Ever since the emergency of democracy there has been a strong attempt to introduce socialism. After all, any system based on equality is bound to be popular with the vast majority of the population who are forced to share a small proportion of the national wealth. However, this movement has been continuously undermined. At first, the ruling class kept the majority of people from voting. When that failed they concentrated on the distortion of the socialist message via the mass media. Combined with this was the corruption of leading members of the socialist movement. In the case of Blair and Brown, they were “turned” before they became leaders.

Despite this history I remain an optimist and still believe that sometime in the future I will see a socialist society in Britain. Any ideas on how this could be achieved?

Abolish stupidity and greed?

Maggie is joking, but also deadly serious, I'm sure - and agree!
John, I just wanted to mention that to most American readers the word 'socialism' has the same meaning as Stalinist or Maoist Communism. Even the explanation of 'European or Democratic Socialism' hardly tempers it. Many would also be inclined to think 'athiesm!' and that to many Americans is a very dangerous belief system. We know these are not the definition[s], but the propaganda in the USA 
was so intense and pervasive for so long......There has also been the constant drumbeat of propaganda that freedoms and democracy are equated only with Corporate Capitalism (and that its antithesis is Socialism). Hard as this may sound to believe....

In sum, most [not all of course] Americans have no idea of the ideas involved in, nor history behind Socialism and see it in a very negative light.

Obviously, any elite would not want equality or even parity or attempts at either. I see the pattern in recent History from overt rule by the elites to covert rule. Another trick they have come up with is a hidden socialism for the elite and free-market capitalism for the rest of us. The public bailout of the banks and financiers being only the most recent example of this, but this is the pervasive pattern. Just new ways for control and moving the money to 'trickle up'.

Very difficult John, when all the major media outlets, ie 99% of the "knowledge and truth" that is available to people is owned exclusively by the Elite, and used ruthlessly to further their ends. as marx said "A revolutionary must learn to swin against the tide"

Thanks Peter,
I'll try and be more constructive.
I admire your optimism John and look forward to your thoughts on this.
This is not something that can be described in 60 words or less, is it?
Peter's post would indicate the need for a good education especially in the ways of advertising/propaganda deconstruction and how to think rationally and use logic. However since an educated workforce is no longer really required (all those jobs have gone overseas and the wealthy can always buy one anywhere) the public education system is being run down. Consumers are not required to be informed or educated.

Some thoughts and random musings.

Firstly, I think John is right to be optimistic. It is of no use throwing one's hands up and saying it is all hopeless. I agree it is not without its challenges but is certainly attainable. The belief that it is possible, indeed inevitable is a necessary starting point. Otherwise you should just hand your soul over now to the company for less than 30 pieces of silver and save yourself and everyone all the bother.

Some people say that socialism can't/hasn't worked. Just look at what happened in the USSR etc. it is against human nature etc. Well, you bet it works or 'they' wouldn't have spent those trillions of dollars, pounds, francs, yen and marks trying to undermine it from birth. They could have saved all that money for themselves and waited for the inevitable collapse if it couldn't work. Because it does work, and 'they' know it very well, was why all that money had to be spent and why we got a bit of a pay off in a welfare state to keep us a bit more quiet. You will have noticed that now the eastern block countries have temporarily succumbed to counter revolution the Welfare State has gone/going too. Don't have to bother with that illusion anymore. As for human nature we are social creatures. We die if separated from each other. That is why solitary confinement is a punishment not a privilege. While base emotions can be found in humans it is the altruistic and socially co-operative one's which have resulted in progress in our existence on this planet. It can be seen in animals and within organisms - co-operation, symbiosis. It is not dog eat dog, survival of the fittest. This Darwinian concept wasn't really what Darwin was on about but has been used ideologically by the right to justify themselves and appeal to the baser instincts in some. It appeals to those who promote and benefit from scarcity.

