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DNAinfo and Gothamist Are Shut Down After Vote to Unionize
A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City's leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union.
On Thursday, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down.
At 5 p.m., a post went up on the sites from Mr. Ricketts announcing the decision. He praised them for reporting "tens of thousands of stories that have informed, impacted and inspired millions of people." But he added, "DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure."
[...] in the financially daunting era of digital journalism, there has been no tougher nut to crack than making local news profitable, a lesson Mr. Ricketts, who lost money every month of DNAinfo's existence, is just the latest to learn. In New York City, the nation's biggest media market, established organizations such as The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News have slashed staff or withdrawn from street-level reporting. The Voice stopped publishing its print edition in September.
What about The Daily Planet and Gotham Globe?
Gothamist's NY Writing Staff Votes to Unionize; Owner Shutters All *ist Sites
Deadspin reports:
Joe Ricketts, TD Ameritrade founder, billionaire, and father of Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, shut down the local news network of DNAinfo and Gothamist sites today, a week after the writers voted to unionize.
[...] With the sites' articles functionally locked, the reported 115 newly jobless writers now have no clips [to which they can refer potential employers] as they search for work.
Deadspin has scathing comments about Ricketts's explanation for his action.
The Los Angeles Daily News reports:
Angelenos hoping to read the latest local reporting from LAist.com [on November 2] were instead greeted by a letter from the news site's CEO, announcing he had shuttered the parent media company and all of its local news sites.
[...] [Ricketts bought news company DNAinfo in 2010 and, in March 2017, DNAinfo] purchased Gothamist, which ran news sites in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
[...] Julia Wick, editor-in-chief at LAist, [...] said she and her Los Angeles team supported the New York staff's decision to unionize. Originally, she said, all five Gothamist sites planned to join the union, but the Chicago newsroom dropped out, ending the collective effort.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:17AM (134 children)
This is a prime example of what is wrong with modern day unions. They are not the workers' advocates they are supposed to be but rather parasites. Any fool should know better than to say "we want more" when the owner is already losing money but modern unions do not care if the industry their workers labor for is thriving or not. They're exclusively about collective greed even at the expense of their own existence.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:38AM (21 children)
Or perhaps this shows exactly why the owner was losing money. The union specifically said they weren't after money, they were after more control over the general operations. And the owner specifically said he was shutting down because he wants to be the only one in control. No wonder he can't put out a product that the general public is actually interested in...who wants to read a paper that only carries the opinions of some out of touch billionaire?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BK on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
Fair enough. But why would a billionaire want to pay people to spout stupid opinions? Especially if they aren't even his stupid opinions?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:58AM
To please those pursuing the ultimate level for free expression of stupid opinions (and feed them ads).
Yes, the competition from Twitter and Facebook has been fierce but, while still maintaining peak stupidity, they stepped some notches down from the free expression lately.
Not much, though, a certain orange person can still use them for his stupid opinions.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:03AM
> Fair enough. But why would a billionaire want to pay people to spout stupid opinions? Especially if they aren't even his stupid opinions?
He can't use the platform as his personal megaphone all day, every day. He has to have some space in between so that people pay attention. That space can just be quiet, that would not get people habituated to paying attention to the platform. So he fills it with other stuff that won't matter one way or another to him. That way, when news does occur that he wants to spin or refram, everything is in place including the recipients.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:58AM
I've heard that from unions before. It's never been true except for the immediate present which lasts until about a day after they get what they're currently asking for.
Regardless, asking for creative control was even more foolish. A person might operate at a loss for a while to get their side of things out there; there's no way in hell they're going to without that ability.
At the end of the day, it was Ricketts paying for everything, so it's entirely up to him. You want your own soapbox, put your own money on the line. You want to get paid to work at someone else's, you say what they tell you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:03AM (10 children)
In this case, the union was no better than a common thug forcing a 'partnership' when an owner can't pay the 'protection' money. Were I in the owner's shoes, I do the same thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:23AM (9 children)
That's nice. How far up your employer's arse is your nose? "Nice little job you have there, would be a shame if something were to happen to it." "Oh, do not attempt to call the police or exercise your democratic right to organize in defense of your rights. I know where you live."
Darn Thugs! And then there is the Unions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:11AM (8 children)
Unions aren't very (at all) democratic.
That last step is what forming a union tries to accomplish.
So I bloody well fire you, and anyone of like mind. Or stop feeding money to the project and go find something else to do, and the business evaporates (which is what we saw here.)
That's what a business owner does in a democracy. Because in a democracy, people have control over stuff they own. Not "the masses" or random business enterprises they happen to be doing business with – and make no mistake, you're doing business with your employer and vice-versa. You can stop doing business with them at any time. And so can they.
Employees are just that – not voters. Not unless I offer them that when I hire them, anyway.
If I own a pizza-making enterprise where I've hired you to make pizza and you decide you don't like the way the business wants to make pizza, or you no longer like what I'm paying you, then go elsewhere. Any attempts to blackmail me into changing my recipe or pay you differently will, and should, end in a my-pizza-less existence for you. You can ask for things, and you can suggest things, but you can't force things. You have exactly one legitimate option if you don't like my decisions: quit.
Employment is not assignment as a voter. It's just not. Unions are the absolute wrong way to solve problems. They're a bad idea from word one. You want a particular environment for business, then talk to your legislators (and quit voting for idiots.) The reason why that's a good solution is because it creates a similar environment for all businesses. The playing field must be absolutely level.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:36PM (4 children)
You know, I do absolutely agree with your description. And - from my experience in the US - unions there have truly become parasites: looking out for their own good, at the expense of the very employees that they are supposed to represent.
It wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, unions provided a counterbalance to exploitative employers. You can fire one employee, but you can't fire 1000 of them without endangering your company (and few companies are willing to just close their doors). Today, labor laws provide much of the protection that old-time unions fought to get.
However, pure capitalism will find a way. Short-term thinking, management by spreadsheet: cut costs at any cost. I'm now out of touch with the US labor market, but I am still indirectly involved in the UK. It seems to me that the UK is developing a new two-class society: people with permanent jobs, and temps. More and more companies are turning large parts of their workforce into temps. You are hired for a day, a week, or even a month or a year. But you have zero job security, no guarantee of how many hours you will work, no retirement benefits, nothing but your hourly wage that could disappear at any moment. I've know people who worked as a "temp" for the same company, for several years.
Now, it's easy to say "just leave", but if *all* companies in your field hire only temps? That's just a totally shitty way to live. And it *is* exploitative: What was intended as a stopgap to allow companies to hire personnel for crunches (like the Christmas rush) has been expanded into a general loophole: a way to avoid paying benefits or offering job security to large parts of their workforces. If this continues, I imagine that we will see union rise again, as a way for millions of "temps" to demand benefits for the jobs they are, in fact, doing.
History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:27PM (3 children)
Just leave. It's not as easy to do as to say, but it's far from impossible.
Pure capitalism also has rewards for people who don't do that. One should consider what's going on that such behavior is viable in the long run. The answer is risk mitigation by government such as "too big to fail", public pensions, etc. When you have someone else eliminating future risk, you don't need to think about it any more.
(Score: 2, Touché) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:54PM (2 children)
How's the view from your ivory tower?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:06PM
Why are you trying to imply that job hopping is not a real world thing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:21PM
You could go to, I dunno, some civilized country like Switzerland, where they have unions and public health care?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:35PM (2 children)
In many situations it goes like this:
Company hires person to do work for $$. There was no mention of health hazards, unpaid overtime, abusive bosses, ... or any other item that makes the work the person was hired to do much less pleasant or desirable. If known upfront, the person may not have taken the job or demanded more $$$.
