taking care of the Earth well means giving up on constant growth and expansion when the climate change issue is going to force people to have to give up on constant American style consumption.

The changes have to be made Skinny Bob.

I do not think the US did a good job being balanced. They got rid of the old socialists from the Franklin D. Roosevelt days. They eradicated the far Left thinking they did not need them at all and since the far left is the political column that is into equality and rights for the working people? Guess what? The rights of the working people got deteriorated. They started being worn down. With the Traffic controllers unions in the 1980s and so on. Less and less worker rights. For what purpose? It is easy to know that answer.

So now you got technological advances. You can use it for GOOD or you can use it for BAD. Just like everything else. Will it be used to squash dissent and violate privacy of all people and have some government Fascist enforcement of laws that the white, Christian, conservative pro capitalist and unequal class conscious shit people with tremendous wealth want to have happen? Or will the USA decide to do UBI and strengthen universal health care, forgive crushing student loan debt scams, and so on?

The American electorate in many cases are not active. Most Americans are not even close to fascist. But there are enormous amounts of them that just do not bother to vote. They often also never got anything close to a decent civic education.

So, again, a lot of work to do in the USA. That is the only solution. Work your ass off getting the nation to avoid a crash and burn fascist dictatorship.

Tump is not the problem. He is a symptom of a greater dysfunction in the USA. The American public wants easy authoritarian and racist shit solutions to a very long process that started a long time ago when the US believed by eliminating an entire political section they could rid themselves of working class people's ability to fight for their own rights in a society that got married to capitalism completely without any real thought behind what is the most practical solution to balance.

It is not being balanced to say....never cope with socialism. It is just horrible. Listen to cheap ass propaganda. It has the easy fix.

The Conmen are in charge. The cowards are in charge. The spineless are in charge. The haters are in charge.

The Pendulum is nowhere near the center. Look for the ones who were removed from the scale because they were supposedly useless and a threat to the GREATNESS OF CAPITALISM GONE WILD.

We all have a role to play to get the middle. You will never get there without a socialist column Skinny Bob. Ever.

And Bernie Sanders is a moderate one. Not a radical. It speaks to how far the Capitalism only rabbit hole the USA has gotten.

The civil war can happen. It will not be pretty if it comes to pass. Barbara F. Walter the Civil War Expert thinks business is going to save the USA. What is going to save the USA is getting rid of the racists, the cowards the liars, the thieves and the people who hate democracy because it means they have to accept the opposition as human and have to get some form of peace to happen when war is the only way they are committed to making money. When war is necessary for making money in that mentality? You are asking to end your entire society. Incessant war is not the productive activity they love to think it is. It is the fire of death and the pain of destruction. The destroyer of worlds.

Too bad they never understood that. Ignorant assholes they are.

I watched the Walter video, I liked what she was saying. I believe Nick Hanauer would appreciate her, as well, so I recommend watching his video, the one a linked to, below. Hanauer has a podcast, I think it is called 'pitchfork economics', he's on the same page.