It is important to include everyone, even 'them' as 'they' are human beings and socialism is for all. Well, the majority anyway. You can't please every one all of the time. But they must be respected as human beings. Ideas and ideology, however, are fair game and should stand up to scrutiny. Capitalism is inherently unjust, discriminatory, unsustainable, immoral and inhuman. This needs to be continuously shown and explained and pointed out in all its manifestations. Capitalism cannot stand up to criticism because of these inherent flaws. People who maypresently accept capitalism may become future allies. If they are criticized you create unnecessary problems and alienate a potential socialist. Many people are uneducated and fearful. It is up to us to accept where these people are at. Not to criticize them for being ignorant or afraid but to show how not to be through our actions and explanations. Bring them into our fold, accept them, educate, elucidate, enlighten because not to do so will only alienate them from us and they will be used by TPTB against us. Lumpen proletarians. Attack ideas, institutions but not people.


Speaking of attacking others remember not to attack each other. Keep the big picture in mind. Remember how divide and conquer has been used over the centuries. Who cares what Stalin did. Who cares what Trotsky did. I am sure if they were alive now they would have both done things differently. Deal with here and now. Work with others who think and feels the same, whether they call themselves, socialist, christian, trotskyist, anarchist, environmentalist, stalinist, individualist, housewife, pensioner, nobody. Don't get caught up in all that. There will always be points of differences. Don't get stuck there. Don't let 'them' use it against us. Work in the areas where you can. Work with as many people as you can on issues that you can. I work very well with Christians in the peace movement though I hate religion and think the church an evil institution. They probably think I am deluded, dictatorial and damned to hell. But we work together very well where it matters. I don't compare them to Torquemada or point out biblical inconsistencies to them and they don't compare me to Stalin but accept a godless heathen like me and we celebrate each other and what we achieve together. After socialism I may point out the inconsistencies but right now there is a bigger issue at stake and I don't want to alienate allies. Don't fall into the trap of denouncing the former socialist countries (or even the present ones). No doubt there were/are problems but this is also a divide on conquer tactics. There is also western propaganda. Don't be blinded by it. Deal with the here and now. What happened in 1957 Hungary maybe useful to know for many reasons (one does learn from history) but you may be in London 2008 or Sydney or Uzbekistan. Local issues and conditions and responses prevail. Don't let Hungary 1957 be used to stop you doing something in London 2008.

Don't feed the beast. Don't buy its newspapers, watch its tv, read its books or listen to its music. Don't shop in its shops. You may have to work in their work places but outside of there and in your head create your world. Reclaim your space. Support co-ops, small business, do it your self. Get independent of it. Boycott it. Show others how to do this so that they too can learn to be independent of it. Laugh at it. Point out how stupid and ugly it is.

Must sleep now. Will post again tomorrow if any interest in this thread. And why wouldn't there be?

John-

There is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of results.

To the extent that the government reduces one person's ability to fail, it reduces another person's ability to succeed.

I was born in East St. Louis, Illinois (check it out on Wiki). We lived in an adjoining "smokestack" industrial town, where not only did we not have money, but there was no money to be had.

I am a graduate of a heavily integrated public high school and 3 state universities.

Along the way, I cut grass, cleaned tables, washed dishes, worked in factories, washed cars, worked in funeral homes (doing everything), and worked retail. I have been denied a job as a result of the color of my skin. These experiences have helped shape and mold me.

The opportunity to have a successful career doing good work for people who need legal assistance (in my case, as a tax lawyer) has driven me for the last 29 - 30 years, when I started law school.

I don't want the government deciding what I am worth and compensating me accordingly.

I respect people, like you, who think differently, but the above is my philosophy and my motivation.

It has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.

I regard myself as more blest than deserving, and I am happy to have had the opportunity to experience the journey, including the many lean times and the numerous menial low-paying jobs.

I continue to work long hours, because I like what I do for a living.

I don't want the government reducing my opportunity to succeed by taking even more of my earnings and redistributing them to someone who doesn't share my work ethic.

Taxation is nothing more than the governmental taking of the earnings of one person's efforts, at the threat of imprisonment, and spending and re-distributing such person's earnings as it sees fit.

I concur with the holding of the Supreme Court (I forget the decision, but it is quite old) that the power to tax is the power to destroy.

I think that the government should use it more sparingly.

I don't see how someone can argue that the goverment is overreaching in most matters (with which I certainly agree), while, at the same time, arguing that the government should take more money from its citizens on the threat of imprisonment.