Person finds out other coworkers see the same issues and they try to resolve them, such that the original contract can be honored. Company ignores the workers who then form a union, frustrated about the company breaking the spirit of their contracts and for ignoring them, so they start making demands to put things right.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:10PM (1 child)
Fine. Now you know. Life's no different for you outside of the job today than it was on the day you were originally interviewed, or if it is, it's your responsibility, not your employer's. You don't have a job you like (or any job at all, perhaps.) Quit, and try to get the job back at a different level of compensation, or interview / hire on elsewhere. If you're going to abrogate your agreement, that's fine. But lets be clear what your agreement was: you agreed to do work X for Y compensation. Now you don't like it. Fine. Then quit.
Yes, some jobs suck. No, that doesn't give you any right to change them via blackmail other than the ONE thing you legitimately have, which is the agreement to do X for Y, which you can end by quitting (or by being fired).
If you try involving others for whom you are not responsible for their employment in blackmail against the employer, the employer should have every right to let you go ASAP.
Man up. And learn about a job before taking it. It's not hard to do. Not doing so is stupid.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:27PM
Yep. And all a traditional union does is unify a large block of employees together to say "shape up, or we'll all quit".
It doesn't give them any power to *force* things to change, the boss is always free to say "Fine, quit then, I'll hire new people.". And if they demand more than their labor is worth, that's exactly what will happen. If they *are* able to get changes made, then that means that the increased employee cost associated with those changes is still less than or equal to the value they're delivering to the business, and that the boss had been abusing the leverage inherent in their position of more concentrated power to cheat the employees and seize an unfair percentage of the value they produce.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:24AM (3 children)
Well they now have that. They have all their free time to control their own company any way they want to.
Of course the product they were delivering apparently never quite brought in enough money to cover their salary or commissions or what ever, so they may find things a bit rough for a while without daddy warbucks around to pay them in spite of the fact they have no following.
But this is exactly the way its supposed to work. Don't like the way the company is run, you got choices. Buy the company, form your own company, or just walk away.
These are glorified bloggers we are talking about. Hardly an irreplaceable commodity. Not like steel workers or journeyman plumbers or electricians.
And the published rags we are talking about apparently are of the same caliber. Fishwrappers nobody cares about or heard of.
Why all this socialist angst over union members that over played their hand? You win some, you lose some.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:32AM (2 children)
Glorified bloggers, but they did play an important role here in Brooklyn, their beat. We citizens have a lot of trouble keeping the city and its bureaucracy honest. There is no real political opposition to the Democratic party, not even the sham opposition the Republican party is, so corruption is endemic. Civic engagement is Sisyphean. But DNAInfo gave us some traction. It was a club to beat the feudal lords with in the court of public opinion. Their reporters actually came to our school board meetings and community board meetings. You could talk to them and email them. The New York Times, by contrast, I have never seen and they would never lower themselves to talk to real people about shit that actually matters to them. Losing DNAInfo makes the good fight tougher; I hope somebody takes up the torch.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:11AM (1 child)
But not you because you are all too cheap to pay for it. You got what you deserve.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:43PM
I'm busy running those school board meetings 2-3 times/week, and all the attendant meetings that go along with that like school visits. I'm one of the guys doing the challenging that is the news for others to report on. Should I also turn around and do all the reporting, writing, editing, publishing, and distribution of the news about the stuff that I'm doing? The school board that I was elected to is a non-paid position, too, BTW, but I do it because that's what civic engagement and civil society is about--putting in your time and effort to make society better for everyone because it's the right thing to do. It seems to me a better use of my free time than watching the NFL or spacing out in front of the endless stream of brainwashing others call "TV."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Kawumpa on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:42AM (1 child)
Apparently quite a lot of people in the UK...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:20PM
But not the Scousers
(Score: 5, Informative) by NewNic on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:50AM (11 children)
The fact that he has chosen to shut down the archives suggests that his action has little to do with money and everything to do with sending a message.
In other words, his decision to shut the websites down is rooted in ideology, not business.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:01AM (1 child)
Nah. See above. He was likely just willing to accept burning through some cash for a while to get his views aired. If the employees weren't willing to do so anymore though, there's no point in keeping the sites open.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:09AM
Were that true, he wouldn't want to shut down an archive full of his views. This is just the whiny kid stomping home with his marbles because the other kids wouldn't let him win.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by frojack on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:30AM (4 children)
Nonsense. He owns the content, and can do with it what he wants.
Look, I absolutely guarantee that if he continued to run the archives, people (like you) would be bemoaning the fact he was still profiting from people he fired.
He did the right thing, in fact its the only honorable thing.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:24AM
frojack! Your right-wing slip is showing again! Time to fix the wardrobe malfunction.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:59AM
Did you reply to the wrong post? Because I said nothing about his right to remove the archives. Of course he has the right to do this.
My point is that one can impute his real motive from the fact that he chose to shut down the archives.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:45AM (1 child)
> if he continued to run the archives, people (like you) would be bemoaning the fact he was still profiting from people he fired.
We silly people say enough silly things. You needn't put words in our mouths to make us look even sillier. Some of us understand the notion of works for hire. If these are works for hire, the creators have been paid for them and as you explain, now "he owns the content, and can do with it what he wants." Had he left the sites intact and made money off that old content, I would have no objection to that, only to the sudden dismissal of the employees.
"An official at DNAinfo said the missing articles would be archived online," says the New York Times. I, for one, hope that happens. Old news articles are part of our culture, and their loss would be regrettable.
> He did the right thing, in fact its the only honorable thing.
It would have been more honorable to give the workers notice. It would have been more honorable to attempt to get along with the unionized workers. It would have been more honorable to continue operations while attempting to sell the company. Even an unprofitable company can be more valuable intact than liquidated. Mr. Ricketts' action strikes me as petulant, callous, and ideologically motivated. Since the company's lawyers were involved, I assume he was within his legal rights. However, it wasn't the most honorable action he could have taken.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:55PM
That might be true, but we don't know the context. We weren't in the room during their discussions. We don't know how the unionizing employees approached things. They had to have thought about it and talked about it for a long time. There had to be a long run-up to their vote to unionize, because it's not a thing that occurs to you in the morning and accomplish before tea. Did he try to work with those people in good faith? Were they petulant and casting themselves in the role of the "resistance" to the owner as part of the larger "Resistance" to Trump or something? We don't know.
I am predisposed to take sides against the billionaires of the world, but hoi poloi can be unreasonable assholes, too. If the sites were money-losers then the billionaire might well have seen himself as a mensch for continuing to take those losses so that he didn't throw the employees out on the street. Their voting to unionize would piss him off in that context. I know it would me.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:25AM (3 children)
Unlike some of the other repliers, I see this as plausible. I see claims the unions were doing the same thing. Sounds like a case of "Live by the sword. Die by the sword." Hopefully, someone will learn from that, but I'm not holding my breath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:14AM (2 children)
This is because you are a fool. We will paradise paper this fucking rich dude, we will liberate his dogs and his trophy wife, we will let go his Imaginary Property across the internets, and there will nothing, nothing, he or you can do about it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:22AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:10PM
What Does It Take to Start a Worker Co-Op? A Practical Video Guide to Democratizing Our Economy [commondreams.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:58AM (73 children)
Before he bought the sites, were they making money? If so, what happened? Maybe they weren't making enough money for his tastes...
