Blast in Beirut, Lebanon - Page 20 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Talk about what you've seen in the news today.

Moderator: PoFo Today's News Mods

#15119082
@ckaihatsu

Liberal democratic capitalism is the most desirable out of all the not so desirable socio-economic systems that we have right now by a huge margin. So it is not like we really have a choice in this question. The alternatives are just way worse.

Socialism and communism or their alternatives have far more downsides compared to liberal democratic capitalism. It doesn't mean that liberal democratic capitalism has no flaws, it just has fewer flaws and is more livable for the average person.
#15119227
JohnRawls wrote:
@ckaihatsu

Liberal democratic capitalism is the most desirable out of all the not so desirable socio-economic systems that we have right now by a huge margin. So it is not like we really have a choice in this question. The alternatives are just way worse.

Socialism and communism or their alternatives have far more downsides compared to liberal democratic capitalism. It doesn't mean that liberal democratic capitalism has no flaws, it just has fewer flaws and is more livable for the average person.



*Or* it's actually a *plutocracy*, meaning the rule of the rich.

You sound a lot like *this*:



The divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandate is a political and religious doctrine of political legitimacy in a monarchy. It stems from a specific metaphysical framework in which a king (or queen) is pre-ordained to inherit the crown before their birth. Under this theory of political legitimacy the subjects of the crown are considered to have actively (rather than merely passively) turned over the metaphysical selection of the king's soul – which will inhabit the body and rule them – over to God. In this way, the "divine right" originates as a metaphysical act of humility or submission towards God. The divine right has been a key element for legitimizing many absolute monarchies.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings
#15119264
ckaihatsu wrote:*Or* it's actually a *plutocracy*, meaning the rule of the rich.

You sound a lot like *this*:


It is far more complicated then that. There are far more checks and balances compared to your ideas and mistakes get self-corrected. The weight of the corporations and rich people in a liberal democracy is large but it is not overwhelming. Meaning that they can't override the will of the people but they can sway things in different directions. Those directions can be bad and good, so i am not sure for myself about this. Rich and business needs to be represented because they protect the interests of their side of sorts. If it doesn't happen then there are consequences for the economy. So from one side it is bad but overall there are benefits in this.

My opinion on this is that it is a good thing unless it degrades to the quid pro quo domain. Quid pro quo should be disallowed and prosecuted. Otherwise it is a benefit i guess.
#15119307
JohnRawls wrote:
It is far more complicated then that. There are far more checks and balances compared to your ideas and mistakes get self-corrected.



These are *internal* concerns -- I'm not on the side of the bourgeoisie.


JohnRawls wrote:
The weight of the corporations and rich people in a liberal democracy is large but it is not overwhelming. Meaning that they can't override the will of the people but they can sway things in different directions.



I find *this* development to be a good place to draw the line:



Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons.[1] In the United States and most countries, corporations, as legal persons, have a right to enter into contracts with other parties and to sue or be sued in court in the same way as natural persons or unincorporated associations of persons. In a U.S. historical context, the phrase "Corporate Personhood" refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. A headnote issued by the Court Reporter in the 1886 Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. claimed to state the sense of the Court regarding the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as it applies to corporations, without the Court having actually made a decision or issued a written opinion on that point.[2]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood



---


JohnRawls wrote:
Those directions can be bad and good, so i am not sure for myself about this. Rich and business needs to be represented because they protect the interests of their side of sorts. If it doesn't happen then there are consequences for the economy. So from one side it is bad but overall there are benefits in this.

My opinion on this is that it is a good thing unless it degrades to the quid pro quo domain. Quid pro quo should be disallowed and prosecuted. Otherwise it is a benefit i guess.



There doesn't have to be the outright selling of political influence for there to be *class rule*, as from the bourgeoisie, currently.

If you're going to defend the interests of wealth, how are you going to be able to address the social ill of *income inequality*?


Wealth Inequality in America




And:


Image

Income inequality in the United States - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in ... ted_States
#15119314
ckaihatsu wrote:These are *internal* concerns -- I'm not on the side of the bourgeoisie.





