Osama Bin Laden DEAD- Killed By U.S. Forces

[Derrick]

If capitalism ended tomorrow, the common man would be useless. The common man is a wageslave and does not have the inclination, nor ability to cope with such things. It would take a few capitalist leaders to lead the common man back from the brink. Sadly, leaders are always leaders, regardless of the economic system. Why sadly? Because they lead so that others will follow, and they will always control the means of production because the common man is only greedy while the leader is not only greedy, but shrewd,

Mike

Hi Mike

It has always puzzled me why for several hundred thousand years our species managed to get on without exploitative leaders and not only survived but flourished living with and not against nature.

There was no controlling ownership of land because people kept moving around from one place to another, nomadically following animals and foraging on the available vegetables and fruit.

Derrick

[The Good Michael]

Even the best communist exeriments, the kibuttzes, rely on foreign workers to do a lot of the dirty work. Always will be bosses, and human nature being what it is... well ... ideals are much like fantasy books when it comes to politics.

Mike

[Graham]

Brezhnev's hobby was collecting expensive cars including Cadillacs. There's equality!

He was also notoriously and shamelessly corrupt, and when challenged about it (by a foreign journalsit, it goes without saying) he trotted out the infamous line, "Well, nobody can afford to live on just their wages, can they?"

Graham

[Bob Hinton]

Down with the bosses!!

Poor old Derrick he just doesn’t get it does he? I remember many years ago it was thought that it would be helpful if civil servants joined the military for leadership exercises.

I remember one chap, a teacher, who was probably Derricks father; he spouted the same sort of nonsense. Funnily enough I cannot remember his first name, just his surname- Bull.

Anyway this chap was always on about the workers seizing control and over throwing the bosses etc, and one day during an exercise building a dry stone wall I thought I would sort the situation out.

I asked him how he would do it without the NCO’s i.e. bosses in charge. He gave this spiel about how bosses are tools of the Capitalists etc, and anyway he explained that the workers themselves would build the wall.
So I sat back and let him get on with it. Soon he had formed a committee and worked out job rosters etc and soon the stones were being gathered. Anyway a couple of hours later we had a big heap of stones and took a break for something to eat. He then started going on about how the workers had managed without the bosses etc. I asked to see his hands – they were clean, whereas everyone else’s were dirty.

I pointed this out. His reply was that someone had to organise the workers to carry out their tasks. Oh I said you’re not against bosses then, just the bosses who aren’t you.

The fact is that people who urge others to throw off the yoke etc are never willing to become one of the masses – they only want others to be the masses. They want luxurious dachas, private roads, private shops and a life of luxury –while the others do the toiling in the fields.

Anyway I notice some comments about dreamers. Sorry to disillusion you we do not need dreamers – we need doers. I remember seeing Rudy Giuliani being interviewed and the interviewer asked him why he had changed from being a Democrat to being a Republican. He replied that the Democrats were always talking about how things could get better – the Republicans actually made sure they did. Whenever I hear a politician banging on about visions for the future I remember that interview!

[The Good Michael]

If capitalism ended tomorrow, the common man would be useless. The common man is a wageslave and does not have the inclination, nor ability to cope with such things. It would take a few capitalist leaders to lead the common man back from the brink. Sadly, leaders are always leaders, regardless of the economic system. Why sadly? Because they lead so that others will follow, and they will always control the means of production because the common man is only greedy while the leader is not only greedy, but shrewd,

Mike

[Roy Corduroy]

If the capitalist world ended tomorrow, what would be the outcome?

If it does, I want a car like this. (click to see)

Roy

[Robert]

The common people? They're the ones who win all the wars and then, once the wars are safely won, they are given a lecture on racism.

[Errata]

Hi Errata

If the capitalist world ended tomorrow, what would be the outcome? A few poorer rich people is all I can think of.

Money and the concept of money is just an illusion that benefits only those who actually control the means of production.

Money is important to them but if you don't have much or any at all does that make you any less human or important?

There is no reason at all why the people of the UK cannot grow all of their own food, manufacture thier own goods and build a sustainable economy that produces practically zero waste. It is possible.

Derrick

Humanity, importance, dignity, none of these have anything to do with money. But money is NOT an illusion, although it kinda is.

Is getting rid of money possible? Absolutely. It is after all an abstraction. We inflate and deflate the dollar as we see fit, and we don't even have a tenth of the hard currency (I think we're back with silver? Or gold. one of the two) in our treasury to cover the amount of printed bills out there, much less the amount of credit. It is intangible.

But it is real. While we can inflate and deflate the dollar at a whim, there are consequences. Recessions, depressions, those picture of homeless guys carting wheelbarrows full of worthless cash around... These are very real. The potential disaster of China owning a large portion of the US national debt is also very real.

It IS like jazz. You can take it and construct or deconstruct it as you please, build themes and tear them down. Invent, obfuscate, whatever. But it has to be Jazz. You can't just pound on a piano and call it Jazz, nor can you get rid of the piano altogether. You just have almost unlimited latitude within the rules.

We stopped trade and barter because our society was not linked enough anymore for it to work. In a small town where everyone needs the same things it's a wonderful thing. But in small cities, where you don't know a tenth of the people that well, and have no way of finding someone who has both what you want and wants what you have, then people starve. We are just now coming into an age where we are tightly connected again through the internet that it might work. But it would require the tools and services of getting onto the internet to be a universal right. And clearly we arent there yet. But abolishing money or even capitalism at this point will no abolish the need or desire for it. They say capitalism is the strongest kind of economy, and that is not technically true. It is the most persistant. Capitalism always breaks out.

