Third Party & Independents: Archives

“We did not win the war on Communism; - we lost it by fighting it with Weapons of Mass Destruction which killed innocents.”

Huh? We lost the war on Communism? We fought it with Weapons of Mass Destruction? I was sort of enjoying your post—unusually balanced, I thought—until I got to that line. Care to explain?

Uh, Martin, if we won, how do you explain Viet Nam and China?

Agent Orange killed horrendous numbers of Vietnamese. And how about the illegal carpet bombing in Cambodia? History is wonderful thing, it gives meaning and reference to a whole world of discussion out there which otherwise appears unintelligible to us.

David, you said the “War on Communism.” If you meant Vietnam, why didn’t you just say Vietnam? We “lost” the war in Vietnam, I suppose (though this is the first time I’ve heard that we lost because we used the defoliant Agent Orange—that is definitely an original thought).

When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, I guess I just didn’t recognize at that moment the supreme victory of Communism in the Cold War.

And I somehow managed to completely miss the war we lost against China.

Maybe this is just a result of my public school education—there’s just so much they forget to put in the history books.

How true, Martin about the public education system. It really does fail in so many ways. We entered the Viet Nam war to stop the spread of Communism. The war against Communism was far wider and greater than Viet Nam and the USSR. They happened to be two places we committed ourselves to win first before marching on to Cuba, China and the Eastern Bloc.

No question we prevailed over the USSR with M.A.D. by outspending and outproducing the USSR economy and war machine. It was mostly succesful in as much as it resulted in greatly reducing the risk to America from Russian ICBM’s and submarine based tactical weapons.

But, if any public school student has been taught that we won the war against Communism, they are being lied to in the biggest way. There is still the not so little issue of Taiwan and a host of ICBM’s in China capable of reducing the U.S. to ‘Planet of the Apes’ should we too exuberantly defend our Taiwanese friend’s independece from China.

And Fidel still rules 90 miles from our coast. No, we did not win the War against Communism, we simply found a respite from impending nuclear holocaust, and decided that was good enough. Funny how China’s Communism was able to churn out an 8+ percent GDP growth during the world wide recession that hit the rest of the world around the time Bush took office.

Seems the predictions about China falling under the weight of its own Communism in similar fashion to the USSR were miscalculated. What wasn’t miscalculated was that the War against Communism was not worth fighting once M.A.D. (mutually assured destruction) was established. Nixon for all his flaws of character, did this country a great service by opening relations with China diplomatically rather than trying to escalate them out of existence (and ourselves along with them).

David, I didn’t realize that we “lost the war against Communism” because its last vestiges haven’t yet been wiped off the face of the earth. If the earthly paradise of North Korea represents the triumph of Communism, then our defeat surely is a bitter one.

Hasn’t China managed to sustain itself as a “Communist” regime only by incorporating capitalism into its doings—infusing itself with the life-blood of hated captitalist dollars? Doesn’t half of everything in the left’s bogeyman of capitalism-run-amock called “Wal-Mart” say somewhere on it “Made in China?” Or does that 8+ growth in GDP represent only a burgeoning demand in mainland China for little red books and those colorless smocks made fashionable by Chairman Mao? And who will buy all that stuff if China nukes us and completes the Communist conquest of North America so very nearly achieved, according to your view, by Fidel Castro off the Florida coast?

Martin, Communism is a form of government, socialism is an economic system. The Communist government in China uses both socialist and capitalist economic strategies, whichever will yield the greatest good for the greatest number of Chinese, i.e. whichever works best. Pretty damn smart for Communists don’t you think? Also, strangely similar to our own economic system which is called a “mixed economy”.

Nope, the Communists are alive in China and doing better in terms of economic growth than any western society in existence. Of course, they have a far greater internal demand for goods and services than any other society. But, China is living proof we did NOT win the war against Communism. Their economic growth is an irrefutable fact of statistics found on our own government’s CIA world facts web site.

David, the very term “Communism” loses meaning without its necessary underpinnings of socialism.