Anyway, by shutting them down, he should lose all copyright, etc protection over them, and maybe the hardware too.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:02AM (72 children)
Now you're just grasping at straws out of spite. They were his businesses. He owned them. He can shut them down whenever he likes and there is and should be fuck all anyone can do about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:09AM (61 children)
Maybe, maybe not.
If there is a model those sites can make money. one can expect the sites to respawn (perhaps under another name).
Not like the investment in hosting and online publishing is huge.
Yes.
As I said, maybe, maybe not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:21AM (60 children)
There's no maybe to it. That's what "ownership" means. When it comes right down to it, not even the most die-hard socialist wants their own ownership rights made subject of debate, only everyone else's.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:28AM (22 children)
That would be the owner of the shut sites that you speak about.
You telling me that he can block the former employees if they want to revive the site under a different name? (so that this story may actually have a continuation)?
If I remember well, it didn't worked this way for S/N case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:40AM (3 children)
He paid for the content produced under the old company. He decided to keep it.
Nobody said the writers could never write again. You made that up.
I suspect if those writers want to go out and start a new site they can do just that. (They are glorified bloggers after all - that's what they do).
He took down his content. Probably knowing full well the writers had kept copies. Ball is in the writer's court. If they want to violate the owner's copyright and build a site around pirated content they kept on home computers, there may be more drama. (You know that was exactly their plan).
If they want to go off and form their own company (hopefully after throwing a few hangers-on overboard) and come up with new content, and publish new rags, well, more power to them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:10AM (1 child)
Pay attention, mate, read it good this time, I'll try to be as precise as possible.
"If the sites that closed down have had a profitable business model before the acquisition, then the writers can start their own site building on top of that business model, without the current owner being able to stop them
This is where the issue of profitability before the acquisition may come into play as being relevant."
There's no question of content, or trademark, or copyright in what I said.
Now, do you have anything to object to what I said?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:29AM
They can, but they're not going to have the infrastructure and other assets that the old company had. The business model is not the only thing that makes a business profitable. Here, "the sites" won't respawn because the identifying IP (trademarks and copyright) that made them "the sites" is still owned by the old owner. These former employees can start their own business with the same business model and the same writers, but it's not going to be the same sites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:49AM
> If they want to violate the owner's copyright and build a site around pirated content they kept on home computers, there may be more drama. (You know that was exactly their plan).
No, I don't know that. What makes you think they planned such a thing?
(Score: 4, Informative) by BK on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:46AM (1 child)
Well, if you remember so well, you'll remember that SN didn't import content from any old green sites into this one.
And there is another key difference. SN doesn't claim to own most of the content of this site. So you can repost your posts on some other site if you want. You'll find that commercial news sites take a different approach.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:02AM
I didn't say they would.
True, but it has no bearing on the current issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:50AM (15 children)
We used not one bit of the green site's content, no. Every byte of content we have is what we as a community created. If we'd scraped up all /.'s past stories, we'd very rightfully have been sued into oblivion our first month.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:59AM (14 children)
And did I suggest that they may take anything from the old site other than the model of running it as a profitable business?
(remember my "If there is a model those sites can make money. ...")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:34AM (13 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:09AM (12 children)
No, I didn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:41PM (11 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:12PM (10 children)
Your understanding of terms. Respawn and revive doesn't necessary mean "take the older content".
For a news site, the readers are mostly interested in the news, it's not literature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:01PM (9 children)
They merely heavily imply it when used in conjunction with "the" and "those" "website(s)". After all, a website is not a business model. It is at least a concrete implementation.
The reason I'm bothering with this silly thread in the first place is your dismissal of several repliers who pointed out the legitimate problem with what you said. Then you coyly doubled down [soylentnews.org], repeating the erroneous terminology (also excise "you telling me" from your vocabulary, as in your linked post, that is too often a segue into straw men arguments). If there's confusion over something said, then get the wood out of your ass and just politely correct them. Not say the same thing again and then mischaracterize the previous poster's concerns.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:12PM (8 children)
No, I didn't
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:25PM (7 children)
It is little use to argue with the khallow. He keeps his own dictionary in his head, and edits it on the fly as he sees fit. At least he wasn't triggered like TMB and jmorris the Lesser. Wait a minute, unless he was, and this is how it manifests! As per best practices, quarantine is in order.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:29PM (4 children)
I think you need to look up the meaning of "triggered". I know it's hard to keep up with all these newfangled words but you need to do so if you're going to use them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:01PM (3 children)
One consistent feature of being "triggered" is that the subject does not realize they have been triggered, and assumes that their behavior is not caused by the triggering event. They may even try to change the definition of "triggered" in order to deny that it is happening to them. We are all here for you, Buzzard. How's the fishing? What's your favorite bass plug?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @02:33PM (2 children)
Smells like a kafkatrap [ibiblio.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:28PM (1 child)
No, what you smell is ESR. Kafka in "The Trial" was much smarter than ESR.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday November 09 2017, @06:39AM
OK, I am down by three. Stupid alt-right mudder folackers. Time for retribution, y'all. Now, if you are not among the regular down-modders of aristarchus, this is the point in proceedings where you should fess up to that. Otherwise, I will have to mod you into khallow territory. And it is not must me, it is all the sane, progressive, rational, realistic, non-racist, non-misogynist, not-artichoke hating soylentils that mod you who mod me down, down.
Now, the TMB may bitch and moan, as is his wont, but not necessarily in that order, since he allegedly served in a US military, that I down mod more than up. But put quite simply, it is because there is just so much here on SoylentNews that needs to be modded down, and way down, since we accept all and sundry, like MikeeUSA, well known pedophile, or jmorris, well known, well, maybe not well known, but he is definitely not someone you would encounter outside an insane asylum or a Vienna Circle think tank (pro tip: same thing). And khallow, the Soylentil in a class unto himself. He needs to be modded down every so often, just in a futile attempt to jump start rational thinking in his brain. So far, no success.
But to reiterate the point (that means, "repeat", for you alt-right, and conservatives), I will be downmodding with a vengeance tonight, and praise be to the Holy Mighty Buzzard for granting us an abundance of mod points. TMB, in your name, let it be accomplished!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:30PM
Actually, I keep it here [oxforddictionaries.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:07PM
Arguing? Doesn't arguing require a conclusion that needs to be demonstrated or refuting, a point to be made, hopefully a meaningful point?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:31AM (27 children)
Wipe out that speck of froth from the corner of your mouth, is unbecoming.
I see noone speaking about socialism anywhere.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:41AM
Use that spittle to clean your glasses.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:54AM
Take this as a lesson: if I'm not calling them "fucking pieces of socialist shit", I'm not even mildly annoyed. I'm just not one to hold my tongue or hide my feelings. Today you're reading a tone that doesn't exist.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:46AM (24 children)
The Mighty Buzzard constantly shows his ignorance, calling things "socialism" when they aren't that.
As an example, land reform in Cuba after centuries of European and USAian Imperialism would properly be called Anti-Imperialism or Bolivarianism.
I see noone speaking about socialism anywhere
Well, I'm late to the (meta)thread, but I did get in a mention of worker-owned cooperatives.
Yes, that would be an -alternative- to the Capitalist model practiced at Gothamist.
It has nothing to do with what has been going on there up to now.
By using the word, The Mighty Buzzard has once again shown what a nitwit he is.
...and it would be good if folks would quit mentioning that Herman's Hermits guy [wikipedia.org] in discussions where he has no significance.
