Things Noticeable this week

[vannax]

Originally Posted by Brecht

I don't think you fully understand what constitutes private property. Your house, car and computer are not private property or private capital. When communists talk about private property, they mean the private ownership of the means of production. This means that the industries, banks etc. will become the property of society and will serve the interests of society. People will no longer be forced to sell their labor for a wage. Communism cannot be established by a military dictatorship because in communism the state and its power tools no longer exist. The state will become obsolete and disappear. What is the state? It's a tool of power in the hands of the economically dominant class, the capitalists, whereas you think that the state and its government are independent entities, disconnected from the rest of society over which it presides like the gods of Olymp. All you know about communism comes from some "libertarian" videos on Youtube and "smart" memes on Facebook. We require a seperate thread to understand why things went wrong in the Soviet Union and what led to the Stalinist purges. A revolution is a painful and bloody process. I wished we could convince the billionaires of this world to act in the interest of humanity but that's not going to happen. Every ruling class had to be swept away by the forces of revolution. Revolutionary France resorted to terror because it had to face all of royalist Europe and its allies in France itself. Same happened to Russia after the revolution when the entire capitalist world united against it and which led to a number of tragedies in a country that wasn't really ripe for a socialist transformation. It was a backward society of illiterate peasants, little industry, a very small working class and almost no infrastructure. You can't build socialism under such conditions but the Russians tried anyway and it came at a price. The Stalinist crimes have nothing to do with advancing the revolution. They were just crimes but they were direct crimes. The criminals of the capitalist world have developed more sophisticated tools to kill people.

The "crimes" pre-date Stalin, my little Cheka.

If a man hires a bunch of workers to build a factory, then that factory is HIS, not theirs.
Capitalism isn't a political ideology, it is a method for generating wealth. Nothing more, nothing less. So far, it's the most successful wealth generating scheme known.
Wealth redistribution != wealth generation.

[Mal Hombre]

The methods and motives of the Cheka predated Them,They used the handbooks of the Tsarist secret police,The Okhrana..

[vannax]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Baby photo from the Vannax family album.

Ow, my feeeelings.
In the spirit of reciprocity allow me to post a baby picture of you:

[vannax]

Originally Posted by Brecht

The beautiful world of capitalism...

Eight People Own as Much as Half the World

Eight people have as much as 3.7 billion people.

“At the very top, this year’s data finds that collectively the richest eight individuals have a net wealth of $426 bn, which is the same as the net wealth of the bottom half of humanity. … [E]stimates from Credit Suisse find that collectively the poorest 50% of people have less than a quarter of 1% of global net wealth. Nine percent of the people in this group have negative wealth, and most of these people live in richer countries where student debt and other credit facilities are available. But even if we discount the debts of people living in Europe and North America, the total wealth of the bottom 50% is still less than 1%.”

Full article

Wealth is not a zero-sum game.
Surely you can do better than the tired "The rich gorge themselves while the children starve" propaganda line.

Power, however, is a zero-sum game.

The laws of economics apply equally in the natural world, one can see them in action in any ecosystem. Failure to heed these laws is invariably harmful, just like failure to heed the law of gravity is often fatal.
You can't just go and say "I don't like the laws of nature, so I'm gonna make up my own laws, and follow them", and expect it to work.

[vannax]

There are spontaneous "grass roots" movements, then there are funded, planned "astro-turf" movements:

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womeninth...on-washington/

[risen]

Originally Posted by vannax

I absolutely get that! Or at least I think I do. My childhood home had a door knob, not handle, at a ridiculous height on the master bedroom. Shoulder level at my adult height of 6' 3". All the other houses on the 1930's estate development were the same.

Stops parents being interrupted by elder children on shagging Sundays.

Am I right?

[Rogerbh]

Ah, I don't know if this just is American Slang - but I took it to be this definition.

Door knob
a term for an easy girl who sleeps around. called a door knob because everyone gets a turn
yo that chick is a door knob dont wife that

[tsunamiSD]

or what passes for 'weather' here...

We've had two storms pass through in the pass three days, with another scheduled to hit this afternoon. Should get 2 or so inches in my area of town, more inland. Since we normally only get 10 or so in a year, that is a goodly amount - we are considered to be a 'semi-desert' area. So we do need the rain badly, but not that much at once; too much will run off because the ground has already been saturated. Winds are supposed to get up to 50 along the coast and up to 100 in the mountains. As bad as drivers are in Southern California when the roads get just a little wet, we should have a record number of fender-benders. Still, a lot better than someplace like Chicago...

[trailmaster]

Now I know why it is so foggy in Chicago. We are getting all the nasty rainy weather from southern California. When I look through my windows from my fifth floor apartment I can't see anything because the fog is so thick. I cannot remember any January in my life of 66 years that had this much fog. This weather is more typical of early May!!

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Ah, I don't know if this just is American Slang - but I took it to be this definition.

Door knob
a term for an easy girl who sleeps around. called a door knob because everyone gets a turn
yo that chick is a door knob dont wife that

I would be slightly confused if Vannax was trying to convey that I am of easy virtue, too universally generous as it were. I took it to mean that I am intellectually challenged. But hey, if you can't take it, then don't dish it out. Vannax was entitled to shoot back, just like in a duel with flintlock pistols.