I got to trot around Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, and it was true that a suitcase full of blue jeans could sustain you for a week. And I thought this was a really healthy trade and barter thing going on. But then I gave a taxi driver a pair, and she was so thrilled because she could trade them at the pharmacy for her mother's seizure medication. There was not enough currency in circulation for her to possibly accumulate to pay for the medicine. So the jeans became the money. It's also how we got blood diamonds. And the illegal ivory trade. In places where there is no currency, or with useless currency, tangible things become the money. There are parts of Africa where people are buying food and housing with their AIDS medication. They are literally killing themselves, trading their life for another so that their kids have a chance. Money is not the problem. Just a symptom.


As for Nazi appeasers, I'd like to say that as a Jewish woman that there is no way I would ever have given Hitler anything he wanted. But if he would have left us alone in exchange for control of Great Britain... I'm sorry but all of you would be speaking German today. You can't make friends with a mad dog. You kill a mad dog. But if you can't kill it, well, I don't have to be faster than him, I just have to be faster than you.

[Sally]

Sally,
From the Peasant's Rising and dear old John Ball asking "When Adam delved and Eve span,who was then the gentleman?" through to the Levellers /Chartists/The World of Ranters/William Blake and many more ---- a long history of radical dissent.......

Naalie - thanks, yes I know about this 'radical dissent' - but that doesn't really answer the question (questions?)

I'm not sure who the common people would be who would take back what was rightfully theirs; nor how they would determine what that was?

As for robber barons taking the land - whilst there are some notable exceptions; generally speaking, that's not really very accurate.

Still, this is a thread about Bin Laden, so I expect I should desist.

[Natalie Severn]

What?

What are you talking about?

Who are these 'common people' exactly?

And what is 'rightfully theirs'?

And who are these 700 year old 'Robber Barons'??

And do you have any idea how many Inclosure Acts there ARE?

I'd stick to straightforward revolution if I were you. Much simpler.

Sally,
From the Peasant's Rising and dear old John Ball asking "When Adam delved and Eve span,who was then the gentleman?" through to the Levellers /Chartists/The World of Ranters/William Blake and many more ---- a long history of radical dissent.......

[Sally]

What?

Repeal the Inclosure Acts...

It won't be by any repeal of any law sunshine. One of these days the common people of this country will take back what is rightfully theirs from the hands of the robber barons who have used our own land to enrich nobody but themselves over the last 700 odd years.

What?

What are you talking about?

Who are these 'common people' exactly?

And what is 'rightfully theirs'?

And who are these 700 year old 'Robber Barons'??

And do you have any idea how many Inclosure Acts there ARE?

I'd stick to straightforward revolution if I were you. Much simpler.

[jason_c]

Here's a link to the Countryside Demonstration that Derek is so het up about.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../ROBERT-HARDMAN-Why-Left-silent-riot-squads-inflicted-terrible-injuries-peaceful-country-folk-2004.htm

Notice the pictures of all the badly wounded people. It's strange that the likes of Derrick was so quiet about that one isn't it?

Bob

That link is simply telling me Ryan Giggs is a dirty sod.

[jason_c]

Nazi appeaser is a Nazi in my book. How many so called subhuman types lives (Jews, Homosexuals, Intellectuals, Gypsies, Trade Unionists, Communists or the disabled) would Halifax have bartared away with Hitler for British security?

Repeal the Inclosure Acts...

It won't be by any repeal of any law sunshine. One of these days the common people of this country will take back what is rightfully theirs from the hands of the robber barons who have used our own land to enrich nobody but themselves over the last 700 odd years.

The oil is running out and we can ill afford to put up with parasites larging it at the expense of the vast majority.

I hope that that helps to further show you which side I'm on. Oh I forgot, you are not listening.

Derrick

The entire parliamentary Labour party during the 1930's were Nazi's in that case. Not once did they vote for rearmament during this period. Likewise the vast majority of the British public were Nazi.

A lot of rats had to desert the ship before leaving Halifax in splendid isolation.

[Derrick]

Everything you said may in fact be true. I am willing to concede it is. And we in the US have VERY different healthcare problems than you do. But...

You gotta dream, man...

Hi Errata

Blimey man, I thought that John Lennon wrote Imagine...Nice post mate.

I would like to pick up on something that you implied there.

If the capitalist world ended tomorrow, what would be the outcome? A few poorer rich people is all I can think of.

Money and the concept of money is just an illusion that benefits only those who actually control the means of production.

Money is important to them but if you don't have much or any at all does that make you any less human or important?

There is no reason at all why the people of the UK cannot grow all of their own food, manufacture thier own goods and build a sustainable economy that produces practically zero waste. It is possible.

You may say that I'm a dreamer...but I'm not the only one.

Derrick

[Derrick]

I stopped listening to Derrick the minute he claimed Lord Halifax was a Nazi. I think he also wishes to repeal the Enclosure Acts.

Nazi appeaser is a Nazi in my book. How many so called subhuman types lives (Jews, Homosexuals, Intellectuals, Gypsies, Trade Unionists, Communists or the disabled) would Halifax have bartared away with Hitler for British security?

Repeal the Inclosure Acts...

It won't be by any repeal of any law sunshine. One of these days the common people of this country will take back what is rightfully theirs from the hands of the robber barons who have used our own land to enrich nobody but themselves over the last 700 odd years.

The oil is running out and we can ill afford to put up with parasites larging it at the expense of the vast majority.

I hope that that helps to further show you which side I'm on. Oh I forgot, you are not listening.

Derrick