Get away from that magical thinking many of you are holding

[nadinbrzezinski]

No, this was not on purpose... it was the logical consequences of trickle down economics, but it was not not done on purpose.

Oh and here is another one... winning the election does not mean we magically get all the programs we've been promised. Money is not there, period.... Nor will things just get better overnight... 2006 should have disabused you of this notion

Oh and here is more... we don't, and have not, for decades, lived in a capitalist system... not at least according to Adam Smith.

Oh and at this point, given who is advising BOTH McHoover and Obama (Gramn and Rubin respectively) whoever gets to the white house there will be a hard push for an austerity package and YOU Have to be ready to take to the streets to fight it... with all your might.

Yes, electing a dem has a BETTER chance that will see the necessary structural changes, but DOES NOT guarantee it. In fact, you and I will have to work OUTSIDE the party... as the DLC wing of the Democratic party is not unlike the conservative wing of the same party in the 1880s. And they will fight their demise tooth and nail, just as their counterparts in the past did.

So get this magical thinking away from your head and realize we are in for at least a decade of fights that we have not had in this country in literally decades.

Oh and lastly, a nice glorious revolution is not the solution either... and could lead to a lot of pain (unless it is one like the New Deal)

[bluesmail]

1. Unintended Consequences

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Not even unintended for anybody with a working knowledge of

the 1929 crash... why some of us have been screaming this was coming for years

But for those pushing for them, absolutely

[midnight]

5. The elections of 2000, and 2004 were stolen,

and all the signs of abuse were visible. You did not have to even have a college degree to figure this out. So in the words of Helen Thomas, "where is everyone?"

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Of course they were stolen, and that is another myth that many round

these parts need to get away from, that denial that it wasn't

But that requires moving away from magical thinking... which says that stolen elections don't happen in the US because we are exceptional... yes... people still cling to that piece of very powerful magical thinking

[lutherj]

3. We need a velvet revolution, from the ground up. Buy local, live local,

and starve the corporate beast. The economy is unsustainable and beyond repair. We won't be able to repay the national debt, nor will our children (I suspect they wouldn't do it even if they could). With peak oil, climate change, water shortages, topsoil loss, declining fisheries, and other dwindling resources, change is coming.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Change is coming, but people still need to get away from their magical

thinking

As to the economy being beyond repair, no economy is beyond repair... it is how YOU CHOOSE to fix it

Lived though pretty messed up economies. This is up there, actually the worst, but it is not unsolvable

[lutherj]

7. We can default on the debt, or we can try to shrink it with inflation. Either way,

it won't be pretty. We won't be able to grow our way out of it because of the constraints of tightening energy resources. As net energy goes into decline, capitalism as it is presently practiced will no longer be possible. It will become a zero sum game, or a less than zero sum game. It will be a world-wide game of musical chairs, where the economy serves a smaller and smaller elite, even as the world population continues to expand. That's if we let the current paradigm continue. The only solution will be to direct resources and production into the sectors that most benefit most people. Something like the war effort during WWII. Something close to socialism. Either this will happen or we will get the mother of all class wars.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Ah but we do no live in a capitalist system

that is a frame that needs to die. We simply don't... and for those who still cling to it, take a weekend and read Adam Smith and pay special attention to what he wrote about monopolies...

We need to call it what it is... consumerism, fascism... but capitalism is not

As to expanding populations, peak oil will take care of that, with global warming

As to smaller and smaller elites, only if we are willing to let that happen

But once again, this is as bad as 1929... but even that economy recovered.

And do not cling to another mythology... what works, we know it, and creates middle classes by the way, is a mixed economy. Where you have some sectors in private hands (like manufacturing) and others in state hands, oh health care, education, utilities, things like that... we know that works...

