On Fri, Apr 20, 2001 at 08:07:20PM -0400, Mark J. Roberts wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Travis Bemann wrote:
>
> > You can portray protesters as both violent people randomly destroying
> > stuff and passive sign-wavers and still bias things in favor of the
> > capitalists. I bet they biased things by saying stuff like "the
> > protesters *believe* that free trade is bad". That is a often used
> > tactic which subtly but signficantly downplays opposition to things
> > like the FTAA.
>
> Yes, they said things like "the protesters are anti-free-trade." How is
> such a statement biased?
Saying that the protesters are <something> or believe <something>
downplays the protesters more than saying that the protesters are
against <something> because <something>, because the former says that
the protesters think something while the latter says that something is
something and that is why the protesters are against it.
> > Marxists in general oppose the abolition of government control before
> > free trade (and capitalism in general) is abolished. Anarchists just
> > view authority and exploitation and intrinsically linked and that you
> > can't just fight authority and that you can't just fight
> > exploitation. They must be both fought and defeated together, not
> > separately. Anarchists oppose corporate globalization because
> > corporate globalization is the path towards total unrestricted global
> > capitalism; total domination and total exploitation. The elimination
> > of trade barriers is freedom for only the corporations; it strengthens
> > corporations' domination and corporations' exploitation.
>
> And allowing government to regulate capitalism increases government
> domination and exploitation. If you first destroy government, capitalists
> will grow too strong. If you first destroy capitalism, governments will
> grow too strong. Looks like you're fucked!
No, because government and capitalism are directly linked to each
other, and must be destroyed and replaced together with libertarian
socialism. The government supports capitalism by supplying the force
which enforces property and such. To destroy capitalism you must
destroy government, and you don't need to replace capitalist
government with socialist government.
> > It is likely that the initial reports of genocide were false. If I am
> > correct, Serbs did attack Kosovars in various places in Kosovo after
> > the beginning of the NATO intervention.
>
> The genocide either happened or it didn't happen. Which one?
A bunch of people were killed, and whole lot more people were chased
into Albania and Macedonia. That did probably actually happen. I was
just stating that the conclusion that the initial reports of genocide
were probably false was generally suppressed by the corporate media.
> > What happened is a transition from a supposedly socialist autocrat to
> > a capitalist elected president. Not much has really changed except
> > that now the US and NATO supports the Serbs instead of opposing the
> > Serbs.
>
> Will the quality of life in Serbia improve?
I bet that it really won't change much.
> > > In what ways do the Democrats fight off the capitalists? Have they been
> > > effective? (I still see Walmart and McDonalds thriving under the
> > > democratic regime!)
> >
> > The Democrats are capitalists (didn't I say that they are liberal
> > capitalists)!
>
> But, under a Libertarian government, you must think that the capitalists
> would gain more power than the government would lose. What evidence to you
> have in favor of this view?
The only thing that government loses is the power to regulate
business. On the other hand, government still has law enforcement and
military power, which it uses to cement its own power and the power of
the capitalists and the security of the capitalists' property.
--
Yes, I know my enemies.
They're the teachers who tell me to fight me.
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance,
hypocrisy, brutality, the elite.
All of which are American dreams.
- Rage Against The Machine
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