I find *this* development to be a good place to draw the line:







---





There doesn't have to be the outright selling of political influence for there to be *class rule*, as from the bourgeoisie, currently.

If you're going to defend the interests of wealth, how are you going to be able to address the social ill of *income inequality*?


Wealth Inequality in America




And:


Image

Income inequality in the United States - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in ... ted_States


Income inequality is inherent in the human species across all times. It existed even in the Soviet Union or the Warshaw pact countries. The difference was that instead of the rich or corporations the beuracrats took their place. The problem was that the beuracrats were not accountable to any democratic system of any sort. Some systems existed on paper like workers councils but in reality they didn't wield any influence over the beuracrats. At best they were consultative or just token institutions.

So that coupled with other issues in the Warshaw pact and the SU destroyed it in the end. Democratic system might not have full control and oversight over every aspect of the society but in the Soviet Union the people didn't really decide anything. The higher rankings politburo did along with the party.

So in the end it lead to the disfunctional economy, cultural oppression by the attempt to supplant the general cultural of everytone to the communist ideal culture of sorts, etc etc
#15119328
skinster wrote:https://twitter.com/ejmalrai/status/1304399180190961666?s=20



Imagine believing this in late 2020. :D


So what is the alternative? There are no workable alternatives right now. It is just least shit out of all the shit that we have right now if you like this kind of interpretation more.
#15119346
JohnRawls wrote:
Income inequality is inherent in the human species across all times.



Nope:



The archaeological evidence from the Fertile Crescent shows people living in small villages as separate households, although it does not tell us what the basis of these households was (whether, for instance, they were made up of separate couples and their children; of a mother, her daughter and their spouses; or of a father, his sons and their wives).29

There was still nothing resembling class and state authority until many thousands of years after the first turn to agriculture. In the ‘late Urbaid period’ (4000 BC), ‘significant differentiation’ in ‘wealth was almost entirely absent’, and even in the ‘protoliterate period’ (toward 3000 BC), there was no indication that ‘the processes of social stratification had as yet proceeded very far’.30 There was no evidence of male supremacy, either. Some archaeologists have seen the existence of clay or stone statuettes of fecund female figures as suggesting a high status for women, so that men found it ‘natural’ to pray to women.31 However, one significant development was that weapons for warfare as well as for hunting became more prevalent.

The pattern seems to have been very similar to that in horticulture-based societies which survived into more recent times—in a few cases right through to the 20th century—in various parts of the world. These societies varied considerably, but did share certain general features.32

Households tended to be associated with cultivating particular bits of land. But private property in land as we know it did not exist, and nor did the drive of individuals or households to pile up stocks of personal possessions at the expense of others. Instead, individual households were integrated into wider social groupings, ‘lineages’ of people, who shared (or at least purported to share) the same ancestry. These provided individuals and households with clearly defined rights and obligations towards others to whom they were related directly, or linked to through marriage or through ‘age group’ associations. Each was expected to share food with the others, so that no household would suffer because of the failure of a crop or because it had more young children to bring up than others. Prestige came not from individual consumption, but from the ability to help make up for the deficiencies of others.

Many core values remained much closer to those of hunter-gatherer societies than to those we take for granted in class societies. Thus, an early 18th century observer of the Iroquois horticulturists noted, ‘If a cabin of hungry Iroquois meets another whose provisions are not entirely exhausted, the latter share with the newcomers the little which remains to them without waiting to be asked, although they expose themselves thereby to the same dangers of perishing as those whom they help’.33 A classic study of the Nuer noted, ‘In general it can be said that no one in a Nuer village starves unless all are starving’.34



Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 11-12



---


JohnRawls wrote:
It existed even in the Soviet Union or the Warshaw pact countries. The difference was that instead of the rich or corporations the beuracrats took their place. The problem was that the beuracrats were not accountable to any democratic system of any sort. Some systems existed on paper like workers councils but in reality they didn't wield any influence over the beuracrats. At best they were consultative or just token institutions.

