General Discussion
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To demilitarize, decriminalize, de-crony capitalize (not a real word, but I don't give a fuck), and set a on path that achieves equality, justice and peace.
Undo the Fossil Fuel/Military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex.
Achieve racial/gender/sexual orientation equality.
Create a fair and working immigration process.
Build a fair, equitable, universally available public general social welfare system, a free, fully functional and available universal public education, disconnect profit motive from public health and refocus our economic policy to both build American infrastructure and a viable, healthy working class.
Reverse wealth inequality.
Promote peace and justice, both domestically and internationally. Become a non-violent society.
Remove religious dogma from secular public policy.
Replace the power of the banks, corporate elites and plutocratic class with the power of democracy.
Simply be a BETTER America than we have ever been.
It'll only happen through peaceful, intelligent and informed consensus.
If I missed something, feel free to add to the list.
RKP5637
(67,032 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)anti-capitalist!
How do you bring that about?
The obsessive-compulsive nature of the ruling class runs counter to most of those concepts except when and where it serves their interests. So, perhaps their excessive drive to dominate and acquire more while capitalizing on poverty and subjugation will lead to the decimation of the very system that supports a top-down, inhumane system. However, that, probably inevitable, decline will come at a point where the remains are negligible and the wealth, (be it symbolic or concrete) will have been squandered by myopic folly.
As per the Paris Commune, it should be clear that any organized attempts we make can and will be considered a serious threat to those who benefit most from inequity, exploitation and manipulation. Around 30,000 people, after two months of setting an example, were executed and the Paris Commune was washed away with a river of blood. Let that be an example, lest naivete dash your intentions and dilute your innate goals for real justice and liberty.
We can list all of our grievances and shout them out, post them online and demand changes and redirection and redistribution of our hard-earned wealth and yet, that can be dangerous or laughable depending on how those who really own and control the system choose to react.
Real change is serious business and the stakes are exceedingly high. Do your best to learn what you can and, while you can, educate yourself on how the system actually functions since many of us are kept in the dark via what is called "and education system" and mass media. Social maturity and a clear, insightful philosophy based on knowledge and sound reasoning might be an intelligent and even effective way to help us transition out of the tyranny of capitalism and so-called, "free markets" towards something that might resemble your list, someday.
Begin with an inquiry into just how deeply this current system is ingrained in your self and those around you. When you begin to see how being immersed in something everyday has a dramatic impact on your actions and reactions, then something can happen. Your wants, needs, protests and acceptances, as well as your various, apathetic responses are all aspects of an equation that has served to yield the very results we get.
The wealth and the means are actually there, we simply need to start, in small, gradual steps to consistently apply ourselves with some sort of vision. Thinking large is fine, but the power rests in the death of a thousand cuts, so to speak. The sum total of small, daily changes by more and more people will have an impact and an outcome and patience then, is virtue.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)That said, I am skeptical that a "death by a thousand cuts" method can bring down the oligarchy and reform American capitalism. I have examined the environments that have brought about significant changes in the American social contract, and I see none that allows for the kind of collective action you imagine in your post.
More, if you are interested, here: http://laelth.blogspot.com/2011/01/turning-american-ship-of-state.html
-Laelth
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)Yes, you may be correct and I can share that.
It is good to know that you are investigating this matter and I will read your link.
I just wanted to note that, despite any pessimism or cynicism that might ensue from looking more deeply into the matters at hand, there is a counter-propaganda potentiality that might be useful or at least, worth the effort and risk.
I would call that conceptual optimism, with an emphasis on the word "conceptual". It rests on the idea that we are able to actually make conscious decisions that are not completely determined by conditioning and previous experiences and events -- mentally and physically.
Perhaps the idea of emergence, (as in the way ant colonies function) would represent the process whereby we take into considering the dynamic relationship of individuals and the culture/society as a whole. One is totally abstract, the other, as concrete as we are able to experience in our habitually representative way of knowing and relating.
My point is that our energy tends to go where our attention is focused. Amidst the plethora of distractions that play on our fixations, imaginations and contrivances, focus on particulars and creating momentum can be difficult, but it might be more powerful than we realize. Both divisiveness and diffusion of our awareness and energy are barriers to our participation in the change that comes with emergence as a potential.
Being primed, like a pump, can serve to foster any possible transformation that presents itself in the sense that everything can and does change with time and our behavior and actions now may actually have some personal and collective part in the outcome.
Again, thanks for the link.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Social psychology is not my strong suit, and I am happy to defer to you on that. In the essay to which I linked, I noted that the American people actually have more power now than ever before in our history--not enough power to actually change the direction of the government, mind you, but still more than we have ever had before. Perhaps some mechanism to harness that power will be devised, but I don't see it yet. At present, we remain too sedated (by sports, television, movies, games, the internet, and prescription drugs) and too divided (by various social issues) to create any organized resistance to the oligarchy. Ultimately, I am not sure that organized resistance would be beneficial either. Revolutions are bloody, nasty, and unpredictable. Right now I am primarily concerned with finding a way to convince our oligarchs that liberal reform would be in their best interests.
You are very welcome for the link. Hope you find my musings useful.
Regards,
-Laelth
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)my posts are just musings, observations, ideas, reflections, etc. I have no professional or academic perspective on these matters.
Maybe all the musing will be more catchy as the dissonance increases out there.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)we can be. There will have to be some kind of violence if it's cyber or street protest or whatever. NOT BLOOD. The most violent thing you could do to a Koch billionaire is take all his money by cyber. penniless. All the money offshore GONE. Your money is fair game for the rich, then theirs is fair for the taking too. Lets get the money back through the hackers. Just start putting the money back in our bank accounts.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Wouldn't that be something!
Sorry....There appears to have been a mistake. This is ours.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)probably aren't that cyber secure. The banks here would never complain about all the money poppin up and I would even pay TAXES on mine.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And history shows that...the only thing that will win is non violent civil disobedience...non cooperation with evil as Gandhi put it.
But the most effective thing you could to the Koch brothers is make it really hard for them to live the good life....no servants to serve them....no one waiting on their every want and no market for their goods.
What if the Kocks could not trust that the waiter would not spit in their food?...what if they had to live in paranoia not knowing or trusting any of their servants?...that would be the hell for them...the one they created with their own mind.
But once you use violence you justify what they do to you.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)Have had no interest in it...
But I did see Gandhi and read about him and his actions to free his people from the English rule.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)Spoiler alert - it's really not about fighting. That's just the outer skin of the onion.
agent46
(1,262 posts)This is exactly what Fight Club was all about.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Ballpark it for me.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)2naSalit
(86,072 posts)I'm in agreement on all these points.
and
"Fossil Fuel/Military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex"
is known in the political science genre as Iron Triangles.
http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/iron_triangles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_%28US_politics%29
To add to your list I would include the Iron triangle that is composed of the medical industrial complex:
Insurance industry/big pharma&medical supply (machines and tools found in hospitals, ambulances and physicians' offices and med schools/Congress.
Great post, thanks for putting it so succinctly.