385 replies to this topic

[Comrade Kal]

You can't trust a government to do that. They should be collectivised and run by workers councils. In a democracy, you (the working-class) can never afford to give any power to the state because you will never, ever get it back and it will be used against you as soon as a right-wing government gets voted in.

[Blodo]

Of course, but that needs gradual change. At least that's what I say.

An electronic direct democracy would be a great revolution, but collectivising it all in one go would just prove too much for that one go. What I pointed out would be merely a first step to collectivisation, which would happen by the years, while people would get more used to handling decisions themselves, instead of leaving them completely in the hands of the government. A seamless transition would make the rest of the world to follow without any use of force. Meanwhile a quick, disorganised overthrow will only make everyone fear the new state of thought, and make the corrupt people abuse the idea.

Looking back at the Soviet Union, as you said you can't entrust complete power to the government. So instead, make that government start slowly giving up power right now. All it takes is one man to start the change, and another to back him up. All it takes is duping the ruling elites into accepting a honest worker into power, and from there you can start shaping it into the better.

[Comrade Kal]

No, you can't give the government immense power in the faith that they'll hand it back to you. They never will. We must never, never, give the government any form of power whatsoever.

[Blodo]

But that's what EDD is all about - not giving the government immense power. It's being handed down to the people in the first step. Then it's handed down more and more until we reach collectivism. I said it needs one man to start the changes, from exactly where we are now. No complete centralisation of power before that, but the removal of power from the hands of the huge corporations.

[Comrade Kal]

But EDD alone merely puts power in the hands of the media, which is run by the government, or those that run the government.

[Blodo]

Again, that's why I said that the mass media needs to be made proper, a few posts ago. Nobody said it's going to be easy to make it work.

Hell, I suppose the first refferendum could even be about that since a lot of people believe that politics in media is a bad idea.

[Silent_Killa]

I suppose this opinion is due to your lackluster understanding of the subject. I'll just point out - the people do not have to decide on everything. A referendum is only formed when a change that will impact the state is considered, they don't hold one when they want to vote over whether we build 10 more tractors or not - they hold one when things such as a health program reformme are on the table. That is why its called EDD not collectivism or anarchism. The government still does it's job.

The problem is who decides what's important and what's not important.

Before however the fact that this company produces rotten meat is uncovered, hundreds will die as was the case in Europe recently. Does that stop anyone from halting the so called "meat factories" which are producing shit quality food all this time, and still their CEOs are thinking on cutting expenses? Of course we can buy natural food, if we are loaded with money that is. Is it just me or does that seem outrageous?

The government is a bussiness, they're just as interested in cutting costs along with quality so long as the majority doesn't notice.

That is why I said a couple of posts ago, this is the first thing that should be targetted. The elimination of the mass media from the political wheel. They are only serving for propaganda and brainwashing because of the extreme appeal tactics they are using. It's too easy to buy yourself 100% effective publicity, since everyone has a TV set nowadays. I hope I don't have to say how easily people get duped by things they see on TV.

So who will control the media then? It seems to me that you don't have a solution to this anymore than I do.

No, you can't give the government immense power in the faith that they'll hand it back to you. They never will. We must never, never, give the government any form of power whatsoever.

Holy crap, something me and Kal agree on...

[Comrade Kal]

I was simplifying. Your notion of it is fucked up.

[Blodo]

No, you can't give the government immense power in the faith that they'll hand it back to you. They never will. We must never, never, give the government any form of power whatsoever.

Holy crap, something me and Kal agree on...

If anyone could point out where the fuck did I say that I want immense power to the government, when I said quite the opposite? The power is in the hands of the government right now. My idea is to give some of it to the people immediatly, I pointed out 3 times at least.

The government is a bussiness, they're just as interested in cutting costs along with quality so long as the majority doesn't notice.

The government is not a business. You can't overthrow businesses in revolutions, businesses do not have ideologies, and most importantly they don't control the whole economy. Corporations want profit, they can do that by whatever means possible. They don't have to pay attention to people, and they don't usually. Governments want profit and to stay in power. To do that they need to make changes that affect the standard of living in a positive way or they won't hold for long (unless they're fascist).

So who will control the media then? It seems to me that you don't have a solution to this anymore than I do.

Media still follow government law. A law passed is a law followed. Especially when it concernes the public agencies.

[Cossack]

I personally trust the government much more than big corperations to control our economy.

[Comrade Kal]

Exactly. I don't believe the power should go to the government, but it's a lot better than it going to corporations.

[narcismo316]

It is wrong because it endorses the power of the rich. The corporations are lead by the most rich people in the world, and money is used as an indicator of status. If you're poor - you lose. You get worse health care, worse standards of living - sometimes you don't even get food and shelter which is outrageous. If you're rich - you win. You get everything.

It's all about the social policies. What exactly makes a fat-ass ceo better from a construction worker? I'd even argue the construction worker does much more work than him. And yet the construction worker gets treated worse.

That's only the tip of the iceberg though. I could go on through every policy that makes capitalism, and point out how it's so much wrong. How it is the biggest fraud, designed to make people believe that it provides freedom, when it's exactly the opposite. I would do that, but no one here reads long posts anywhere, so I'll just say that in an ideal world a community should be class-less and property-less. But it's too distant at the moment, and preparations are needed instead of looking how to bring it on right now - where it would fail, and the effort would be useless.