So that coupled with other issues in the Warshaw pact and the SU destroyed it in the end. Democratic system might not have full control and oversight over every aspect of the society but in the Soviet Union the people didn't really decide anything. The higher rankings politburo did along with the party.

So in the end it lead to the disfunctional economy, cultural oppression by the attempt to supplant the general cultural of everytone to the communist ideal culture of sorts, etc etc



Yes, I agree in full with your critique of Stalinism.


Rancid wrote:
I like how all threads eventually end up being about the USA. :lol:



The larger standing issue is Lebanon's *economy*, and Syria's, too, and Macron's neocolonialism.


JohnRawls wrote:
So what is the alternative? There are no workable alternatives right now. It is just least shit out of all the shit that we have right now if you like this kind of interpretation more.



Glad you asked....


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show
Image



labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

Spoiler: show
Image


https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

Spoiler: show
Image


https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/20 ... ost2889338
#15120285
Last night I started reading this book and godamn is there some straight up nazi shit that went on in those massacres of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, by Israel and Christian militias in Lebanese who basically worked as mercenaries for Israel. Apparently the same type of massacre took place at another refugee camp that has been erased from the record, mentioned in this book. This is written by a doctor who was a foreigner to the country volunteering in a hospital before, during and after the attacks. Truly horrifying stuff in here. The rape and murder in stadiums, the torture, the walking around shooting refugees and their children wherever they aimed, throwing grenades at groups of children (repeatedly). Just, wow. I haven't been so moved by the horror of humans since that book I read by a doctor in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany.
By wat0n
#15120992
It's interesting how selective this horror is, the PLO and the Maronite militias were doing this kind of stuff to each corresponding opposing communities as early as 1976.
#15121014
wat0n wrote:It's interesting how selective this horror is, the PLO and the Maronite militias were doing this kind of stuff to each corresponding opposing communities as early as 1976.


If you're going to do these type of drive-by posts you should post links like I do, to support your opinion. Anyway, there is no selective horror, just an observation based on something I was reading the other night, as I said. If I read stuff showing X group raping, gouging out the eyes of, torturing via electrocution, throwing grenades at babies and children etc., I would be just as horrified, regardless of who the perpetrators were.

Still, we're not talking about militias attacking each other here, the above is about militias and the Israeli army massacring thousands of defenceless REFUGEES in refugee camps. There was no fight here. If you read the above, the doctor reports of hearing constant machine-gun fire throughout those days and assumed it was different groups fighting with each other. That turned out not to be fighting, but militias under the IDF instruction along with the IDF running around shooting away in the camps.

What's interesting is that you respond by appeared annoyed that someone shared that record of history, rather than the horrific content within. You should stop the liberal-Zionist act because it no longer exists, maybe get into Zionist Nationalist territory and say those refugees deserved dying in their thousands over those 3 days in 1982, because that's really what your post amounts to.

But more about what I was reading since you appear to want to carry on the conversation, right before the massacres on those refugee camps, the PLO were asked to leave Lebanon at the instruction of the Israelis, with lies about how there would be peace if they did so. As soon as they left, the Israelis and some Lebanese militias under their direction invaded the camps and raped and massacred thousands over three whole days, 15-18th Sept. It's the anniversary right now and that's why the above book was posted online and came to my attention. Anyway, Israel did the exact same thing in Palestine a number of times including at the very beginning in the 1940s when European Zionist gangs invaded Palestine and stole the country, so this wasn't new, but only new in the sense that the world awoke to the Zionist propaganda about Israel being all about peace when it was the exact opposite, and began as the exact opposite too. And that stuff isn't over. These days Zionists do most of their murder from above because they're utter pussies like the Saudi army that's getting its ass handed to it by peasants in Yemen, despite both these client states having all the weapons.
#15121519
Why do you keep changing the subject from the 1982 massacres of thousands Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, by Israel and Lebanese mercenaries?

