Eric Foner: The Power of Outrage(The Nation)

[laststeamtrain]

This time the Bush Administration could not hide the dead bodies--or the walking wounded, whose abandonment by American society began not in the hurricane's wake but many years earlier.
<snip>
But a better historical analogy, although not one that immediately springs to mind, may be the Lawrence strike of 1912, best-known for giving the labor movement the slogan "bread and roses." Thousands of poor immigrant workers walked off their jobs in the city's giant woollen mills to protest a wage reduction. Bill Haywood, leader of the Industrial Workers of the World, who had been invited in to help direct the strike, devised a plan to send the workers' children to live with sympathetic families in other cities for the duration.

By 1912 the Progressive Era was well under way, but the sight of the pale, emaciated children marching up Fifth Avenue transformed public opinion regarding the strike...
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050919&s=foner

[Kablooie]

1. Wrong. They'll get away with it and ...

find a way to turn this whole thing around on all of us that criticize him.

I'm convinced, with the R's controlling the government, there's no way they will turn on the assholes even if they agree. Bush will once again say he did nothing wrong. All the R's will agree and 80% of America will nod their heads and continue to bathe in Bush's diarrhea.

Sorry, I've just lost faith in America. I don't think we can pull it together anymore.

[laststeamtrain]

2. As the choice becomes ever clearer: Socialism or Barbarism...

I trust that eventually the US will again get on a progressive path.
As dark as the short term appears at times I truly think history is moving overall in the direction of peace and justice. Some of it requires a 'new' consciousness. Che called it 'socialist man'(excuse the gender bias, Che's, not my term). I still think that the common good is a very seductive and attractive idea and will win out over the jungle of (un) free market competition.
I think that if the questions were asked in a fair way polling would show a majority of people desire a fair and safe world. A cradle to grave welfare state.
Call me idealistic if you wish. I don't think I am. I think that's the way it really is behind the veil of mass media induced despair.
Be well. Keep the faith.

[Kablooie]

3. Socialism has it's own problems though...

It is an issue that if people don't have to be productive to live a great many will simply sit and absorb. This was a problem with the communist societies. People would expend a minimum of effort and recieve the same reward as if they worked harder.
The basic idea of rewarding positive actions works. The greater the action the greater the reward. It's simple animal training woven into a human society. That is how our Capitalistic Democracy is supposed to work.

The problem is that it's becoming a drug and people are figuring out tricks to get the rewards without doing the work. This is Bush and his addicts. And like an addict the more they get, the more they want and it becomes an obsession so they become willing to destory in order to obtain it.

The capitalism addicts are getting to the point where they are willing to tear down out society in order to get their next fix.

Both Socialism and Capitalism have flaws because of human nature. Just wish we could fix at least one of them.

[laststeamtrain]

4. Response on certain points

"It is an issue that if people don't have to be productive to live a great many will simply sit and absorb."

What's wrong with that? Maximum leisure begets maximum culture. The original leisure societies were the gatherer/hunting cultures. A return to 'stone-age' economics would be a good thing.

"This was a problem with the communist societies."

What communist societies? I'm unfamiliar with any during relatively modern times. Short insurrectionary interludes yes. No real communist societies. Certainly not the USSR.

"People would expend a minimum of effort and receive the same reward as if they worked harder."

I guess this would depend on what was desired. Without a constant barrage of mass media propaganda creating artificial needs wouldn't the equation be different? Good food is 'cheaper' than bad food. Playing a musical instrument is more fulfilling than consuming the latest CD by people who don't really even know how to play. The deadly cycle of production/consumption could be short-circuited by various means including DIY culture and voluntary simplicity.

"The basic idea of rewarding positive actions works."

Who's running this machine? Some abstract figure doling out rewards for 'positive' acts? This isn't the world I live in. It's like some B.F. Skinner dystopia. Yuck!

I like your addiction paradigm. Addiction is a model of capitalism. The ultimate product is one that costs a penny to make, sells for a buck and is addicting. The secret is to not get addicted in the first place. Without false fears, imaginary ills and addiction capitalism would fall apart from it's absurdities.
Just think of all the crap humankind got along without for thousands of years and yet had everything that makes life worth living.

Anyway, I guess I disagree with quite a few of your premises. Basically we already live in a world of plenty. Capitalists are parasites getting the surplus value from others labor. The owning/investing class are the people not doing any work and getting a reward.

Taking the tiny steps toward a social democracy a la some of the European nations is what I'm looking for in the short term. Some of the Progressive Caucus in Congress agree with me.

Things are pretty F___ed up but it won't stay this way forever.