Taxation is an onerous and omnipresent form of governmental intrusion.

It drains our national productivity.

It keeps our levels of living down much more than it enhances them.

If I wanted help with anything, the last party I would turn to would be the government.

I don't want to pretend to work, while the government pretends to pay me.

I want to have the ability to succeed or fail without any governmental "help".

You've got to be kidding, Chris.

While I admire your tenacity and work ethic, do you really expect everyone in society to emulate your feat---and to hell with them if they can't? Government is probably the wrong word because it is often associated with waste and mismanagement, but public investment in schools and other utilities greatly benefits society. As the recipient of a public school education, you should be the first to acknowledge that.

So what's your alternative to taxation? Collect no taxes and privatise everything, including the police? Hey, maybe the police force's financial sponsors will determine who gets arrested? Why not go all the way and privatise the Government? Think of the taxes you'll save.

In any case, the energy crisis will soon transform the global political and economic landscape and make the left versus right argument redundant. Unless we change from a 'me' to a 'we' society, it's all over:


http://www.alternet.org/audits/82476/?page=entire


http://www.alternet.org/democracy/82339/?page=entire

Kidding?

I think not.

I didn't say that there should be no taxes, but that the taxing power of governments should be used sparingly.

That is certainly not the present case.

You may try to put words in my mouth, change the subject, etc., but what I said was quite clear.

I think that we should have less, and not more, taxes.

I felt the same way about taxes and large government when I was making minimum wages.

I don't care to be a serf, awaiting my standard weekly paycheck in an amount determined by the government.

And I certainly don't trust the government, as a rule, to make good decisions with taxing and spending matters.

John, In my view the most important priority will be the MASS ACTIVE DELEGITIMATION OF THE CORPORATE MEDIA. This has been the scrambler, the joker in the deck that older socialists had been unable to predict. There have been about eighty years of communications reasearch designed to fragment opposition, so that it doesnt matter if a Bush or a Hillary Rodham Bush has eleven percent support: if the other eighty nine percent have no means of "recognizing their own stregnth and are continually divided by lapel pins while millions are bombed with their taxes off thier plasma screens, then eleven percent it shall be!

With that in mind, I think that clear limitations of the internet,AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS are becoming obvious. It does not have tha ability to create critical mass that CAN MAKE THE CAMPAIGN THE WAY THE CORPORATE MEDIA STILL CAN EVEN WITH DWINDLING VIEWERSHIP. It is not so much the totat number of viewers as the ability to create a national common denominator that says" on thursday morning seventy percent will know about the lapel pin but only 2% will know about said event among iraq defense funder."

Now what do I mean by ACTIVE DELIGITIMATION?

NOT going to the internet as an "ALTERNATIVE" It is not a REAL alternative if it cannot pose an alternative narrative within the public sphere. Indeed it could be counterproductive in the sense that it represents a shrinking of the public sphere, and a marginalization, and creation of niche issues that never become part of the elections and publicly mediated policy decisions.

The time has come for the internet to actively challenge the leigitmacy of the Corporate Media. What might this mean?

Like Mark I can also appreciate your tenacity and work ethic and I am pleased for you that you feel this has been a positive and formative experience for you though I see many crushed by this type of experience. I also agree that the personal tax burden is too heavy and can act as a disincentive. But I also feel that our society, Western Europe, Australia and the US are governed for the few at the expense of the many and that they are far from democratic. Have you read Ricardo Semler? He wrote a book called Maverick (and others since). Read it if you get a chance. I think you may like it. He is a businessman, capitalist, but he can see that it can't go on like this for ever. Look at Venezuela. Bursting with enterprise at the moment. It is not tax per se but how it is used. For example, I have never understood pay-roll tax. Why penalize employment? The corporate tax share has steadily been reduced over the years and individuals have had to pick up the slack and have a heavier tax burden. Pensioners now have to pay VAT/GST whilst business and the wealthy don't. GST is presented as a very equal tax - we all pay the same amount - and you don't have to buy these products anyway but for the wealthiest person in a system to pay the same as the poorest is not equal or moral. I do believe from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. This saying is attributed to Marx but is actually a Christian quote, from whom escapes me at the moment. No person is an island. In our society all produce is socially produced and the fruits of that labor should be socially shared.

When I hear about your life as a student I am filled with sadness. Though you value the experience I see here how many people are destroyed by it. How much human waste and misery there is. All unnecessary. I see students working two jobs just to pay rent here (often in overcrowded and substandard accommodation also) with little left over for food and I see their health and studies suffer. Many just give up altogether. Not everyone has rich parents who can pay for their housing and educational costs. My Iranian friend who was a refugee in Poland (in Poland not from Poland) tells me how amazing it was to study there. All free from kinder to tertiary level. All books and materials provided plus accommodation and meals (as much as you could eat/want) and a small stipend as well. My husband tells me the same about Hungary. A former finance about Czechoslovakia. The Cubans I meet here tell me the same about Cuba. Cuba is a poor country. Yet they can do it. They even do it free for foreign students who can't afford to study in their own countries. Thousands every year. Australia takes in foreign students but only for their money. There is no reason for you or any student to suffer like that. There is also no reason why you can't volunteer to help out cutting grass, cleaning tables, washing dishes, cars, picking fruit. Whatever. If you want to have that experience, but you should not be compelled to do this on top of trying to learn. Your role as a student and future professional and just as a human being should be valued enough by your society to make it possible for you do dedicate yourself fully to that end.

If one really thinks about it, 'socialism' was the natural state of Homo sapiens until something changed a few thousand years ago when there began to be the few haves and the majority have-nots controlled by the few haves. Every 'trick in the book' has been used to preserve this privilage of the few over the many and to even make it seem as if it were the natural order or ordained by some diety. I came across an intereting quote by John Foster Dulles, speaking for himself and his brother Allan, “For us, there are two sorts of people in the world; there are those who are Christians and support free enterprise and then there are the others.”

In America of today, a certain brand of Christianity is absolutely locked-in with American style Capitalism and anti-Socialism, which strikes me as rather odd, as the historical [as opposed to their interpreted biblical] Jesus was certainly a 'Socialist', IMO. It really only means social equality and an attempt at the sharing of the wealth and resources. It does not rule out private ownership of some things, nor small and medium-size private for-profit businesses. I believe it is an altruistic attempt to get back to this natural state for the species - a natural state so much needed to heal both the environmental disequilibrium and political havoc we have caused - led by those 'have' most, who usually have done nothing to earn more than the rest, except being more greedy, ruthless, less [small c] christian, fair, generous, and compassionate toward others.

Something changed, not that long ago in our history, where the domination paradigm for the few 'kicked-in' along with the domination of the environment and its resources; that went hand in hand with men over women; one race over another; one group over another; rich over poor; etc. Capitalism, especially the nearly unfettered varient so popular in the USA today - dominated by the ultra-rich and the Corporations demonstates to me the total loss of our understanding of the Natural, the sustainable, the fair, the just, and the loss of any sense of a 'we' - to be replaced with 'me and mine'. Those that don't partake with the 'haves' are promised that it 'could yet be if you don't rock the boat' - or in an afterlife - to pacify them. Secret agents take care of those who are a threat, when sending in the military or police would look unseemly.

A kind of out-of-balance madness the Planet can no longer tolerate nor survive with.

There are many successful socialists communities that work, such as convents, abbys, Kibbutz, boarding schools, Texas poligimists compounds, prisons and the military.

Those who want to live in such a society can do so, or create their own.

The idea that a government can be given the power to seize and redistribute wealth, and impose such a system on an entire nation, even if directed by a majority of its citizens, is reason enough to overthrow it.

