[Plutus Aurelius]

...or how America slid the last mile into plutocracy

Nothing like a nice right wing SCOTUS to ensure, via Citizens United, the billionaires take full control of the GOP, and can buy elections all over the country, from now on. No questions asked.

God bless America.


http://americablog.com/2012/10/koch-ade ... lican.html

[Figlio di Moros]

Because the Democrats aren't also owned by billionaires?

[quetzalcoatl]

Democrats are wannabes. Their billionaires are fewer in number and are less interested in funding a long-term Gramscian shift in hegemony.

Plus Democrats have an influential minority of anti-corporatist types that must be appeased, while the GOP has no such handicap.

[Decky]

Because the Democrats aren't also owned by billionaires?

A million miles of this, they are two wings of the same party.

[Figlio di Moros]

Decky, I don't know if you caught the second presidential debate, but there was one part I thought was hilarious. Obama called Romney out on investing in Chinese companies, and the moderator, Crowley, quickly called on someone else. Romnay answered the question quickly, and turned it back-

"For the last 15 years, my investment has been handled by a blind trust. Mr. President, have you seen your pension? You also invest in chinese companies, you also invest overseas, you also have money in the caymen islands..."

"I think we're getting off topic here."

*sigh* Too bad we didn't see more of that in the debates.

[Decky]

Decky, I don't know if you caught the second presidential debate,

Nope, I don't care if white Obama or half white Obama get in. What difference does it make?

"For the last 15 years, my investment has been handled by a blind trust. Mr. President, have you seen your pension? You also invest in chinese companies, you also invest overseas, you also have money in the caymen islands..."

"I think we're getting off topic here."

Thank you for bringing it to my attention. it was probably the only important thing mentioned.

[hip hop bunny hop]

...or how America slid the last mile into plutocracy

Nothing like a nice right wing SCOTUS to ensure, via Citizens United, the billionaires take full control of the GOP, and can buy elections all over the country, from now on. No questions asked.

God bless America.


http://americablog.com/2012/10/koch-ade ... lican.html

lulz, mind explaining why Unions in the US backed Citizens United?

[Figlio di Moros]

Because union leadership has long been in bed with the same plutocratic forces they pretend to fight, often against the interest of those they pretend to represent? There's a very good reason union membership has dropped since the sixties.

[mikema63]

They have a legally granted monopoly, they like this and wish to perpetuate the condition, they are there to pacify labor not actually advance it's interests.

[Rei Murasame]

Well, that is precisely why new unions have to be formed. There would be no way to convince the present array of unions to actually behave themselves, since they are already wedded to the present system and entangled with it.

[Decky]

Well, that is precisely why new unions have to be formed.

You are turning into a left winger.

There is no reason to split off and start new groups at every opportunity. Just take the original unions back. Marching people out to forests and handing them a shovel isn't expensive or difficult.

[mikema63]

I wonder actually Rei about your guild system, when would you build them and how would you prevent a similar fate as modern unions?

[Rei Murasame]

Well, to answer both your questions:

• 1. Basically the guild must be already half-built at the very beginning, or very near to the beginning of the creation of a fledgeling party. And if not, it should be item number one on the to do list after the time of think-tanks comes to an end and party political action begins. I've described that here: [Link]
  
  Basically the party cannot exist or do anything without these, since the party if looked at through an economic lens is essentially supposed to be an enabler for a national syndicalist offensive strategy funded and staffed by working class guilds, organised and led by the petty middle class.
  
  
• 2. The way to prevent a similar fate as the present unions, is to basically make a condition of continued party endorsement and funding and the ability to collect dues, be to refuse to collaborate with the liberal state in any way.
  
  It would have to be overtly revolutionary and would not even make a pretence at reformism. Lots of ideological exhortation would be in play there.
  
  But you will ask, what about material incentives?
  
  Parallel organisations, of course.
  
  The economic incentive to ignore the liberal state would be that the party will replicate or run 'parallel organisations' against the state, meaning that the party must police itself and defend itself and run fund-raising activities for itself, and must not call on the state's police forces to defend it or police it in any way. Nor should it call on the liberal state to mediate any of its affairs.
  
  This means for example that when guild negotiations happen, they must be bilateral and not trilateral. So long as the liberal state exists, the liberal state must be shut out of the negotiation process, violently if necessary. Guilds would negotiate with businesses, but if they invite anyone from the liberal state to the negotiation meeting, guilds would immediately terminate the meeting and enact some form of punishment on the business in question, such as a strike or some other form of intimidation.
  
  The situation then exacerbates itself, since once the state gets shut out of one set of negotiations, or sees a set of negotiations torpedoed by the fledgeling party and its guilds, they and the businesses will react with violence and condemnation, which will only radicalise the guild members more.
  
  The party leadership and the guilds leadership would be 'separated' so that there would be an ability to waffle on TV and plausibly deny certain actions if it is convenient to do so, but at the end of the day, they would all be actually the same entity.
  
  Party members would be running for office and would be economically and ideologically beholden to the party and the parallel organisations, co-ops, and the guilds.

If this post looks like it's a bit rushed, it's because it is. I didn't want to go on for too long since I'm aware that we're taking this thread way off topic.

[nucklepunche]

Because union leadership has long been in bed with the same plutocratic forces they pretend to fight, often against the interest of those they pretend to represent? There's a very good reason union membership has dropped since the sixties.

The unions of today are just as bad as the corporations. Basically the Republicans are a team of big corporate money and a gaggle of neo-cons, Tea Partiers and religious fanatics to act as their foot soldiers. Democrats are a team of big corporate money (but not as much) combined with big union money and a of gaggle union members, minorities, gays, feminists and upper class white liberals as their foot soldiers.

[Elect G-Max]

America "slid the last mile into plutocracy" way back in 1913 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th and 17th Amendments.

Citizens' United didn't turn us into a plutocracy. It's just another step on the road from plutocracy to corporatocracy - and not the last one, either. Pretty soon, they'll be wanting the right to vote