Communism which is even worthy of the name demands a a hyper-attentive adherance to the very purest forms of socialist ideology. To the extent that China incorporates capitalist models, it erodes—no, surrenders—its identity as a persistenty pure and therefore actual Communist state. How long before China’s not even plausibly called Communist anymore and has to be called something else? Marx and Mao would roll over in their graves to see what’s going on in China.

China—which I’m far more optimistic about than say North Korea—is gradually opening according to almost any criteria. As their economy becomes linked to the world market-place, their people are becoming gradually exposed to, and in fact are demanding, a greater influx of information and range of opportunity than what is offered by the completely centralized authority of the State (which is a key dynamic of Communism). We have large numbers of Chinese students in our universities, for example—and whether they attend public universities like I did or not, they are NOT taught here the infallibility of authority centralized in one-party governments. All the Chairman’s horsemen and all the Chairmen’s men will not put Communism in China back together again.

You make economies and governments sound like lunch buffets (Chinese lunch buffets?) where you can choose a little of this, a little of that. Only true to some extentin some places—but not when we’re talking about Communism.” Much of Europe is arguably socialist. North Korea (and maybe Cuba) are arguably the last surviving Communist states. And these places are laughable (albeitly dangerous) basket-cases. No, on any level you want to talk about—social, economic, moral—Communism is a whipped dog presided over by a smirking chimp.

Martin, you are right, my error. I have always distinguished the USSR’s government as separate from Marxist economics. Primarily because the politburo government never implemented Marxist Socialism as an economic theory in accordance with Marx’s theory. Marx did not ignore human behavior as Russia’s politburo did.

Instead the USSR created a ‘command economy’ and almost completely disregarded market forces that are born out of human behavior such as those written about by Karl Marx, and Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiment and The Wealth of Nations.

Though, as you say, in the English dictionary, we make no such distinction as I made in my previous post. We equate Russian Communism with Socialism - and have not been able to have a rational discussion about Marx’s Socialist economic theory ever since.

China on the other hand, has learned from the USSR’s grave error and now allows for a greater blend of Socialist wealth distribution in conjunction with capitalist free trade. Much as we do but in differing blends. China with its huge population cannot move abruptly in altering its economic mixed economy or 100’s of millions of Chinese would suffer. But, gradually, they are moving toward a capitalist/socialist mixed economy not unlike ours.

Wow, I actually agreed with Martin.

Good post David.

A “war against terrorism” does seem to be a reasonable response to 9-11 and the exigencies of the 21st century. Unfortunately, as you point out, it’s one of those ambiguous goals about which it’s hard to define success; also, once you concede that the war/campaign against terrorism has legitimacy, politicians are given every incentive to argue that they are more bellicose than the opposing candidate.

How then can a political system wage a low intensity conflict without trampling on rights and succumbing to pro-war rhetoric?

What I object to is the labeling of this “war against terrorism” as a war. War has an absolutist nature to it; you must “win” at any cost. In a “campaign against terrorism”, there are setbacks, triumphs and frustrations. Instead of using war rhetoric, we should be talking about vigilance and what that means in our society.

Also, there needs to be reasonable checks on the defense industry’s tendency to self-justify its existence and produce excess unused military capacity (the “self-licking ice cream cone” phenomena).

Perhaps reasonable checks might occur if the U.S. committed to multilateral bodies and signing onto the ICC and other peacekeeping forces. The scary thing about the Bush Administration is that it seems not to need to be answerable to the body of nations.

Using Iraq as an example, it’s hard to understand USA”s determination to correct the situation when all of Iraq’s neighbors (save Kuwait) opposed our intervention publicly. The administration’s attitude was: well, multilateral support would be helpful, though not essential. The inability to gain support from the Arab world should have been a sign that the administration was oblivious to the body of nations. But why isn’t domestic politics immune to the moderating influences of multilateralism?

“I have always distinguished the USSR’s government as separate from Marxist economics.”

Governmentally, perhaps, especially if you consider Lenin’s amendments, but if you make a similar distinction between Soviet economics and that of Marx, I will give a gassy, quizzical face to it. If Marx were as synonymous with Adam Smith, as you say, would you go into further detail, with quotes from the Manifesto, as to how exactly Marx’s ersatz “Communism” fits in with the Unseen Hand as outlined by Smith? The assertion that Marxism is a free-market, non-command economy, is a new one to me, but now that it’s wrapped up in the form of a response to a “failed public education system” (which taught me otherwise, perhaps to the discredit of the school curriculum for violating the revisionist dictates of the Fellow Travellers?), I wish to learn anew. Exactly how Capitalistic IS Marxism, after all?

I agree with the subtext of what you seem to be getting at, that a Socialist/Capitalist mix is the ideal. My take on it is that the evolution of our species began in a “pure competitive” stage, and has been continually progressing to an increasingly “cooperative” level, by degrees, and here in modern times we are at about the midpoint, with firms like Microsoft using the term “coopetition” (cooperative competition). The very adoption of a rule of law is a cooperative one, so even “pure Capitalists” have cooperative strains in them. Even Ayn Rand for failing to advocate murder in the pursuit of the demands of the “selfish gene”. We are beginning to formulate the concept that a selfish gene can at times be in tune with the imperative of a species-wide meme, and at other times it can be counterproductive, and when individuals have the capability to destroy the entire species, that capability must limit or regulate the individual vector of will for the purpose of preventing species-wide extinction.

“Communism” may be a form of government, nominally, but to the extent that it doesn’t fulfill the promise of Marx (social harmony after the abolition of property as perhaps put more eloquently by Noam Chomsky), the label becomes meaningless, and really what one is left with, at the core, is a dictatorship waving a red flag instead of one with other colors to it. Dictatorship is dictatorship, and if you really mean to say “we did not win the war on dictatorship”, it’s true, we did not—but then, we weren’t in a Cold War with (all of) it. The Cold War was against a particular meta-dictatorship in the U.S.S.R., which was threatening the existence of any rival political system in its day. Now that it no longer does so, dictatorship may still be with us, and some may even still wave red flags, but they are now secondary or tertiary threats to the well-being of Americans, and the new primary threat is one which only has two colors on its world map: one for “The World of Islam”; and one for “The World of Jihad”.

And it’s possible that Jihad will always be with us, and as such that will never be “won”. But I think some semblance of victory can be claimed when, one day, we no longer subsidize those who would murder us by way of oil-addiction. And to win that war in that way, wouldn’t require us firing a single shot in anger. All that would be left after that, would be a backward gang of poorly-funded criminals who would have to find some way to leverage the economic value of Arabian sand in order to fabricate their weapons of “terror”.

Terrorism is a way for an underdog to fight an overwhelmingly superior power. American revolutionaries refused to “fight fair” during the War of Independence. Communism, Capitalism, terrorists, freedom fighters are propaganda terms used by leaders to manipulate the working class regardless who enjoys power. The working class in any society form a sustainable meritocracy, juxtaposed to corruption within a power structure of any name. Once corruption grows to an economically unsustainable level, civilization collapses. Can the world’s greatest prison system (1 in every 146 people, not counting INS & military prisons), military and economic system be sustained with outsourcing and a legal corrupt tax system? Corruption has reached into every branch of U.S. Government, including the Supreme Court. But TV creates false perceptions which sustain the corrupt leadership, whether in Saudi Arabia or the USA.

Ciggy, I am not going to fall for the bait. It has been about 20 years since I studied philosophy of economics and I am not going to drop what I am doing and go reread Marx, Engel, and Lenin, nor Adam Smith. Suffice it to say, I made my point that the USA’s global war against Communism failed since Communist nations continue to exist and the largest of them all, is now a nation we are courting as one of our largest trading partners.

As for Marx and Smith, you know very well I never said their theories were the same. I said, Marx built his theory upon human behavior as Adam Smith did. Have you read Theory of Moral Sentiment? Marx used as a goal in the Manifesto the uplifting of quality of life for all people in mind. His premise that workers are less like slaves and happier when they work, at least in part, for themselves, and own the product of their work, is a viable theory of human work behavior in the marketplace which is self evident in this country where entrepreneurial start up businesses are a mainstay of the Bush platform. Bush says small business owners who pay less taxes will be happier and more productive (as well as create more jobs). That was a premise of the Manifesto. If workers owned the profits from their work, they would be more motivated and happier with their role in their work, since they will become more prosperous, the harder or smarter they work. Ever heard of profit sharing? It is a mainstay of many American corporations.

If you want to play label games (Everything Communist-Socialist in theory bad - and everthing capitalist and free market - good) I won’t waste my time since debate with those who prejudge issues based on labels they grew up with is a waste of time and bandwidth. If you have ever read the Manifesto and Smiths Theory of Moral Sentiment and Wealth of Nations, then we can discuss this issue based on self-interest which is a cornerstone premise about human behavior which both Marx and Adam Smith built their theories upon.

Bayviking:
“The working class in any society form a sustainable meritocracy”

Approximately meritocratic, anyway. This class is stressed by a non-working welfare class of both the super-rich and the extra-poor, and sometimes elements of the sweating meritocracy leap to non-working status of either type. There is indeed, though, less of a sense of unreasonable entitlement among those who work for their daily HBO, by the sweat of their own brow (physical or virtual).

“Once corruption grows to an economically unsustainable level, civilization collapses”

Put in terms that I understand, I would say, ‘kill the host and the parasite dies as well’. I will work and provide for someone less fortunate who himself is working and at least trying to contribute. I will not do so when the theft and the abuse of generosity become more blatant.

“TV creates false perceptions which sustain the corrupt leadership, whether in Saudi Arabia or the USA”

If TV is ‘sustaining’ the current system, I’d hate to see a true opposition. This is where conspiracy theories break down: they forget that the real ‘conspirators’ (or rather, corrupt individuals) depend on the non-corrupt, Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas class’, to survive. They would never purposely destroy their own meal ticket, though sometimes said meal ticket crumbles under their weight, due to bad planning of the theft.

Good and provocative thoughts anyway, though, Bay. I like to see things expressed that way from time to time, just to shake things up.

“It has been about 20 years since I studied philosophy of economics”

And about 20 minutes since you expressed your opinion about it. I didn’t intend to make you feel inhibited in your response. I was truly curious as to how much of a Capitalist Karl Marx really was.

“the USA’s global war against Communism failed”

The spirit of the effort was to contain Communism, not to eradicate it. And the real threat needing containment was the former U.S.S.R. That job was successful. If we didn’t commit philosophical extermination against all who wished to persist in economic stupidity, in less threatening corners of the world, that would only play to our credit. The very core of containment strategy was that the sheer weight of Socialist inefficiency WOULD cause the Soviet ‘bear’ to crumble, and it did. Theory vindicated. North Korea is impressively stubborn in their refusal to crumble under the collectivist idiocy, but they will eventually. And Castronian Cuba will Capitalize by osmosis, especially when he passes away and they no longer have a cult of personality to motivate the indentured state servitude in the sugar plantations. China is shrugging off the inefficient Socialist part and retaining the dictatorship part, which is worrisome. Not as worrisome as Jihad, but worrisome.

“Marx used as a goal in the Manifesto the uplifting of quality of life for all people in mind. His premise that workers are less like slaves and happier when they work, at least in part, for themselves, and own the product of their work, is a viable theory of human work behavior”

OWN the product of their work? How do you ‘own’ things when you abolish private property? This contradiction, this impossibility of reason, was a madness that sprouted mass murder in most of the world over the course of the 20th century. Marx defecated on humanity’s intellectual source stream, as it were, far more than Hitler, because it had the lure, not just of personal magnetism, but of a dialectic fallacy that only the truly educated could catch.

“I won’t waste my time since debate with those who prejudge issues based on labels”

Of course not, because symbolic language is the basis for rational discourse, and under rational discourse, the fallacy of Marxist snake oil breaks down and is shown for what it is. And now there is even a very stark empirical example of exactly how irrational it is, in the mass graves of the Ukraine and Cambodia.

