Billy wrote:

If you don't like my political propaganda, then you must be one of Gov.
Walker's stooges, just another capitalist shill, undermining American
values by trying to distract from the corporate coup d'Etat taking place
in America now. I'd heard that a lot of you were hired recently.

Intelligent people come to different political stances. Sincere people
understand this and respect the political differences of others. Your
post said more about your sincerity than you probably wanted it to.

There's all sorts of political discussion in American. There always has
been. Across time the amount of partisan vitriol was gone up and down.
That part is nothing new.

Here's what I think gets too little discussion -

The US form of government in specific and the republic model in general
was evolved in a time when corporations did not exist and when
corporations were new. The republic model does not take into account
that corporations are immortal in addition to governments. Either
corporations or governments can die, but they can also live for
extremely long times. History has shown that as governments age their
size has grown and their oppression has grown. History is replete with
revolutions because of this. So far revolutions have not yet been
explicitly about corporations growing in that manner. I think recent
revolutions have been implicitly about that.

Anti-trust laws were an early attempt to deal with this trend. They did
not span governments. We need some other method of dealing with this
trend. The republic form of government slows the growth of governments
but does not solve the problem. Anti-trust laws slowed the growth of
corporations but did not solve the problem. Constitutional forms
further slowed the growth but did not solve the problem.

I don't have an innovate solution to both of these overlapping trends
but I do know that the current debate about capitalism versus socialism
is not going to help. That's just another pendulum swinging back and
forth across history, and I don't think that trend is as new as those
words. Looking back across history the trend exists as far back as
history exists.

But corporations as immortal legal entities go back a much shorter time.
The Hudson Bay Trading Company was the first one according to what I was
taught in school. Companies existed before then but the form was
different.

In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Billy wrote:

If you don't like my political propaganda, then you must be one of Gov.
Walker's stooges, just another capitalist shill, undermining American
values by trying to distract from the corporate coup d'Etat taking place
in America now. I'd heard that a lot of you were hired recently.

Intelligent people come to different political stances. Sincere people
understand this and respect the political differences of others. Your
post said more about your sincerity than you probably wanted it to.

There's all sorts of political discussion in American. There always has
been. Across time the amount of partisan vitriol was gone up and down.
That part is nothing new.

Here's what I think gets too little discussion -

The US form of government in specific and the republic model in general
was evolved in a time when corporations did not exist and when
corporations were new. The republic model does not take into account
that corporations are immortal in addition to governments. Either
corporations or governments can die, but they can also live for
extremely long times. History has shown that as governments age their
size has grown and their oppression has grown. History is replete with
revolutions because of this. So far revolutions have not yet been
explicitly about corporations growing in that manner. I think recent
revolutions have been implicitly about that.

Anti-trust laws were an early attempt to deal with this trend. They did
not span governments. We need some other method of dealing with this
trend. The republic form of government slows the growth of governments
but does not solve the problem. Anti-trust laws slowed the growth of
corporations but did not solve the problem. Constitutional forms
further slowed the growth but did not solve the problem.

I don't have an innovate solution to both of these overlapping trends
but I do know that the current debate about capitalism versus socialism
is not going to help. That's just another pendulum swinging back and
forth across history, and I don't think that trend is as new as those
words. Looking back across history the trend exists as far back as
history exists.

But corporations as immortal legal entities go back a much shorter time.
The Hudson Bay Trading Company was the first one according to what I was
taught in school. Companies existed before then but the form was
different.

Doug, my rant has nothing to do with the form of government per se. It
has nothing to do with with corporations per se. It has to do with the
corrupting effect of the top 1%'s wealth on the health and well being of
the other 99% of the citizens.

The old excuse was the "Protestant Work Ethic". If your labors were
rewarded, it was a sign that you were among God's elect, regardless of
your behavior. Then, if your labors were rewarded, it became "Survival
of the fittest" a la Darwin, regardless of your behavior. Now the "I"
has been removed from the equation, and it is all about "Free-Markets",
which allows the Pontius Pilots of the world to wash their hands of the
results of their behavior ( greed).

You know my fondness for quotes, so let me offer one from the
capitalist's boogyman.

"Capital that has such good reasons for denying the sufferings of the
legions of workers that surround it, is in practice moved as much and as
little by the sight of the coming degradation and final depopulation of
the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun. In
every stockjobbing swindle every one knows that some time or other the
crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his
neighbour, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it
in safety. Apres moi le deluge! [After me, the flood] is the watchword
of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence Capital is
reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under
compulsion from society. [81] To the out-cry as to the physical and
mental degradation, the premature death, the torture of over-work, it
answers: Ought these to trouble us since they increase our profits?"
- Karl Marx, the Capital (Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter Ten, Section 5)





If you like weekends (8 hr./day & 40 hr./week), then thank a labor union.
They paid for it in blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair


=
--
- Billy
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953
http://wn.com/black_panther_party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug

Billy wrote:

Doug, my rant has nothing to do with the form of government per se.

When I read your posts I don't reach that conclusion.

You know my fondness for quotes, so let me offer one from the
capitalist's boogyman.

"Capital that has such good reasons for denying the sufferings of the
legions of workers that surround it, is in practice moved as much and as
little by the sight of the coming degradation and final depopulation of
the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun ...
- Karl Marx, the Capital (Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter Ten, Section 5)

As manufacturing jobs disappear to automation now early in the
information revolution the way agricultural jobs disappeared to
industrial farming tools early in the industrial revolution, phyical
capital gradually declines in value. Does this mean that intellectual
property is the next type of capital?

In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Billy wrote:

Doug, my rant has nothing to do with the form of government per se.

When I read your posts I don't reach that conclusion.

You know my fondness for quotes, so let me offer one from the
capitalist's boogyman.

"Capital that has such good reasons for denying the sufferings of the
legions of workers that surround it, is in practice moved as much and as
little by the sight of the coming degradation and final depopulation of
the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun ...
- Karl Marx, the Capital (Vol. 1, Part III, Chapter Ten, Section 5)

As manufacturing jobs disappear to automation now early in the
information revolution the way agricultural jobs disappeared to
industrial farming tools early in the industrial revolution, phyical
capital gradually declines in value. Does this mean that intellectual
property is the next type of capital?

Who cares. It's the concentration of capital that's obscene. Where are
the jobs?
--
- Billy
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953
http://wn.com/black_panther_party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug