[Senter]

So before America can get any semblance of direct democracy and cooperation, perhaps your government could stop killing everyone who successfully sets this kind of thing up?

Senter, aren't you a bit afraid of being accused of being a genocidal anti-semitic terror-supporter just before one of Obama's drones takes you out? This is, after all, where America sits in relationship to social progress in the 21st Century: America destroys it wherever it occurs.

Such concerns are real, but if we are cowed into fear of doing anything, it will get worse and worse until it is intolerable, and then the response of the people will be sudden, undeveloped, disorganized, desperate, probably violent, and doomed to very ugly repression.

There are already legal ways of establishing worker self-directed enterprises including news publication companies, and these might be one type of WSDE that should be well developed first for obvious reasons.

[quetzalcoatl]

The thing is Capitalism just doesn't seem to have crises any more.

I try to perceive history in a non-dialectical way. Communism was not an alternative to capitalism, it was a viral offshoot of capitalism. Capitalism, in response to external challenge, throws off mutated versions - some of these survive, some eventually fail. The soviet arrangement eventually failed, while the Chinese experiment still continues.

(I perceive capitalism in a different sense than most people. It is not an organized structure built up from ideological principles. It is an organic system which has evolved over time. It has certain taxonomic features, but no prescriptive foundation. It can work for non-Western nations like China who never subscribed to liberal enlightenment values. It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.)

[Senter]

The thing is Capitalism just doesn't seem to have crises any more. When was the last time Britain or the US experienced a real crisis like the Black death or the Holdomor?

The 2008 Recession was indeed a crisis. And the "recovery" omitted everyone but the top 1% or so. The government, instead of pumping money into the hands of people who needed it and would spend it to stimulate the economy, pumped it into the big banksters and Wall Street. The outward sign of its benefit was a record stock market. But its rise was not due to increasing earnings and profits among corporations, but to the money being pumped into it to make it look good. Hence we had a "recovery" without substance. The public has been unable to consume all the excess inventory held by corporations. Additional productive capacity was not therefore attractive to the top corporations so they sat on their holdings and move much of it to off-shore accounts to save it.

And now the top biggest three banks have, in turn, announced that they see a financial crisis looming on the horizon.

So we have a "recovery" without substance, the public still hurting and not recovering, and a new crisis on the horizon.

Do you think this might be a crisis when it hits? Do you think they may be getting worse and worse and worse as each one passes? With the changes in corporate "fortunes" and desperation as seen in their development of increased ownership of government like we see in A.L.E.C., and the turmoil in society, I don't know how anyone can say its just a repeating cycle that won't go anywhere unless they really aren't informed on current events.

[QatzelOk]

The thing is Capitalism just doesn't seem to have crises any more. When was the last time Britain or the US experienced a real crisis like the Black death or the Holdomor?

Climate change, wars for oil, refugees flooding into Europe from the Middle East, the bankruptcy of the American banking system and model, the rising acidity of the oceans... Not to mention the "what problem?" mindset of media-stunned consumers. All of these are life-ending crises of capitalism.

...And obviously, we cannot continue what we are doing now - real world limits will prevent that. The interesting question is whether we will stop 'doing what we're doing now' in time to recover. What's at stake is large scale industrial civilization, not the survival of the species itself (although I could be mistaken).

What form should such a civilization take, Qatzel? What would you like to see happen?

Well, to pretend to "see" what the world should look like - every institution and power relationship - is impossible and arrogant. But it isn't insane or arrogant to talk about how to transition away from what we have now.

And I think the best way to do that is to remove all the social prestige that comes from conspicuous consumption. The next time a friend brags to you about spending weeks and weeks flying all over the world, remind them that they have participated in destroying that same world with their unnecessary consumption of technological products. And that this kind of consumption will never satisfy them and makes other people miserable.

Brag about low-impact vacations, methods you've found to get more with less, and use shame and scorn to hurt people for their hyper-consumptive ways. Stop rewarding this kind of behavior with jealousy and imitation.

[SpecialOlympian]

AMERICA is perfect and will last forever. I know this makes some people angry but it's the truth. Blame God for being born in an insignificant loser country that would be better off petitioning for AMERICAN statehood.

[Zagadka]

Yea, because events that happen a couple of times per millennium are so frequent.

[Potemkin]

And I think the best way to do that is to remove all the social prestige that comes from conspicuous consumption. The next time a friend brags to you about spending weeks and weeks flying all over the world, remind them that they have participated in destroying that same world with their unnecessary consumption of technological products. And that this kind of consumption will never satisfy them and makes other people miserable.

Brag about low-impact vacations, methods you've found to get more with less, and use shame and scorn to hurt people for their hyper-consumptive ways. Stop rewarding this kind of behavior with jealousy and imitation.

You must be a real hoot at parties, Qatz.

[Senter]

Rather than confronting people whom you need on your side, it would be more effective to find ways to unite on agreed issues, and there are many. The problem, ultimately, is corporate control and domination, -not the ecology. The ecology is very important but it is a symptom of corporate control and domination. Attack the cause, not the symptom.

[Donna]

I stopped about 55 seconds in when the video said 1/6th of AMERICA's population is going hungry.

That's straight up Hunger Games shit.

It's true, actually. Your country is turning into Brazil.

[Senter]

Yes, even children say true things some times, and he is a child as you can see by the obscene doodles he posted.

[Senter]

Donald, your bio says you are a fascist. Would that be on the right or the left?