Bill Kelly

Point well taken on communities - one could add many communes, Oneonta, on and on....but carefull - as redistribution of the wealth upwards from the majority to the minority IS [sadly and wrongly, I believe] exactly the 'task' of the current government - witness the bailout of the banks and MIC corporations et al. via tax dollars [increasingly from the poorer and less and less from the richer]. No one is talking about taking away everyone's computer or even home - let alone modest bank account and 'redistributing' it - but creating a more equal system that doesn't allow for exploitation; the taxing of the poor and middle-class, but not the rich; the bailouts for the rich, but not for the others; the trickle-up under the guise of trickle-down; the free flow of business and capital and the restructions on the free flow of persons seeking survival and a better life; etc. The wealth [finanacial and resources] should be available to all - via education; opportunity; fair taxation and logical/ethical use of those taxes to benefit more equally. What we have now is a country run [amok, I might add] by the rich, for the rich - and the hell with everyone else. An 'I've got mine - screw thy neighbor' attitude. NB - many of the attempts at forming communities of a socialist and progressive nature were targeted and destroyed by the Government. I'd be happy to cite a few, if you can't think of them on your own. The whole domination paradigm was always unfair and undemocratic, now it is threatening life itself on the entire planet. We must end this paradigm or we will find our species suffering a horrible demise - along with about 50% of all other species. It really is that simple. The sports analogy that there are just two models is the biggest lie of all the big lies [and a major reason sports are pushed/supported by the Elites, and politics are covered as if sporting events; one winner - one looser - no other possible outcome.] There are an infinite number of societies one can set up with better pieces taken from a multitude of examples, philosophies, societies, political ideas, etc. Scandinavia, while not perfect, is a much better model than the USA, IMO. New Deal policies infinitely more in the correct direction than Reagan-Bush voodoo economics. Dare we dare to think more creatively; more sustainably; more fairly; more democratically; better able to avoid the end of life on this planet we are now headed like a high-speed train with no one in the engineer's seat?! I'd also be in favor of breaking-up all larger political entities into smaller ones [by choice, not force] and having a stronger but new kind of United Nations used to coordinate between them. If we don't get back the 'tribal' care for one another, we're in trouble. Globalization based on the top-down [Corporate/Financial/Politcal Elite model] is the ultimate death-knell. Bottom-up Uno-Mundo is the only way to go and a much more socialized/fair/equal one than the IMF/WB/G8/Bretton-Woods/Bilderberger/Davos/WTO/NAFTA/et.al. - or we all persish. I see NO other options. NONE at all. See the film link. That would be true on the Environmental level alone; it is also so on the political. Those idiots, such as Fujiyama, who have called the current unsustainable, evil and parasitic Corporate Capitalism/Fascism 'the end of history' have it wrong...it is not, but may well soon bring an end to history,and life, about.

For someone [there are others I could mention] who have made the quantum leap needed to not 'end history' and can see how the political and the environmental are tied to gether in one 'ethical basket' try David Korten and his book The Great Turning [or some of his essays available on the same site] here: http://www.davidkorten.org/Books/greatturning.htm

A Kibbutz is fine, but it is really long past time for the species to stop 'kibbutzing around'. We must de-throne those who rule and prevent sanity, democracy, peace and sustainability or they will lead us all to destruction - in your children's lifetimes to great suffering; in your grandchildren's lives to extinction. I know that sounds extreme, however as an Environmental Scientist and student of history, I do not think it is wrong. We have much work to do - and very little time. It is an unprecidented time in human history and those who say 'people have always said that and predicted the end of the world' are self-delusional, uninformed, in denial - or working smoke/mirror duty for the Borg. IMHO

Most of humanity are trapped in an old Elite-invented 'story' or cultural mythology - call is paradigm, if you like. Only a new one - really the old one, long forgotten by most - can save us from the Environmental trainwreck and also will cure the political madness of the Elites - and get rid of them once and for all. If we fail at this, we fail.....and oblivion for humanity will soon follow - after GREAT suffering, wars, famine, dislocations, disease, and worse. It was exactly the call [feeble as it was] by John Lennon and MLK - even the Kennedys that got them killed. Our enemy will not lightly allow their hold on the Planet to be pulled out of their greedy hands - but we must try and we must suceed!

I believe that most of the Moshavs and Kibbuzes have been privatised.

Allow me to be the one here who is less sanguine when it comes to being optimistic in the near future. If one reviews the overall trends of the last three decades then it is apparent that civilization has been shoved backwards rather than nudged forward. Recognition of this underlying reality is the indispensable requirement to change.

Mankind's inherent nature is, thus far, always wide open to manipulation of one sort or another and it stands to reason that the elite know how to apply the right kind of pressure to assure their continuing nourishment. Therefore a political remedy is not feasible or likely.