("No one" is 2 words. Always has been)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:31AM
Not his fault, he can't help it. WHY WAS THERE NO TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS ARTICLE? This is what happens when you do not provide a proper warning and safe place for libertarians who might be wearing hearing protection, and not see their neighbor coming to tackle them over property rights. Now we will just have to wait for 24 hours for The Mightly Buzzard to calm down. No one should type the words, "union", "socialism", "Obamacare", "Social Justice", or "Motherhood" during this period. Thank you for the assistance in making America safe for libertarians again.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:36AM (22 children)
So that's what kids call theft and slavery these days! Why are you defending state capitalism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:16AM
No, they call it McDonald's, Papa John's, and Walmart.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:03PM (5 children)
Do you not call what Wall Street and Washington practice against the American people now "theft and slavery?" It seems the same thing to me.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:03PM (4 children)
While there is some theft involved, I don't consider it slavery. The "American people" are way too free to be considered enslaved.
The obvious rebuttal is the huge difference in freedom. You are far more free to do things in the US than in Cuba. For example, tens of millions of people openly criticize Trump. You won't see a similar fraction openly criticize Castro in Cuba. US government is far more open than its Cuban counterpart as well even with the US security apparatus.
Americans can job hop, move, and so on without significant government interference. That includes leaving the US. Cuban apologists routinely ignore the considerable risk that tens of thousands [wikipedia.org] of people have undergone to escape Cuba. Meanwhile all it takes to escape the US is a foreign country willing to take you in and the price of air fare.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:50PM (3 children)
Meanwhile all it takes to escape the US is a foreign country willing to take you in and the price of air fare.
And an "exit visa" (passport), which for for some reason is seen as a privilege, too easily denied and revoked.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:08PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 08 2017, @02:19AM (1 child)
Without a passport you're stuck inside.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:18PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:48PM (14 children)
That's what happened when Europeans invaded and occupied the Western Hemisphere.
Add genocide for good measure.
...and in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine said that European Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere was over and from that point on, there would only be USAian Imperialism.
Your characterization as "these days" is disingenuous.
At best it is ignorant.
Taking back at gunpoint what was taken at gunpoint is what is commonly called "getting your comeuppance".
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:57PM (13 children)
As to the Monroe Doctrine, that's actually an early piece of anti-Colonialism. The power of the US to interfere in American countries in the 19th century was far less than the power of European countries with both greater military power and population to do the same. But it's key to note that the US also had a policy of non-interference at the time! Let's look at the actual speech where the Doctrine was first expressed:
Think about that. To label the opposition to European colonialism and support for local independence as colonialism in its own right is folly. What happened instead is that the US's policies changed in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @12:58AM (12 children)
When I mention "the worst", it's singular.
USA.gov is the greatest aggressor on the planet and the greatest source of misery.
(When Kennedy said "that imprisoned isle", he didn't mention that USA.gov was the cryptkeeper.)
Cuba [...] the complete absence of democracy in the workplace
What you say is largely true WRT Cuba not being a land of worker-owned cooperatives.
(They're working on that; see the blockquote below.)
...and *I* don't refer to Cuba as "Socialist".
...which was the whole fucking point, nitwit.
...and, just as when USSR tried to form a Socialist utopia in 1917 after the October Revolution--and USA, Britain, France, Japan, and other Capitalist countries invaded it and caused it to use up massive resources on defense [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [1] [criticalenquiry.org], it's really difficult for Cuba to get things going with constant harassment from USA.
USA's Ongoing Blockade Of Cuba, 2017 (USA Fined Honda For Doing Business With The Cuban Embassy In Canada) [counterpunch.org]
So, USA.gov is not just harassing Cuba, it's harassing anyone who does business with Cuba.
It's difficult to find a difference between the way The Mafia and USA.gov conduct business.
Examples Of How The USA's Ongoing Blockade Of Cuba Operates, 2015 [counterpunch.org]
A related page:
USA's Only Interest In Cuba Is In Using Privatization To Destroy Cuba's Self-Determination [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
[1] Another page on this:
A Major Cause Of The "Failure" Of Socialism In The USSR Was The Military Threats From Capitalist Countries by Michael Hudson [counterpunch.org]
Eric Mann has an excellent (1000 word!) essay on this. [counterpunch.org] VERY informative.
.
What Cuba currently has is -SMALL- (Capitalist) businesses with owners and non-owner employees.
So, yeah. Anybody who calls Cuba "Socialist" is wrong.[2]
OTOH, you won't see chain stores or megacorporations there.
They have strict limits on how big a company can get.
The Oligarchs were disempowered in Cuba decades ago.
[2] ...and WRT "Socialism", you, just like Buzzard, demonstrated your point--the one at the top of your head.
Do try to follow the narrative next time.
.
The major accomplishment of Cuba's Bolivarian Revolution was to eradicate the plantation system and The Oligarchy. [google.com] article [alternet.org]
So, things have improved relative to the starting point.
The blockade by Capitalists has strengthened Cuba's self-sufficiency.
Cubans Are Growing Their Own Food [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [earthisland.org]
.
the Monroe Doctrine
I'm sure that the people of Latin America were thrilled that one set of Imperialist powers was replaced with another.
You failed to mention all of the the regime change nonsense that USA.gov has engaged in in the centuries since the "improvement".
This is where I typically mention Reagan and his murderous pals, The Contras.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:30PM (11 children)
I think this illustrates your delusional views quite nicely. You could have, with a slightly amount of backtracking or mealy mouthing have a statement that wasn't bullshit. For the first claim, sure, I grant that the US probably started or was involved in the most wars numerically, than any other country. So what? There's a lot of shitty countries out there. Cuba is not the only one. Someone needs to resist them. War often is the only way, such as in the Korean, Soviet-Afghanistan, and Vietnam wars.
As to the "greatest source of misery", we have as counterexamples, the USSR and Nazi Germany, both far worse and both successfully contained in large part due to USA.gov aggression. In particular, the entire European continent from Lisbon through to Moscow, is much freer today due to US efforts over the past 70 years. That's three quarters of a billion people.
We have significant parts of the Far East, particularly, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan that are free today because the US took the effort and aggression to contain threats like the Japanese Empire and Communism. And if you're doing math, we're now up to a billion people who owe their current freedom to the US.
And those countries in turn have been the seed of a global economic and trade revolution that has seen most of the world's population grow wealthier over the past 30 years.
And I find it interesting that you link to all sorts of propaganda defending of all countries, the USSR, nearly the opposite of what you claimed you support. I believe this stuff really illustrates the clueless of your viewpoint and your readiness to abandon your democratic principles which allegedly drive your flavor of Socialism. Let's look at that a little starting with the first article transferring blame for Communism/Socialism failure to military intervention by others: First, there's the usual delusional pap about the inevitable success of Marxism.
The Western economies having the most trouble with that very thing are the most socialist, like the PIGS for example, or high spending welfare states in the US like Illinois or California. But maybe those countries will do better, if the suicide attempt is more successful next time? One can be optimistic about that in the unique way that only die-hard Marxists can be.
Meanwhile countries that don't have these sorts of problems have long ago recovered such as UK, Germany, France, Scandinavian states, most of Eastern Europe, and so on. Similarly, for US states like Texas, Georgia, or Utah, which have some sort of controls over their spending and aren't trying to chase away businesses. So it's still business as usual in most of the capitalist world with only the parts with the most broken forms of capitalism having the trouble.
