Politics

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Emong
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Re: Politics

Post by Emong » Thu Sep 06, 2012 12:06 pm

Richard Wolff (a very good speaker btw, check out his lectures on YouTube) has a nice article on Truthout: Capitalism's Ideological Crutches

He makes a nice point about the common opposition against the government amongst the public. One should be aware that there's nothing subversive/critical about opposing politicians and public authorities. Quite the opposite: such criticism is perfectly incorporated to the normal functioning of the system. Who is against governmental intervention today? Not the keynesian left who favor economic interventions by the government but the neoliberal right who oppose them (with the exception of bailouts of course).
The mainstream ideology that works best as capitalism's crutch is blame the government. This interpretation of modern society insists that the ultimate root and cause of economic problems is the government, not capitalism nor capitalists. If you are unemployed, foreclosed, or underpaid, the problem is not the capitalist who refuses to employ you, evicts you, or pays you poorly. It is instead partly your own fault, but mostly that of the government: the politicians and the bureaucrats.

Blame-the-government ideology serves capitalists and the rich executives, managers, professionals and advisers who depend on them. They can boost their profits and wealth by cutting wages, jobs and benefits, using toxic technologies, relocating businesses overseas, jacking up prices, foreclosing, evicting, and so on. They can provoke global crises and take massive bailouts with public money. To cover all that, business and political leaders, media spokespersons and academics compose a chorus that endlessly repeats, "blame the government." They seek to transform that idea into "common sense" so victims of capitalists' actions will automatically not blame them, but instead get angry at politicians.

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lloyd9988
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Re: Politics

Post by lloyd9988 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 3:12 pm

CodeZTM wrote:
inthesto wrote:
lloyd9988 wrote:I think I just watched a video that instantly turned me into a republican. . . Maybe its too soon to say but its quite eye opening for me and fits strongly with my moral beliefs :shock:
I'm genuinely curious what this video is.
This possibly? Just my guess based upon the context between that and this this one.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer ... point.html

Don't watch it... Its not worth it v.v

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lloyd9988
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Re: Politics

Post by lloyd9988 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 3:12 pm

CodeZTM wrote:
inthesto wrote:
lloyd9988 wrote:I think I just watched a video that instantly turned me into a republican. . . Maybe its too soon to say but its quite eye opening for me and fits strongly with my moral beliefs :shock:
I'm genuinely curious what this video is.
This possibly? Just my guess based upon the context between that and this this one.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer ... point.html

Don't watch it... Its not worth it v.v

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CodeZTM
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Re: Politics

Post by CodeZTM » Thu Sep 06, 2012 3:26 pm

So did anyone see the DNC last night? I've yet to watch it in full, but I hear that Bill Clinton gave a good speech. I'll probably listen to it this weekend, just wondering what the org thought of it.

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8bit_samurai
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Re: Politics

Post by 8bit_samurai » Thu Sep 06, 2012 3:33 pm

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inthesto
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Re: Politics

Post by inthesto » Thu Sep 06, 2012 6:33 pm

lloyd9988 wrote:http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer ... point.html

Don't watch it... Its not worth it v.v
Funny how you say Waiting For Superman is the film that converted you to being a Republican and then link an article that criticizes and deconstructs it. You should probably read content before linking it.

While I've not seen the documentary, between the fact that you've said it's made you a Republican and the linked article says it pushed for free market solutions to education (aka what NCLB does), I'm going to have to get on my soapbox because this is one of the political issues that really crawls under my skin: Trying to apply free market principles to the educational system is a bad idea built on a flawed premise. The whole point of free market capitalism is to pursue profit. Nothing is good or virtuous in and of itself; the only point is to generate money. While this model works in many industries, trying to apply it to education is completely nonsensical. Profit should be the last thing on a school's agenda, if it's even there at all. Education isn't about money, it's about developing grown human beings. If you try to say that you use test scores instead of money as the metric to measure a school's success, the counter-argument to that is that measuring the development of the human mind is not even remotely adequately touched by standardized testing. For the most part, standardized testing only hamstrings students who don't fit into its curriculum while downplaying important parts of education like critical thinking and problem solving.

All this is moot if you (general you, not anyone in particular) do believe that a school's primary goal should be profit. In which case, go kill yourself, because you are a shitstain of a human being whose existence makes the planet a worse place.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony of this post being written by a private university graduate, so no need to point it out.)
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Mr Pilkington
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Re: Politics

Post by Mr Pilkington » Thu Sep 06, 2012 10:36 pm

So an education system that devotes it time to teaching useless test scores that have zero bearing on the outside world, and encourages dishonestly of both students and faculty is better than one which depends on its reputation and graduation rate to stay alive? Like you I've been on both sides of the fence and quite frankly the shitty "education" (if you can even call that scandalous load of misinformation and indoctrination such) I received from my accredited government cesspool isn't worth the paper they printed my diploma on. If those facilities were privatized they would be bankrupt in hours. Free market education means competition for both schools and faculty. Sure, like all free market options you'll have your bargain-basement Walmart educations, but the natural competition will create a brand of better schools as well. It's the freedom to choose, it means that parents have to be responsible and put greater pressure on younger students to start thinking about real life goals, something i think we all could have done better with.