And yes, it's hilarious, the savagery I described. What a typical Zionist sociopath.
By wat0n
#15121524
skinster wrote:Why do you keep changing the subject from the 1982 massacres of thousands Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, by Israel and Lebanese mercenaries?


And I thought this thread was about the Beirut explosion. The one you pinned on Israel without evidence :)

skinster wrote:And yes, it's hilarious, the savagery I described. What a typical Zionist sociopath.


Sorry, I'm not the one who supports fascist Syrian dictators and their ilk. What is hilarious is your fake concern for human rights and that you seem to believe anyone buys it :D
#15121529
wat0n wrote:And I thought this thread was about the Beirut explosion. The one you pinned on Israel without evidence :)


It is, but about Lebanon and since we just passed the anniversary of that massacre on refugee camps that the Israelis committed - one of many - I figured it could be mentioned here without anyone crying about that part of history. And yes, I still believe Israel could be responsible for what happened in Beirut recently, since it's the state that gains the most from it, and because it invaded Lebanon, because it does stuff like the massacres I mentioned above, because it also does stuff like stealing whole countries, because it directs sexual trafficking for blackmail operations, and racistly denies rights to millions today. If it can do these things, it can do anything imho. I just conceded we have no evidence Israel is responsible. Despite this, plenty of people in Lebanon and around the world believe Israel did this.

What is hilarious is your fake concern for human rights and that you seem to believe anyone buys it :D


Imagine pretending to care about human rights while crying about me mentioning Israeli massacres, you do make me laugh at least. :D
Last edited by skinster on 19 Sep 2020 23:40, edited 1 time in total.
By wat0n
#15121531
@skinster

Yeah, I know for you people are to be assumed to be guilty without evidence depending on their ethnicity. You aren't saying anything we did not previously know.

And it's interesting to see your concern about Lebanese history. I presume then you have posted to remind us of the anniversary of massacres such as Karantina (carried out by the Phalangists against the Palestinians) or Damour (a retaliation by the PLO for the previous massacres against Maronite Lebanese). Have you? Or because they took place without any Israeli interference, you don't care?
#15121532
I don't know about those anniversaries. Feel free to share info about them like I did, I promise I won't cry if you do.

Lol at how upset you sound too. I'm tipsy and you're funny. :D

wat0n wrote:Yeah, I know for you people are to be assumed to be guilty without evidence depending on their ethnicity. You aren't saying anything we did not previously know.


Not sure who "we" is, but we're talking about Israel :lol: not Iceland. Stop crying about how people who oppose Israel exist. It's most of the world. Get over it. Sorry you have difficulty defending the state, but that's not my fault. It'll be easier if you accept that you can't polish a turd.
By wat0n
#15121535
skinster wrote:I don't know about those anniversaries. Feel free to share info about them like I did, I promise I won't cry if you do.

Lol at how upset you sound too. I'm tipsy and you're funny. :D


Why don't you just start reading about the broader Lebanese Civil War and take it from there?

skinster wrote:Not sure who "we" is, but we're talking about Israel :lol: not Iceland. Stop crying about how people who oppose Israel exist. It's most of the world. Get over it. Sorry you have difficulty defending the state, but that's not my fault. It'll be easier if you accept that you can't polish a turd.


Indeed, for instance I don't think you can really gain even a minimal amount of credibility at this point :lol:
#15121536
wat0n wrote:Why don't you just start reading about the broader Lebanese Civil War and take it from there?


I have a huge reading list right now, but feel free to share anything you feel is important about Lebanon, I doubt anyone will complain about it.

Indeed, for instance I don't think you can really gain even a minimal amount of credibility at this point :lol:


Feel free to call me a bitch too if you like :D, I'm not concerned about what the guy trying to defend Israel thinks about me, but again, thanks for trying.
  • 1
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21

...Or maybe because there are many witnesses sayin[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

If the tunnels were built by Hamas openly, then th[…]

Sounds like perfect organized crime material ex[…]

Commercial foreclosures increase 97% from last ye[…]