Let us keep in mind that the author has just rationalized the state of the USSR to 1921 when they decisively won the Russian Civil War. The author still has 68 more years of history to rationalize. Blaming outsiders for permanent internal failures is a typical Communist move.
The dirty truth here is that a totalitarian society needs a huge military and a huge secret police to keep the slaves in line. That's why the USSR has always had a large military and secret police even during the many decades when there was no military threat to justify it. And the oppression of the USSR system eventually had spread to all of Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War (which demonstrates why your ridiculous claims about "greatest aggressor and greatest source of misery" are missing even the slightest consideration of the USSR).
Notice here, we're not speaking of wealth or income inequality. We're speaking of gain inequality. So it's unfair that middle class families don't get more "debt-leveraged price inflation"? Maybe we can find better things to care about. This is typical of the retarded economic arguments put forth by Marxists about modern wealth inequality. In one breath, they dismiss the wealth accumulated by the wealthy as near worthless (with some cause, I might add), and then in the next breath, complain that it's unfair that the lower classes don't have more of it!
The "1000 word essay" has similar bullshit:
A future that involves perpetual conflict and the brutal oppressiveness of a police state. A true miracle! Just think of how many "exploited and oppressed people" could have been saved, if the Bolsheviks had survived in a hostile world for 2 years instead of 72!
And "internal capitalist attack"? Not even remotely a factor after 1921 (really not before it either, since capitalism never was much of a factor in Russia prior to 1991). Why mention it? Perhaps, the USSR needs its Emmanuel Goldstein [wikipedia.org] to scare the populace.
In other words, we now have in addition to US/European colonialism, Communist colonialism. It's like your complaints about the Monroe Doctrine except that it's the real deal. There's a whole lot of suffering and dying hiding in that brag above.
Apparently, the Bolsheviks thought the answer was "murder people", since they did a lot of that during and after the above revolution.
And notice how the author even indirectly acknowledges this by paying lip service to "chilling abuses of forced collectivization", but quickly mopping that up with a sappy "led many Third World leaders to great gratitude to the Soviet model". How about the resulting third world slaves? Where's their gratitude?
Seriously, talk to people who've actually lived under these systems. There's a reason refugees from former Communist countries tend to be some of the strongest supporters of democracy and capitalism. Even when they aren't, they still allow that Communism is worse. Experience trumps ignorant ideology.
It's amazing that decades later after the fall of Communism, we still have defenders for one of the worst political systems ever devised, still parroting vapid propaganda from dead police states. There is absolutely no connection to reality. No consideration of what works. No consideration of the grievous evils committed by Communism aside from the occasional admission that mistakes were made. Rather impressive for a mental illness.
Let's face it, it is insane for you to support these systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:39PM (5 children)
Seriously? Are you really going to pretend that those wars - particularly the Vietnam war - were somehow the only way? War is justifiable only in self-defense. Preemptive warfare is never justified. Vietnam is widely recognized as a complete and utter disaster in an ethical sense, but apparently you haven't gotten the memo. Apparently you can justify anything in the name of fighting communism.
How many actual libertarians are on this site?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @12:59AM (4 children)
Well, you just gave a reason, self-defense. Allowing an ideology so hostile to freedom and human rights to take over Vietnam would be threatening to the future of the US and US allies in the region.
Self-defense also justifies preemptive war as well, such as the example of the Six Days War in 1967 by Israel against an impending war by its foes. One doesn't have to wait till a foe strikes in order to defend oneself, particularly in war.
So what? You have shown a preference for complete and utter ethical disasters by supporting 20th Century Communism. The Vietnam War was shameful for the US, but not because of anything you've brought up so far.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @02:00PM (3 children)
It's not our business whether that country gets conquered or not. That is not self-defense. That is preemptive warfare masquerading as self-defense. 'They could attack us at some unspecified point in the future if we let Bad Ideas take over, so we need to attack them now!' is not an example of self-defense, not then, not now, and not ever. Stop stealing my money to fight your worthless wars.
If you see someone's fist about to collide with your face and you decide to take action to stop it, then that is self-defense. However, this only applies to cases where you have evidence that your opposition is going to attack, and not in situations where they merely could attack in the future but you don't know how.
No, I haven't. I'm a libertarian, not the other guy you were talking to. You're the one defending the disastrous war known as Vietnam. I am not the warmonger here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @07:48PM (2 children)
Libertarianism already addresses this. If you have someone with a habit of hitting people without cause, you don't wait until the aggressor finally gets around to you. You organize a posse and response with force to that person.
The problem with Vietnam was not that the US had no business in Vietnam. At the time, they had business anywhere that Communism was rearing its ugly head and oppressing people because Communism was a cancerous ideology spreading throughout the world, a genuine threat to the US. Instead, the problem was that the strategy pursued would never win. The various governments of South Vietnam throughout the period of US support (from roughly 1954 through to 1975) were thoroughly corrupt and simply couldn't defend themselves without massive US support. Those governments also routinely ran counter to the interests of defending against Communism (for example, oppressing the citizens of South Vietnam, stealing US funds intended for other purposes, and developing a heroin supply chain that was selling heroin to US soldiers and the US mainland).
All that could be done was to delay the inevitable. That had modest strategic value, but nowhere near worth the cost of the war and the people who died in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 12 2017, @05:37PM (1 child)
No, because what you describe is not self-defense, but preemptive warfare where you do an offensive war before the other side has attacked you or tried to attack you; that is, to anyone with principles, unjustifiable. I would rather face annihilation than violate these basic principles, which generously assumes a very improbable scenario. It's just like how I would rather face annihilation than allow the government to conduct mass surveillance on the populace (generously assuming, of course, that mass surveillance actually prevents that, which it doesn't).
No, 'They might attack us at some unspecified point in the future, so we need to attack them now.' is not an acceptable justification for war. This isn't a case where you're certain they will attack you. Taking such a position makes someone less libertarian than they would be if they didn't.
And at least organizing a posse is voluntary, unlike stealing people's money to fight an offensive war.
No, they didn't have business attacking countries over their ideology, and they certainly don't have business stealing people's money to do so. At least have the decency to go hire mercenaries with your own money if you want to fight offensive wars. Good luck with that.
Stop doing business with such unstable countries. Also, heroin should not be illegal, and even if soldiers are forbidden from using it, it is their fault for doing so.
It seems you've thoroughly bought in the notion that we must sacrifice our liberties and principles in the name of security. What a shame.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 12 2017, @06:11PM
That's a good start with the No True Scotsman fallacy. Sorry, I don't agree. Let us keep in mind that the other side did try to attack. They just did so in an indirect manner.
A very improbably scenario that actually happened several times during the Cold War.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @11:00PM (4 children)
delusional
You are the one who is delusional.
Your willingness to swallow Cold War bullshit has no limits.
That's not just ignorance; it's willful ignorance.
the US probably started or was involved in the most wars numerically
...and it dropped bombs on children by the tens of thousands, then repeated that.
USA.gov is just plain evil.
It will do anything to extend its Capitalist Oligarchical Hegemony.
...and there's no "probably" about it.
Vietnam
Your knowledge of History is exceptionally weak.
The people of Vietnam -wanted- a change from exploitive Capitalism.
What they did NOT want was to be a puppet of USA.gov (nor France before that--which USA.gov bolstered until that collapsed in failure).
The people of Vietnam wanted the elections that they were promised.
USA.gov thwarted that repeatedly.
...and, in recent days, I've mentioned how USA.gov bombed the living shit out of Vietnam in order to crush its nascent Anti-Capitalist effort.