Socialism, especially a "pure form" works only in very small scales, like your kibbuts. the outlier of that is Sweden, which has a small population overall

[lutherj]

12. Call it what you want, its days are numbered. I have read Adam Smith (although it was a long time

ago) and I agree with you. I could be wrong, but I don't believe Adam Smith used the word "capitalism". He was describing market forces without the distortion of giant corporations (monopolies). Capitalism is the system of using accumulated money reserves to earn more money. Capitalism sits on its ass and collects the rent. The free market also works well only on a human scale. As I said, buy local, live local, and starve the corporate beast. I also agree that peak oil and climate change will take care of the population problem. But it will be perceived as an economic problem. The measure of our humanity will be our ability to respond to this unprecedented crisis by making compassionate decisions about the allocation of resources. If we don't the status quo power elite will choose to service the upper class (themselves) and call it the divine right of economics. And they will fight like dogs to make that happen. That fight will be hell. We did of course recover from the great depression. We did so at a time when we were just beginning to exploit the great resources this continent was endowed with. Moreover, we didn't recover until the country revved up its production capacity during WWII. We no longer have those resource reserves, and a new economic paradigm oriented toward the social commons is at the heart of what I'm talking about. The "magic thinking" that needs to be abandoned is the idea of a perpetually expanding economy on a finite earth.

[An Intellectual]

9. What do you mean we don't live under capitalism? Our free-market system is so radical...

...that the government actually pays corporations at the expense of workers!

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Quite simple, if you read Adam Smith you will quickly find out that

in his view monopolies were bad. he was also all for tariffs and regulating capitalists so they could not fix prices

Now let me see

We have monopolies

Tariffs are mostly gone

Regulations are almost non-existent

So by the definition of Adam Smith, you know the author of the Wealth of Nations.. and father of the theory... no, we do not live in a capitalist system

[Hestia]

11. I think the money IS there and I will tell you why [come gather around children]

I've watched a lot of Obama speeches this summer, and like many of you, read everything I could, newspaper wise, etc. He has stated over and over that he will put the entire federal budget online. It will be there for the entire US to sift over with a fine tooth comb. He also stated during his acceptance that he *will* go over the federal budget, line by line. Personally, I think he has done it already. He said that there are lots federal programs that are unproductive and need to be either shut down or folded into a better system that works better.

2nd reason --

from http://truemajority.com Oreo cookie analogy:

Let's say one cookie equals 10 billion dollars. The Pentagon's annual budget is forty cookies or four hundred billion dollars a year. So how much do you think we spend on this other stuff?

Not much. And that's why our schools don't work and children are left out in the cold. The government makes it sound like it's impossible to solve these problems, but it's not. Here's how we could do it...

Just take 5 cookies a year off this pile. Use 1 cookie to rebuild our schools, 1 to eliminate our need for mideast oil, and 2 to feed all of the six million starving kids around the world. Then take the last cookie, (you've all done this before) and use half to provide health insurance and a quarter to provide Headstart for every kid that needs it. You can eat the other 1/4 cookie. But remember, that's 2.5 billion dollars. Try not to choke!

I feel in my heart that he will take this money away from DoD, give that money to us, and then make the DoD find the trillions that they have lost. "It's a miracle! We found 3 Trillion just today!"

Did you know that the entire federal government doesn't have a central data base? Each and every dept. has their own system? Just streamlining that will save trillions.

I was just thinking about this today - NSA 1/21/09 (is that the correct inaugration date?), Obama comes in, fires everyone, or at least put the entire dept into desk jobs until they get disgusted until they quit. Since most of them are contractors (from what I have read), go over that contract, the find the loophole that fires. Then start interviews for the NSA. Find the real whiz kids that will keep virus' and hackers from our computer systems; put the entire federal gov't onto one system.

You cannot tell me that there is no way that we have an unhackable system. It exists - you know and I know. Use it!

How much money could get out that Interior Materials & Management System office, you know where the whores, theirs and ours, were hanging around? Go get that money - that is billions!

A billion here, a billion there, a couple of trillion from DoD - now you are talking real money...