I therefore come back to Maggie's original point about abolishing stupidity and greed because I think this is the key to any progress.

Since these weaknesses cannot be abolished or outlawed (at least with any chance of success) then the only solution is a personal one. It comes down to each one of us taking responsibility for changing our own natures.

Placing our faith in political parties or accompanying dogmas to do this for us is simply ducking the reality.

Imo.

David, I respectfully disagree, or am totally depressed by your assessment. All those who would have the sanity, intelligence and morality to change are already 'changed' and aware. I don't think one can reasonably expect the legions of the 'TV blind', brainwashed by ad agencies and propaganda to even have the spark of insight that any change should be considered and appropriate. Our only chance is to counter the bull of the Borg - the false history 
replaced with real history; the propaganda countered with Truth; the false value
& 
'bread and circus' replaced with real values and activities; a return to Natural values,
a 
natural philosophy, and an abandonment of the completely unnatural ones than now, 
granted, predominate. Short of that, we are only documenting, for far
into 
the future, to some visiting alien civililization, the endgame of Homo ovis.

No probs Peter.

Sanguinity aside, my perspective is a Jungian one as you know. As Jung said in his later years: "man is the cause of all coming evil".

I have absolutely zero faith in the political process ever achieving an optimistic outcome and consider that relying on a collective body to do so, is a sure prospect of having one's hopes dashed.

The only answer is if enough individuals become more conscious of themselves.

One simply does not know how many it will take to tip the scales.

Ah yes, now there's an interesting topic. Perhaps they have already visited and will return for a review. Why are we so much more intelligent than all other species we share the planet with? Why is this massive disparity in intelligence required? Why would evolution do such a thing? Perhaps it has a sense of humor. Why do humans have so much trouble giving birth, potentially life-threatening, while the other species rarely have a problem? Why hasn't the evolutionary link connecting homo sapiens and apes ever been positively established? Why did we suddenly appear, a mere 60.000 odd years ago (barely yesterday on the evolutionary timeline) and proceed to destroy the ecological harmony of the planet? Worth it's own thread, imo. The ultimate conspiracy theory.

Getting back to the topic of politics, I tend to share the pessimism expressed by David. A harmonious global civilisation seems to be an idealistic goal which none of the current political systems can deliver. Human nature itself appears to be the problem--the greed and stupidity Maggie alluded to. It's part of our genetic makeup, unfortunately.

Previous generations had the luxury of discussing politics under the backdrop of a stable planet yielding virtually unlimited energy and wealth. Things have changed. We know the planet can't sustain the existing population, let alone the extra 3 billion projected by 2050. We've hit the wall. The energy and climate crisis have to be factored into the global political debate--the first order of business. We know the causes--energy guzzling lifestyles and too many people. Religion and nation states are also dangerous extravagances, imo. Political solutions to these problems threatening the survival of all the planet's species can be found only by thinking well outside the box, imo. I think we owe it to future generations to give it a go, since we seem to have had massive intelligence gifted to us.

By the way, as one who's field this is [Environment], the carrying capacity [formal term for sustainable number to not cause problems to self and other species] of humans is only one billion. With a successfull switch to all non-renewable energy and major changes in how we view of fellow living beings - perhaps 2 billion - maximum and a permanent maximum! Projections are no less than 9 and more likely a peak of 12 billion on the planet in short order. [When JFK was killed there were only half the number as we are now! Think about that!!]. That means for survival we will need not only to change our ways completly [and our thinking], but reduce by a huge % our numbers - hopefully without famine, war, disease - which is how it now looks like that will be acccomplished - perhaps reducing the number to zero. [extinction]. 99.9% of all species that ever inhabited the planet are now extinct. We are not special. We are [or so we think] wise and able to control our environment, plan, record history, learn, etc. - we will see. I'll add my pessimism.
I think we might just escape if we started a complete turn-around in paradigm; relationship to the Planet; end religions beyond religions of one's own private making - i.e. organized religions; get rid of the Elites and Oligarchies; have a sustainable and equal outlook - not just toward our fellow humans - but toward all life on the Planet and realize we are part of it - not master of it. I see only a handfull even aware of this and next to nothing being done in time. [The effects of global warming will be disasterous if pollution into the air of greenhouse gasses were stopped yesterday!!]