In the process, USA.gov murdered 5 million people, mostly peasant farmers and fishermen.
USA.gov didn't win that scrap, but it made sure that it demonstrated what happens when you reject USA.gov hegemony.
Here's a description of USAian propaganda corrected.
Who Filled the Graves Of Hue? [counterpunch.org]
Hue was liberated by the National Liberation Front with a minimum of bloodshed and a minimum of damage.
USA retaliated, murdering anything that moved, and mostly destroying the city.
USAian propaganda tries to tell a completely different story.
Your flag-waving bullshit is just that.
shitty countries [..] Cuba
USA has a doctors' cartel that limits how many physicians there are here, screwing up access to medical care and driving up costs.
Capitalism sucks.
Cuba, OTOH, educates doctors in large numbers and provides them to the rest of the world.
Cuba offered medical help after Hurricane Katrina and Dubya turned that down.
Cuba is an example of how to get things done even while a superpower is doing everything it can to crush you.
(Let's remember here that USA tried 600 times to murder Cuba's leader.)
Again, your propagandized version of History is seriously fucked up.
USSR [...] contained
Again, you have the story backwards.
I already provided a link that documents how USA and other Capitalist countries immediately tried to crush the newborn Soviet nation and its alternative to Capitalism.
freer today due to US efforts
More propaganda.
They're only free as long as they do what USA demands.
Philippines
The atrocities committed against that country while it was occupied by USA are well documented.
Another case of your willful ignorance.
...not to mention the corrupt, easily-manipulated, non-representative governments that USA.gov left behind in places that it "freed".
threats like [...] Communism
Communism is only a threat to USA-style Capitalist Oligarchy.
People by the tens of thousands went to USSR to study how to empower The Workers.
It was constant aggression by USA.gov which limited success of Anti-Capitalists.
Eric Mann covered this in significant detail.
most of the world's population grow wealthier
You just can't help spouting propaganda.
It's The Oligarchs that have been getting richer while most folks have been doing WORSE for the last several decades.
(I suggest that you find a description of the "dormitories" and working conditions in Capitalist China's workplaces.)
Even USA's population is doing worse.
"The Precariat" describes 60 percent of USAians today.
You should come out of your gated community and see the real world as it is.
the opposite of what you claimed you support
Again, USA.gov's military and economic aggression has made Anti-Capitalist entities engage in things that they would rather not.
Again, look around USA and see what USA.gov's spending over half of the discretionary budget on aggression (not "defense") looks like for Joe Average.
We could have awesome cities with awesome roads, sidewalks, public transit, water systems, schools, libraries, recreational facilities, etc.; instead, all of that is in decay.
Capitalism is in steep decline as a system.
Militarism has a very poor fiscal multiplier effect.
...and even though most folks don't know what Socialism is, most say they like it better than Capitalism.
...and that trend is increasing.
Most folks realize that Capitalism is a failure.
...unless the goal is to make rich people richer and make everyone else poorer.
are the most socialist
Liberal Democracy is NOT "Socialist".
It doesn't empower The Workers.
Again, The Oligarchs keep getting richer, beyond all ability to spend what they possess; Joe Average continues to do WORSE.
It's only due to strong labor unions that The Workers in those places aren't overwhelmed by The Rich.
...and if The Workers were also The Owners, labor unions wouldn't be necessary.
high spending welfare states in the US like Illinois or California
You are so full of shit.
Back when Mitt made his "47 percent" comment, it was pointed out that The Red States are the ones that soak up the welfare and The Blue States are the ones providing the money for that.
Your sources of "information" are complete shit.
countries that don't have these sorts of problems
...have proper unions (and don't make every effort to kill those) and have proper tax structures.
They also spend those taxes on The People, not on military aggression.
Texas, Georgia
The jobs that those places are "adding"*, are low-paying part-time jobs.
* This is after exporting the good-paying jobs.
They are NOT a model of success.
...and I noticed that you omitted Kansas and its experiment with Reganomics, which has crippled their economy.
the attempt to create a socialist economy had a military dimension
...because of USA.gov aggression.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
a totalitarian society needs a huge military
So, why does "democratic" USA need a huge military?
USA.gov's military is the largest on the planet.
Again, 54 percent of spending, with a proposal under Trump to increase that.
There's absolutely no justification for any of that.
gain inequality
...and we're back to The Labor Theory of Value, which is obvious to workers around the globe but which you reject.
You also have previously indicated that you think that the FIRE sector is a legit part of the economy--even though that is wealth EXTRACTION and not value creation.
Yours is a extremely twisted way to view things, but that's what I have come to expect from you.
a police state
I suggest that you open your eyes and look around the USA:
Warrantless NSA spying on USAians in violation of the Constitution, CIA spying on USAians in violation of its charter; a FISA court that has rejected 3 requests for warrant in its entire existence; cops who shoot unarmed people in the back and aren't tried--much less convicted and imprisoned.
(The ultimate expression of Capitalism is Fascism.)
If you are trying to hold up USA as a shining example of a counter-example to a police state, you are not making your case.
forced collectivization
I've complained about that myself.
USA.gov was (and is) all about trade barriers (to include its allies; see the example re: Canada).
The Anti-Capitalist places have needed to do things that otherwise would not have.
Did they meet my idealized condition? No.
Was it what they needed to do to survive against countries that committed huge resources to counter these Anti-Capitalist efforts?
That's the logic. It allowed the Soviets to survive against the USAian onslaught for 72 years.
Roy Tuckman (Roy of Hollywood) is, once again, airing the audiobook of "Understanding Special Operations and Their Impact on the Vietnam War Era" by Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, USAF Ret. [google.com]
Part 1 [kpfk.org] Part 2 [kpfk.org] (~35 percent of that file)
The second installment will be available next Monday night/Tuesday morning and will be in the archive into the new year.
The third will air and go into the audio archive the week after that.
A tweak to the date in the URLs should get those as they are available.
It's a real eye-opener as to just how much in the way of resources that USA.gov puts into militarism and anything that is opposed to Capitalist Oligarchical Hegemony.
(The 2nd installment shows how it's completely out of control, with CIA murdering a USAian president in Dallas.)
There's a reason refugees from former Communist countries tend to be some of the strongest supporters of democracy
Socialism, properly done, is Democracy extended to the workplace.
Yugoslavia had a worker-owned thing that was successful for several decades.
Oddly, that worked despite their government being Authoritarian (Josef Tito).
and capitalism
You (and the usual small band of Reactionaries) seem to be the only ones who celebrate Authoritarianism in the workplace.
The vast majority of workers in Capitalist operations would like a voice in how things are run.
They would also like for people who produce nothing to get none of the profits.
(Again, The Labor Theory of Value; most folks intuitively recognize it as a natural law.)
it is insane for you to support these systems
You're nuts to support a system that exploits workers; treats them as disposable parts; exports their jobs in search of ever-cheaper labor; and poisons the air, water, soil, and people of their towns.
You also failed to mention the ever-expanding Precariat and how Capitalism, having run its course as did slave economies and Feudalism, is imploding, with 22 percent of the USAian workforce idled.
A system based on greed, externalized costs, and infinite growth from finite resources is clearly not a sustainable model.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @06:03AM (3 children)
The Soviets could have survived the "USAian onslaught" for millennia. The failure was internal.