Government anything is a piss-poor, soylent solution to a problem that barely exists. Healthcare for one is the biggest government scam of them all, a problem create and exacerbated by both sides of the political folly. Government programs, lets take medicare for example, get to create their own pay scale. Enter medication "exhibit A." Exhibit A costs Propharm, the company that produces it, $17/vile and sells it for $21 to healthcare professionals who mark up the cost another 4 bucks, because lets face it, if there is no payday at the end of the week how the shit do you pay the mortgage? Its reality, we all nee jobs, deal with it. Now here come Johnny Washingon who says that Exhibit A is worth $15/per and not a dime more. Well, here comes the problem. Now the manufacture is loosing money on the deal and has to decide to cut off Johnny, well more half of their patients, or come up with a solution. That solution is to sell the medication at $40/per because 75% of the patients on said drug are being supported by Johnny's genius healthcare plan. Mean while, those of us that work for a living and pay for insurance have to deal with the inflated price tag. THIS IS A REAL SCENARIO PEOPLE!!! I can't really name names for obvious reasons but research it, this happens all the time. And people just eat it up when a politician comes back and says "medicare pays $15, the market value is $40. What the deal with that?" Research people. The wool, it has been stapled to your forehead and chin. Government "solutions" only cause, and are intended to cause, the problems they politicians bitch about. What were to happen if Propharm just said "fuck this noise" and removed their product? Well, how long can you tread water with cement sneakers?

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MimS
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Re: Politics

Post by MimS » Fri Sep 07, 2012 4:04 am

God, education is not about having the better school, it's about helping children to develop themselves and find their own way which can be a way out of school.
I'm bored of seeing people mixing economy with education and, also, seeing it as the most important place where young people have to succeed, it concerns both French and USA (and also Japan from what I read in mangas haha). I mean, here in France, they want to make school obligatory until children turn 18 for example, that's stupid, that's nonsense and I say that as a rather socialist guy who intends to teach himself and this is a socialist proposal~~.
There are like 2 children over 30 who love to study as there are like 2 over 30 who are hardcore gamers, big sport guys, I don't know what else but what I mean is that why do you force children to study if they have no interest in it? Education should be completely reformed and governments should put as much money as needed in it in that goal. Also, you know, they just don't give a fuck about future in general, parents can put as much pressure as they want, it will still be abstract for most of them, that's how it is, to me it's pretty unfair to make their whole life depends on fucking results at school, we're asking to guys who have no idea what real life is to decide what they want to become, god, most of them just keep to study because we tell them to but they just don't know where they're going. School is, should only be, about creating citizen of tomorrow, it's about the ones who'll work on making this wordl better than it is actually, we should stop being selfish limitating money put on education and stop only seeing numerical results, school standings, we should not see it as "the way to succeed" in life. I may be utopian but, imho, it can only be a winning bet, sure it can cost a lot of money in the beginning but the better we educate children, the better they help your, their, our society.

Anyway, best video about education : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U (though I don't agree with the very end of it)
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Fall_Child42
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Re: Politics

Post by Fall_Child42 » Fri Sep 07, 2012 10:03 am

Pilk that was like the worst argument ever. Seriously.
I don't even mean your stance, the actual argument is bad.

Try again, use actual, readable, rhetorical language and argue your point better.
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Zarxrax
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Re: Politics

Post by Zarxrax » Fri Sep 07, 2012 10:06 am

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I first took this test over 10 years ago and I'm in a totally different quadrant now.

You know, overall my political leanings have really been in a constant state of flux ever since I first became interested in politics back when I was around 16 or 17.
I started out listening to a libertarian radio show, and so at first I was a staunch libertarian. Then over the years (mostly due to listening to more and more talk radio, I began leaning republican. Then more libertarian again. In the 2008 election I was a HUGE Ron Paul supporter. After that, I became a crazy conspiracy nut due to listening to the Alex Jones show all the time. Now, I'm starting to lean more liberal.

Over these years, there are a few things I have noticed.
First of all, its pretty easy to have your viewpoints manipulated if you listen to one source long enough.
Then, despite large changes in my political leanings over the years, my core set of beliefs hasn't really changed much, only my views on specific issues. For me, just about everything has always boiled down to the concept of "freedom".
But then the big breakthrough for me occurred when I finally realized that I honestly have no idea what freedom actually is. Everyone has their own idea of freedom. A Republican will tell you that freedom is one thing, and a Democrat will tell you something completely different. Libertarians, anarchists, and communists all have yet other ideas of it.

I think people of opposing viewpoints aren't really necessarily all that different. We probably want a lot of the same things. We are just coming at it from different angles. I think its also important to genuinely listen to viewpoints that you disagree with. Just like a guy who refuses to watch anything other than Fox News is gong to have no comprehension of real liberal ideas, someone on the other side of the fence isn't really going to understand where Republican voters are coming from. People on each side just assume that the others are just dumb and ignorant, or refuse to look at facts. I'm telling you this is not the case.


I'm also not going to vote for one of the two main presidential candidates this year. Maybe I'll put in a vote for a 3rd party, but I need to check into them a bit more first.
As others have pointed out, this whole party system is shit.

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