I know people are not ready for what lies ahead. In the Environmental Science community there is a little bit of a conspiracy to not speak too loudly about what is known - as it will alarm the world public - as it well should! I'm of the school of yelling as loud as possible, on the off chance we can turn it all around. It looks dim at the moment. I'll move this topic to a new thread. It is the ultimate challenge the 
species faces and while more dangerous than the political situation per se, are 
oth
caused by the same elites and the same Neaderthal thinking - along with greed and a kind of stupidity, based on the very old paradigms that don't work in new and rapidly changing times - if 
they ever did. One thing is for sure in my mind. The kind of Capitalism we have 
ow spreading, based on a domination paradigm will have the Planet dying in agony
by 2050. All but gone by 2100. That is catistrophic - and the wars, plagues, dislocations, poisoned 
environment, death of about half of all other speciies, cancer and other horrors awaiting are near
y 
unimaginable. Those in denial on this 'one' have really missed the 'boat' to survival. Those in denial on this usually say 'Humans have always muddled through in the past, and will muddle through this.' or 'Science and technology will come to the rescue.' Sadly, as an Environmental Scientist I know neither are true. Only - repeat only a complete paradigm shift will [maybe] let us sqeak through with the aid of science. The US Administration is also the biggest current block to doing anything productive on this, as it is on things political - exactly my point - the same wrong 'leaders' and the same wrong paradigms. [A very interesting book on when humans took this turn away from the positive paradigms to the toxic philosophical ones can be found in Riane Eisler's wonderful book] 'Chalice and the Blade' http://www.rianeeisler.com/chalice.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Korten, author of “When Corporations Rule the World”. He is the co-founder of Positive Futures Network, and publisher of the magazine YES! A Journal of Positive Futures. His most recent book is titled “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.” http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/14/from...ommunity_author

JUAN GONZALEZ: A new study from the nation’s preeminent scientific advisory group has revealed that less than 2% of the money spent by the federal government on climate change research is used to study how climate change will affect humans.

According to the report issued by the National Academies, the U.S. Climate Change Research Program spends just $30 million a year on examining the impact of global warming on humans. To put that figure in perspective, the United States is spending an estimated $275 million per day on the Iraq war and occupation.

Spending cuts have also resulted in the grounding of earth-observing satellites. The authors of the report state, “The loss of existing and planned satellite sensors is perhaps the single greatest threat to the future success” of climate research.

AMY GOODMAN: This weekend, the International Forum on Globalization and Institute for Policy Studies is hosting a three day teach-in titled “Confronting the Global Triple Crisis: Climate Change, Peak Oil (The End of Cheap Energy) and Global Resource Depletion & Extinction.”

Today, we’re joined by four of the guests in that forum. We begin with Vandana Shiva and David Korten.

Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, and the founder of Navdanya, “nine seeds,” a movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds. Dr. Shiva was the 1993 recipient of the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the Right Livelihood Award. She’s the author of many books, her latest, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.

David Korten, also with us, author of When Corporations Rule the World, cofounder of Positive Futures Network and publisher of the magazine YES! A Journal of Positive Futures. His most recent book is called The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! David Korten, let’s begin with you. The Great Turning, explain.

DAVID KORTEN: Well, essentially, this gets to the basic theme of the conference, that we humans have come up at a defining moment in our experience, in which we’re confronting the limits of the ecosystem at a time when we are in a condition of extreme inequality between the rich and the poor, and we’re dependent on an economic infrastructure that, in turn, depends on the assumption of everlasting cheap oil. Now, we’ve essentially come up to the limits.

What my book, The Great Turning, does is puts it into our current situation to the deeper context of 5,000 years of human experience, organizing ourselves, both our relations among nations and among—all the way down to among family members, based on dominator hierarchy. And what this—the underlying pattern of societies, with a few people on the top, many people on the bottom, and the majority of the society’s resources being expropriated by the ruling elites in order to maintain a system of domination. And we have played that out for 5,000 years, empire through empire, each one falling in turn, is it, through internal corruption and the devastation of its resource base. And now we’re encountering that on a global scale.