Heh, a huge litany of complaints about the US and yet when the USSR does the same or worse as it frequently did, it's "I've complained about that myself". For example, heaping every single death from the Vietnam War on the US, including those inflicted by the North Vietnamese (which were almost equal to the other side). In a more rational observation, the USSR would share responsibility [wikipedia.org] the share they helped cause rather than it all getting blamed on the other side! Or complaining about the NSA while completely failing to mention the KGB which was far worse in every way? The cognitive dissonance is interesting.
In comparison, the US presently has right now a million [time.com] international students enrolled in its colleges and universities. And they aren't learning propaganda bullshit, but real world educations. And of course, the "constant aggression" by USA.gov is a ridiculous fairy tale to hide the darkness within the USSR. Slaves need guards. It's that simple.
But what's particularly interesting about this bit of education propaganda is just how trivial it is. The US has all these terrible things it's supposedly done (and some of which I grant it has done). So you'd think (right?) that we should at some point speak of the good things that the USSR has done? Oh yea, in addition to being a leading cause of death and slavery during the 20th Century, they've taught a few tens of thousands per year some Soviet propaganda. I suppose that appears somewhat useful.
Here's my take. Stop being a programmed bitch for a dead religion and learn some real history. Nothing in this world is perfect, but the Communist shit is a lot further away from perfect than the democratic capitalism shit. It has a hell of a lot more skeletons in the closet and it finally flamed out three decades ago. I have to wonder, given your completely inability to understand the USSR and what it's done, just how fast you would completely betray your principles with some smooth talker who happens to know all the right Marxist code words. It sounds like it wouldn't take much.
Democratic capitalist societies (even the US with all its glaring flaws!) give you amazing opportunities to experiment, particularly with the flavor of Socialism you have routinely claimed you care about. The Communist countries of the 20th century, including Cuba, don't. Sure, the latter might allow your experiment as long as it didn't become too threatening to the powers-that-be or someone decide that you needed to be made an example of, but you would never had the sort of freedom to shape your workplace that you have in the developed world. No matter what lists of grievances you list, real and bogus, at the end of the day, it's still a choice between a society that gives you a huge number of choices and one that doesn't. State Capitalism is a dead end and it is sad that you can't see that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 10 2017, @10:37AM (2 children)
death[s] [...] inflicted by the North Vietnamese (which were almost equal to the other side)
It's impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who just makes up stupid shit.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @01:21PM
Look at the linked article [wikipedia.org], you idiot. North Vietnam was a USSR ally just like South Vietnam was a US ally. There isn't one set of logic for the US and a different set of logic for the USSR.
I've never seen such a ridiculous case of projection as here: accusing me of listening to naked "Cold War" propaganda and then dumping the most ridiculous and one-sided propaganda you can find supporting the USSR (they had to ruthlessly repress their population because of nebulous and unspecified US "aggression") and then pulling numbers out of your ass while accusing me of making up shit when I quote actual sourced articles with serious numbers?
The world is a different place now. You can get actual KGB records and see the brutal things that Russian intelligence does to people who merely don't think [stanford.edu] the right things rather than merely lap up some useful idiot's apologia. You can actually see what happened in places like the Koreas or Vietnam, during those wars. Most important, it is trivial to see the difference between now and a few decades ago throughout the world. You are free to deny that the world has gotten amazingly better or that the US had a role in that, but it's not mentally healthy to do so.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @07:24PM
You and one of your links excuse the USSR's (and Cuba's) military build up and aggression because it's alleged to be in response to capitalist aggression. That excuse works both ways. The Vietnam War, for example, was excused by the US on the basis that it was a response to Communist aggression, which was a thing. You completely ignore the USSR's vast security apparatus while complaining that the US has one too (though far less invasive). You complain (via cherry picked examples) that the US has destructive interests throughout the world, while ignoring that the USSR had for 72 years nakedly pursued its interests, often even more destructive (such as the Holodomor [wikipedia.org] or the subjugation of Eastern Europe after the Second World War and the Iron Curtain), without regard for the people that were harmed.
The links you provided are of similar nature. Well, delivering biased or misleading information is the very definition [oxforddictionaries.com] of propaganda.
Moving on, we can think here rather than merely blame others. Even if we choose, for example, to accept the excuse that the USSR and USA's military behaviors are in large part response to the aggression of the other side, we still have the problem that said aggression hasn't always been there. For example, on the USSR side after they developed their own nuclear weapons in 1948 or on the US side after 1991. It's offensive to complain about US military-industrial spending in the present (much which isn't really developing a military, but going into corruption) and completely ignore that the USSR had a way overbuilt military for many decades.
A particularly silly example of this is your argument that the Monroe Doctrine is colonialist policy when from reading it we find out that it is not, but the announcement that the US would continue to support the independence of all countries that it currently did against domination by European powers. Sorry, but that makes it an early example of anti-colonialist policy by one of the few countries at the time in the Western Hemisphere with any significant military power. It's interesting how the meaning of the words said don't matter (but that's not new [soylentnews.org] for you).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:03AM (2 children)
Yup. My suggested dept. line was
from the capitalist-ownership-model dept.
Want your opinion to count? Become the owner.
Can't do that on your own? Form a worker-owned cooperative.
My Original Submission #2 [soylentnews.org] also contained some razor wire from the Deadspin writer.
The S/N editor blunted that in the summary.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:29AM (1 child)
Or anything in between, yes. Capitalism allows for any number of owners in any power distribution you can come up with. And it's entirely voluntary. Ain't it grand?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:35PM
You seem to be saying that Socialism/worker-owned co-ops are not.
In a worker-owned cooperative, every worker has a vote and ever vote is equal to any other vote.
If you're not a worker in the operation, you don't get a vote.
(There is no Idle Rich Ownership Class.)
Socialism/a co-op is Democracy extended to the workplace.[1]
In a Capitalist workplace there are lots of folks (the producers) with no say in what happens.
It couldn't be farther from Democracy.
[1] ...and the places that have called themselves "socialist" or "communist" have all been top-down Authoritarian things; the antithesis of what they are claiming to be.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:16AM (2 children)
His half of the copyright bargain is that the works so protected are available and eventually enter the public domain. There's nothing at all radical about that view, it's existed since the country was founded.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:30AM
I think you're going to have to kill The Mouse before that ever happens.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:36AM
> the works so protected are available and eventually enter the public domain
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:22AM (2 children)
Have you ever actually met a "socialist"? You bitch about them and their views all the fucking time, but you don't seem to actually KNKW anything. How are you so angry about these things?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:29AM
You must be new here. Me being angry looks quite a lot different than this.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:06PM
No, he doesn't. He ejaculates like a boob. It's his schtick.
Still, he likes fishing and perl, so it's a reminder that few people are totally irredeemable.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday November 07 2017, @01:49AM (1 child)
Sure whatever, but I repeat, were the sites and the employees making money before they were bought out?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @02:36PM
That question is irrelevant (due to the qualities of the word "ownership") unless you can elaborate a good reason why it isn't.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:28AM (7 children)
Absolutely [theguardian.com]. Workers' livelihoods should be at the whims of a bigoted rich man perhaps with a personality disorder, suffering other mental health issues, or generally just being a misery guts.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:30AM (6 children)
Glad to see we agree. Oh, you were being sarcastic when you were saying that ownership should mean you control what you own? You need to get in your little red boat and row back to China.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:56AM (5 children)
Since we're playing a game of Fascists v. Commies, why don't you climb aboard your U-Boot and go back to 1930s Germany, mein Fuehrer?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @12:54PM (4 children)
Which part of the Nazis being a socialist regime evades you? A jibe comparing me to the old robber barons would have been a better fit.