“If you have ever read the Manifesto”

Do give me credit for 41 pages, even if it is 41 pages of tripe. I can’t promise a similar sampling of “Mein Kampf” though. There, I depend more on historians for their analysis.

Do you forget the reference to the abolition of personal property? Allow me to remind you:

Chapter 2:
“The primary objective of communists and the revolutionary proletariat is the abolition of private property, for it is this that keeps them enslaved.”

That is, if you own anything, anything at all, that amounts to enslaving me because I cannot take it from you. This is a thief’s philosophy, and the shallowest excuse for murder ever invented by the diseased modern mind.

“self-interest which is a cornerstone premise about human behavior which both Marx and Adam Smith built their theories upon.”

Yes, theft is indeed self-interest, just as much as earning lawfully. But Communism couched its selling points in terms less crass, as a sugar coat to sweeten the taste of the intellectual feces.

Ciggy, you seem to be operating under the false assumption that I am defending Marx and his theory verbatim. A very false assumption. Marx is the father of socialist economic theory. As practiced in the USSR the moderate abolition of private proverty did in fact kill the Soviet economy. No question since it contradicted Marx’s own stated goal of motivating workers.

However, Socialist economics can take many forms, and has, in the USA, across Europe, China, S. America to some extent, and now, even in the capitalist bastion of Japan, socialist programs have been taking hold.

What so many Americans and perhaps, yourself, suffer from is a prejudiced kneejerk reaction to the word “social” or “socialized” which does not hinder intelligent and rational debate amongst peoples in a host of other mixed economy nations which I listed above. Socialized programs make sense under the right circumstances, during the right periods, and with appropriate demographic and national resource paramters.

Our own Public Education system has been socialized for decades and decades. The majority of Americans want to keep public education and improve it. Why, because they don’t equate “public” with socialized. But it is nonetheless. The government takes money from childless persons and empty nesters and distributes toward the education of all young people, and those who qualify at the collegiate level.

Getting back to my original statements, we have a mixed economy - a combination of capitalist free enterprise and socialized programs such as highway maintenance, national defense, schools, etc. This is true and becoming more true of western and eastern socieities. Hence, Marx’s concept of socializing is not inherently evil. It becomes evil or beneficial depending on how, how much, and under what circumstances it is applied.

David, yes the Soviet Union was apoor example of communism and Marxism. The question is can you point to a good one?

Marx was great in theory, poor in practice.

Free market capitalism alone doesn’t work either, there has to be a balance.

The real world has a way of not adapting itself to theory.

Greg, I totally agree. My position has always been that Socialism alone as an economic base is deadly to a society. The same is true of truly “Free” enterprise Capitalism. One need look no further than the last 3.5 years to see amply evidence of what happens when capitalism is not overseen and regulated by the government (Enron, NYSE, Adelphia, etc.).

There are no examples of pure functional socialism just as their are no longer any pure examples of free enterprise capitalism in the world - both for very good reasons. The debate that needs to take place is not one of either, or, as extremists on both the left and the right expound, but, how much mix of each will bring optimal benefits for the society and its people. All the major nations of the world are currently wrestling with this question to varying degrees.

As to your main point of the post, I agree that the “war on …..” phrase is tiresum and misused.
But it is only a phrase. That phrase does point to our culture of a warrior society seeking to root out evil in the cause of truth, justice, and the American Way.

While man does have altruistic tendencies, there have been studies that show this behavior is usually only workable in small group such as the Bushmen of the Kalahari. As I understand it people then relate to one another as equal human beings.

Once you expand beyond a hundred or so in a group, cliques form and greed, competition, and belittlement patterns emerge.

We are a warrior culture driven by competition for limited resources and fear. Thus far, a democratic
capalistic society with based on property and civil rights, seems to work the best. The depression showed the need for cooperative function best led by socialistic structures.

It will always be a struggle, education and an open society seem to be the only way to balance these.