That's only the tip of the iceberg though. I could go on through every policy that makes capitalism, and point out how it's so much wrong. How it is the biggest fraud, designed to make people believe that it provides freedom, when it's exactly the opposite. I would do that, but no one here reads long posts anywhere, so I'll just say that in an ideal world a community should be class-less and property-less. But it's too distant at the moment, and preparations are needed instead of looking how to bring it on right now - where it would fail, and the effort would be useless.
I read long replys, or pm me, I'm a staunch supporter of cap, but i'd love to hear an intelligent alternative.

[Silent_Killa]

The government is not a business. You can't overthrow businesses in revolutions, businesses do not have ideologies, and most importantly they don't control the whole economy. Corporations want profit, they can do that by whatever means possible. They don't have to pay attention to people, and they don't usually. Governments want profit and to stay in power. To do that they need to make changes that affect the standard of living in a positive way or they won't hold for long (unless they're fascist).

But you can overthrow a bussiness, and it's far less bloody than a revolution, they're called boycotts and strikes. Ideally governments would care for the people, but in reality they just look for ways to fool them into thinking they're doing what's best. A company HAS to listen to the people in order to make a profit, people don't just buy things for the sake of buying it.

Media still follow government law. A law passed is a law followed. Especially when it concernes the public agencies.

Control over the press by the government will ultimately lead to fascism or stalinism.

I was simplifying. Your notion of it is fucked up.

Poor Kal, born without a sense of humor...

[Blodo]

But you can overthrow a bussiness, and it's far less bloody than a revolution, they're called boycotts and strikes. Ideally governments would care for the people, but in reality they just look for ways to fool them into thinking they're doing what's best. A company HAS to listen to the people in order to make a profit, people don't just buy things for the sake of buying it.

Ideally a company would listen to it's clients and provide goods that are useful. In reality however we are sold highly overrated crap. All thanks to all the propaganda that's being run through the TV. If the government had even half of the propaganda time some corporations get, we would all be indoctrinated beyond belief. The crappiness of goods is also thanks to what you capitalists consider a blessing - economic warfare. Thanks to the policy of reducing costs no matter what, we've come to the stage of reducing quality outperform opponents. The whole idea is - before the people realise how crap is the product they are being sold, the rival making better quality goods is long out of business, or producing even cheaper goods with even lower quality himself.

Control over the press by the government will ultimately lead to fascism or stalinism.

So basically the media we currently have are all fascist and stalinist? They are all bound by governmental law in some way. There are even government controlled media. How terrible is that?

[Allied General]

Control over the press by the government will ultimately lead to fascism or stalinism.
So basically the media we currently have are all fascist and stalinist? They are all bound by governmental law in some way. There are even government controlled media. How terrible is that?

American coverage of Iraq War was some hornblowing but Katrina on the other hand had a negative response from media.

It works both ways that life.

Sometimes its good other times its rubbish.

Also to be honest why should we care?

Cos we can?

Edited by Allied General, 13 July 2006 - 08:34 PM.

[Tom]

Media is biased anyway, american media will be biased to the west, middle eastern media biased to the middle east. I don't watch the media anymore, its 100% bollacks anyway to create fear and deceive people. People should just not watch the media i swear. People have the view: well if the media says it it must be true, the media LIES about everything because its owned by the same people that own the shadow governments in this world.

Media lied about 9/11, they lied about 7/7 constantly change stories etc etc and people gobble it all up and swallow it without a question. The bloody journalists don't deserve to be called "journalists" they don't research into anything. Just write stories based on what the government tell them. If they looked into 7/7 for example they could see it was not possible a suicide bomber inside those trains caused that damage, the metal was blown INWARDS from underneath the carriage. People just need to open their eyes, journalists have just become arse licking propagandists. They just add to the propaganda for their blatant ignorance of accepting too. Its put down to fear of loosing their job if they do ask other questions.

[Blodo]

Mass media were created for another purpose. They were created to deliver us art and culture, instead of crap and bullshit. Again, it's the kitchen knife issue. It's not the knife that is bad, it's how you use it. The main idea behind what I said would be to make it be used properly. To do that, political references and ads must be banned from all sorts of media.

Edited by Blodo, 13 July 2006 - 10:53 PM.

[Silent_Killa]

Ideally a company would listen to it's clients and provide goods that are useful. In reality however we are sold highly overrated crap. All thanks to all the propaganda that's being run through the TV. If the government had even half of the propaganda time some corporations get, we would all be indoctrinated beyond belief. The crappiness of goods is also thanks to what you capitalists consider a blessing - economic warfare. Thanks to the policy of reducing costs no matter what, we've come to the stage of reducing quality outperform opponents. The whole idea is - before the people realise how crap is the product they are being sold, the rival making better quality goods is long out of business, or producing even cheaper goods with even lower quality himself.

Once again though, the problem is we allow the government and the corporations to mix. By giving the government control over production, you're only making the government into a corporation with a complete monopoly.

And please, tell me, what's so terrible about the quality of goods in capitalist countries? I mean sure, "they don't make things like they used to" but for the amount produced the quality of our goods is pretty damn good if you ask me.

So basically the media we currently have are all fascist and stalinist? They are all bound by governmental law in some way. There are even government controlled media. How terrible is that?

You can't deny that most of the media is fairly well controlled by the government. This is with minimal control as well. The only thing that keeps government controlled media honest is the free press.

Mass media were created for another purpose. They were created to deliver us art and culture, instead of crap and bullshit. Again, it's the kitchen knife issue. It's not the knife that is bad, it's how you use it. The main idea behind what I said would be to make it be used properly. To do that, political references and ads must be banned from all sorts of media.

Sounds like another law that would be abused beyond belief. Besides, how would we know anything about the candidates without the media?

[Comrade Kal]

You think things like built-in obsolesence make great products?