Tangent: The first time I heard that "little red boat" crack was out of the mouth of a friend of Chinese ancestry due to another friend (who looked for all the world like a redneck poster boy) hating on mayonnaise. Seldom have I laughed as hard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:09PM (3 children)
"Which part of the Nazis being a socialist regime evades you?"
Because fascism and socialism are diametrically opposed on the political spectrum. It's like calling the Vatican an atheist organization. Or calling you a vegan carnivore. It's nonsense.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:32PM
You know, when every instance of someone calling themselves socialist turns out to be fascists, I'm not inclined to agree with your definition.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @02:39PM (1 child)
How is authoritarianism (socialism) "diametrically opposed" to authoritarianism (fascism)? Seems like your political spectrum is missing at least one dimension.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @10:50PM
"Economic Democracy" One person, one vote.
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:06AM (20 children)
Does it hurt your chin when your knee jerks that hard? They weren't after money. Also considering the vote was just a week ago, they hadn't actually had time to even discuss what they did want.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:33AM (19 children)
Doesn't really matter what they were after. They unionized as unskilled labor in a sole-owner company that was consistently losing money. That's foolish enough to warrant a good stretch of unemployment to consider the wisdom of their choices.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:40AM (13 children)
I smell revisionism! Also, unskilled?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:06AM (12 children)
Nope. I'll cop to not RTFA-ing.
Yup, unskilled. If everyone and their dog can do your job, it's not a skilled profession. The way it's practiced today, everyone and their dog most definitely can do journalism.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:34AM (4 children)
I'll grant that journalism isn't what it used to be by any means, but it's still not exactly unskilled. Imagine the McDs employees who need a cash register with pictograms trying to write for a magazine or paper.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:34AM (3 children)
Dude, one word finishes this disagreement: Bloggers. There are an absurd amount of them around and until today's journalists start producing better content, they can't claim a higher skill valuation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:43PM (2 children)
There are bloggers out there that posses the necessary skills, just like there are home cooks that cook as well as a chef and there are shade tree mechanics every bit as good as people who do it for a living. Of course, there's actually a lot of bloggers who really aren't all that good at it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:35PM (1 child)
Yup, I'm just saying when the current standards for journalists and bloggers aren't but a couple microns apart, you lose any claim of journalism being a skilled profession.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:26PM
Many people do their own accounting so CPA is an unskilled profession. Many people run their owmn business so CEO is an unskilled profession. Many people fix their own car so auto mechanic is an unskilled profession. Same for plumber, electrician, any management position, baker, chef and for that matter, doctor. Unskilled laborers the lot of 'em.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @04:56AM (1 child)
> I'll cop to not RTFA-ing.
Had you read the article, you would have seen that it's not only journalists:
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:40AM
That's some quality nit-picking there. You left out the cleaning staff though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:54AM (4 children)
The uninformed, commenting on what they do not understand, to the ill-informed, or the Russian informed. Buzz, you have lost it again! How can anyone take you seriously? You are just a large bag of right-wing talking points, with only enough intelligence to squirt at the right key-words. Mr. Plow does better. So, here is a bit of advice, a "pro-tip", if you will. Always understand your opponent's position better than they do them selves. That is what we Social Justice League of Warriors do, and guess what? We RTFA! And we read your insipid response. And you know what, you do not come off so well in the comparison. I am going to take your property, Oh Mighty Buzzard! Behold! What are you? You nothing but a collection of skhandas, five of them to be exact. Here:
http://www.dharmanet.org/coursesM/HSMS/HSMS8.htm [dharmanet.org]
So, you see, property of a non-existent entity does not exist. You are a heap, an aggregate, a collusion of feelings that desparately wants to be something, and only property can fill that void, provide you with the existence which you lack but so desparately want to, um possess. First Noble Truth: Dukkha.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:38AM (3 children)
There's no particular need to understand the nuances of one instance of whiny socialist parasites getting bitchslapped by reality to talk about the overarching issues. You used many characters in that response but very little wisdom.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:44PM (2 children)
I don't think any of those wards are accurate in this case.
The one I will address here is "socialist".
Had they been Socialist, they would have formed a worker-owned cooperative.
The fundamental element of Socialism is the worker-owned cooperative (or perhaps the individual worker-owner.)
...and these folks couldn't even pull off the "solidarity" thing among all the workers at all of the owner's holdings.
Pretty sad bunch of workers.
It reminds me of a film I saw of a pack of hyenas preying on a wildebeest and her calf that had strayed from the herd.
The predators used a series of constant attacks to keep drawing the mom away from the kid until they could kill the kid and have lunch.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:38PM (1 child)
Yeah, this is a pretty good example of why I think socialism is never going to work for the majority of humans. Socialism requires a fundamental change in human nature whereas capitalism is nothing but human nature as applied to economics.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @12:34AM
Our species doesn't have big teeth, powerful jaws, or giant claws.
We're pretty slow runners too.
The way we survived for over 100,000 years was by cooperating.
Those groups who wouldn't work together didn't survive.
Any narrative that avoids this stuff is bullshit.
capitalism is nothing but human nature
Greed, selfishness, and exploitation is human nature at its WORST.
If change is to be made, the logical direction that would take is toward cooperatives and for Joe Average to no longer volunteer to be a rent payer|easily-disposable wage slave to an Aristocratic Ownership Class.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @05:15AM (4 children)
The company had offices in five cities. At only one office did the workers vote to have a union. From the article:
If people were organizing to assert their gun rights I think you'd tend to support them. But they (some of them) organized to assert their labor rights and you're saying it's "foolish." A gun can afford protection against physical attack. A union can afford protection in the workplace. Mr. Ricketts' harsh response shows that those workers needed protection.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:42AM
Erm... you don't appear to know what the word "rights" means.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:04PM (2 children)
In 1947, the GOP had gained a majority in the Congress and they passed the very anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of Democrat Harry Truman (one of the few worker-friendly things that Truman ever did).
In 2009, the Dumbocrats had gained a majority in both chambers of Congress and held the presidency.
This condition existed until the next midterm election in 2010.
During that time, the Dumbocrats made no effort to repeal Taft-Hartley or do anything that was worker-friendly.
...in case you are planning to vote in the future and haven't determined which parties do NOT have your back.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:40PM (1 child)
Truth. None of them do. Run your own self if you want your views represented that badly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @12:59AM
Your vision is too narrow. Surprise! (NOT)
The World Socialist Web Site is the publication of The Socialist Equality Party.
The SEP's presidential candidate in 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2016 was Jerry White. [wikipedia.org]
I think he'd be pretty awesome as president.
The party's platform is absolutely pro-worker and pro-consumer.
Even Jill Stein (Green Party) would have been a step in the right direction.
Ellen Brown (Green Party) would have been an awesome Treasurer of California. (I voted for her.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @02:48AM (1 child)
I remember now why I have a script that removes the comment section on other browsers...
This entire thread is total shit.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday November 07 2017, @03:22AM
Couldn't you just... not scroll down?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2017, @08:08AM (2 children)
I'm beginning to think we only see these stories so TMB can lose his shit about unions again...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:44AM (1 child)
Yeah, me and gewg_ are in cahoots. He's really a libertarian free-market capitalist and just subs socialist drivel for me to smack down.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:56PM
Gee, TMB, i thought it was the other way around: You are a Trokskyite agent provocatuer that sets up right wing talking points for the much more reasonable socialist to demolish. And you seem to be in such deep cover, that you are not aware of it yourself! Are you Angelina in SALT, Buzz?