Dealing with terrorism and the Arab culture of domination will require the use of intelligence, infiltration, and at times supressive force. Seeking out aggressively figure heads is important and exposing their naked grabs at power is essential. However, the most effective long term strategy will be the use of tolerance and civil rights around the world , not just in the U.S. and effectively communicating those ideals into closed societies. Curtailing the use of force in negative ways to acheive dominance is essential. Attracting the best and brightest to our culture has been the tool that defeated communism. Military balance against militaristically aggressive regimes will always be needed, but it is our brain drain that will defeat them.

Bush has the idealism down, but he is being driven by cold war strageties that are completely wrong headed and destructive, if not changed.

Wow David, nice working knowledge of the conservative and democrat song and dance.

But I think that the dems don’t follow their own agenda they have to negotiate with a congress as to policy, which is the avoidance by dems of having to face severe criticism. Does it create revisitations with a problem? Surely. And you are on the money with the “platitudinal” left which plays denialistic mommy to problems internationaly.

But sometimes as with Clinton there is a pandering to uphold conservative policy as to assure or attempt to assure reelection. Sway to the opposite polarity to stay in office (song and dance). But lest we forget the voices from the left hand of the congressional aisle that do have so much more of a domestic agenda and do tend to take presidence with international issues pushed to the side somewhat.

But you also gloss a bit over 9-11 and that is a bit over the top for me. This was the worst attack upon our soil whether we are desensitized to that or not, facts are facts. It was surreal to have happen on our soil. And thusly retalliation justified, Iraq no, but Afghanistan and the terrorist circuitry absolutely. We need to tear down this cycle of Wahabism and splinter cells. I back the anti-terror innitiative 100%.

But here’s a thought that I find calming, we need to get back to the domestic issues of the day and that takes a bit of democratic back-shelving of international pressures. Could it create more problems down the road, yes most likely but we have a country to run here and the sooner we get back to it the better.

Skunkbud, thanks for the comments. Brevity requires that complicated perspectives like this one remain focused on no more than one or two topics. You are right, 9/11 did get only a glancing mention, but, only because the import of 9/11 is such a lengthy subject. Suffice it to say, that 9/11 both scared and hurt the America to the quick.

Reactions to 9/11 followed fairly classic psychological defenses against fear and pain. Some called for a withdrawal from the world. Some called for revenge and dominance over the world. Some called for deliberative debate and analysis based on a whole lot more intel. than we obviously had available at the time.

But, I have trouble seeing the 9/11 attacks as worse than the Ok. Federal Building bombing, or Pearl Harbor, or the first bombing of the World Trade Center. They were all attacks on our soil and people, and in my mind they are all equally horrific. But, shock and horror are no excuse for blind revenge, the kind of which creates even more imminent threats of attack upon us and our troops.

There are probably only one or two methods for the U.S. to fight terrorists who pose a threat to our people while minimizing the threat of future attacks from them. There are a dozen and more methods of pursuing terrorists intent on harming the U.S. which will guarantee a greater risk of threat against us and and greater losses for our men and women who desire deeply to bring justice to those terrorists and safety to America.

Sadly, in my opinion, Bush, Rumsfeld, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have made horrendous errors in judgement in their pursuit of justice and safety for Americans, which continues to increase the threats against us instead of reduce them, and which have increased the bodybag count and blood spilled by our troops far more than was necessary.

Obviously, many others would disagree. But, I want the greatest amount of justice and safety for Americans for every drop of G.I. blood spilled that is possible. If asked, I cannot imagine a single soldier saying s/he wants their blood spilled, or death, to occur unnecessarily or inefficiently in their pursuit of justice and safety for America.

We should be targeting terrorists specifically who pose a threat against the U.S. If the Phillipines have a terrorist problem within their country, fine, lets give them a few advisors and some intel, but, it does no justice to our fighting men and women to pursue a war on terrorists that includes countries, groups, and individuals who pose not threat to the U.S. Iraq posed no terrorist threat to the U.S. We should have withdrawn from Iraq as soon as that fact was known after deposing Saddam Hussein. Now it is too late. Now our troops are spending limb and life unnecessarily and inefficiently, and the Administration is directly responsible for that fact in my mind.

Really great post David.
I just think that (with respect to) the first part of your article, where you talk about trying to lessen the “hype”(for want of a better word) around 9/11 is being a little un-realistic.Yes, I agree with you ofcourse, but the majority of people aren’t far sighted enough to see that no ‘war on terror’ can ever be won.Plus though I generally don’t support military action, without proper justification, I do think the world as a whole needs to focus on trying to atleast effectively contain if not eradicate the scourge of terrorism. Maybe not by directly trying to bunker bomb our way through it, but trying to get to the economic and social roots of the matter.Like for instance trying to even address some of the grievances that terrorists have.

David,
“Marx is the father of socialist economic theory”

But he didn’t limit himself to economic theories. His Manifesto was a primarily political one, after all, a roadmap to essentially a great train robbery writ large, not just a screed on the merits of how great it would be if poor people could all inhabit the houses of the likes of J.P. Morgan and Boss Tweed.

“As practiced in the USSR the moderate abolition of private proverty did in fact kill the Soviet economy. No question since it contradicted Marx’s own stated goal of motivating workers.”

It is easy to motivate a mob to pillage and loot for whatever reason. Not so easy to motivate them to hit the daily grind of tedious work for ephemeral, lofty goals, and no hope of greater material gain for themselves as a result of it. Ancient Egypt did it, but that required a level of religious fanaticism that makes today’s Islam look like a Unitarian coffee klatch by comparison.

“a prejudiced kneejerk reaction to the word ‘social’ or ‘socialized’”

On the contrary. I would be first to admit that certain Socialist elements or strains in certain industries are needed structure as sort of a “housing” for otherwise free market economics. I go back to my “fuel and engine block” analogy, where profit motive is fuel and necessary (for motivation), and the engine block is needed to regulate and keep it going in the right direction and not just blowing up as a bonfire of greed or an orgiastic implementation of Dickensian nightmares. HOWEVER, if it’s all engine block, you get nowhere. You can’t fuel your Prius with good intentions.

I think the right mix is for commodity and consumer products industries to be free market, and for the “economic ladder” of Education and the essential infrastructure of Justice to be socialized (for which reason I think private practice attorneys are excessively Capitalistic, and prestigious private colleges as a privilege of the rich to be counter to societal goals), and in a somewhat more lukewarm support I toss in health care as an industry to socialize if for no other reason than to simplify things. If all citizens have equal representation in the courts, have an equal educational ladder to climb to better themselves, and have equal access to health care, I think that is socialism enough, and that those who put in the 80 hour workweeks at the corporate grind can enjoy their big houses and big lake boats all they want. I don’t begrudge them those extra toys or extra creatures comforts which they earned by the sweat of their brow.

“Marx’s concept of socializing is not inherently evil”

Marx exaggerated socializing to the point of robbing and looting and even murdering those who dare to own things. Abolition of personal property never was the way to go, isn’t the way to go, and never will be the way to go. Abolition of having justice to the highest bidder, education to the highest bidder, and life or death on the operating table to the highest bidder, I can live with that.

Greg:
“Once you expand beyond a hundred or so in a group, cliques form and greed, competition, and belittlement patterns emerge.”

…like High School with money, LOL.

Back to David:
“But, I have trouble seeing the 9/11 attacks as worse than the Ok. Federal Building bombing, or Pearl Harbor, or the first bombing of the World Trade Center.”

Philosophically they are the same. In terms of the number of victims, 9/11 exceeds all except perhaps Pearl Harbor. And the Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima dialectic seemed to have been cautionary tale enough to the rest of the world that when America hates back, it’s guaranteed to get ugly. But the world doesn’t learn lessons, so history repeats, with new added twists and turns.

I have met individual Americans so blinded by the hatred inspired by 9/11 that they actually complain that Abu Ghraib was too mild. That makes me fear my own fellow citizens, in a way. The things people have lurking in the closets of their minds, should make us all shudder. Serbia once thought it was “civilized” too, for example.

I agree with your latter comments about Iraq, etc.