And what—the key point of this conference is that we are facing a monumental decision point in human experience in which we have to actively choose our future. And virtually none of the options on the table being discussed deal, in any adequate way, with the depth of the problem, and many of them are actually ultimately counterproductive. What the establishment is doing is looking for solutions that will maintain the system of power, but not necessarily deal with the fact that we have to address in fundamental ways our human relationship to earth and to the life support system of earth.

And in an already overpopulated world, we absolutely have to deal with the issues of equity and redistribution of not only income, but ownership, control and access to resources, so that everyone has a secure means of living. We also, of course, have to be fundamentally reconstructing our infrastructure to create an infrastructure that is consistent with living and balance with the earth, localizing our economies, bringing an end to war and violence and the massive misuse of resources to support military establishment.

So what this conference is doing, which is also what my book The Great Turning does, is bring all of these various crises that we’re facing as a species into a common framework that helps us see the depth of the solutions and the very dramatic nature of the solutions turning from systems of domination to systems of partnership and reestablishing a sense of human community and of living communities that bring us humans into balance with earth.

JUAN GONZALEZ: David Korten, in the United States we’re confronted here with a mass media system now where the oil companies and the chemical companies are actually the ones advertising their changes now, in terms of dealing with global warming. It’s an enormous hypocrisy that the very companies that are involved in the worst aspects of what is happening to the world are now the ones that are promoting in their advertisements a consciousness about it.

You talk about the prosperity narrative and how the prosperity narrative distorts the reality of what’s happening with global warming. Could you talk about that?

DAVID KORTEN: Yes. Part of breaking out of this, breaking out of what I call the cultural trance of empire, is to recognize the stories, essentially the lies, that the system feeds us to keep us locked into this trance. And the key in the empire prosperity story is the idea that money is wealth, that economic growth is the key to prosperity, that when people are making money, they are creating wealth, and the idea that inequality is essential to growth because the rich people have the money to invest, and so we should honor rich people, we should welcome inequality, because in the end it makes us all better off. Now, we’re seeing that play out, of course, in the corporations now, you know: we’re benevolent, and so forth.

But the thing that—you know, I spent thirty years of my life working on third world development, on the effort to end poverty in low-income countries. And it took me a long time, but I finally came to realize that mostly what economic growth is about is rich people expropriating the resources of poor people to turn them into the garbage of the consumer system in an accelerating rate in order to make money, which increases the power of people who—for people who already have more than they need.

Now, what we need to come to recognize is that real prosperity is grounded in the health of our children, our families, our communities and nature, and that a real economic system promoting real prosperity is one that is serving the health of children, families, community and the environment. And it absolutely requires a substantial degree of equity and sharing of resources to assure that everyone’s needs are met. And you begin to see the—you know, the stories fundamentally contrast, and they lead to totally different kinds of outcomes, in terms of how we allocate resources and even how we think about what it means to be human at our most foundational values.

AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva, talk about how this plays out on the ground in places like, well, your home country, India.

VANDANA SHIVA: Well, the triple crisis is really seriously converging on India, India being one of the preferred spots for outsourcing of all the pollution and energy-intensive production of the world. We hear of outsourcing of jobs in the information technology sector. We don’t often enough hear about the outsourcing of pollution to the third world, the resource-intensive, resource-hungry industry like steel and iron and aluminum and automobile manufacture. India now is going to be the home of making cheap cars for the rest of the world. But every car then requires land, which is grabbed from tribals, peasants. It requires aluminum and steel, which needs to be mined. It requires coal, which needs to be mined.

And just as when the first colonization took place, it was assumed that the earth was empty, terra nullius, no matter how many indigenous people existed. India, a land of 1.2 billion people, is being treated as an empty land for global capital, making 80% of India redundant.

But people are fighting back. And place after place, in Dadri, in Nandigram, in Singur, people are just getting together in a new earth democracy and saying, “This land is our land. We will decide what we do with it. You cannot force a polluting industry on us. Globalization cannot force it.” And we are really seeing a whole new political practice emerge.

India is engaged in this debate also centrally in another way that brings the resource question: the alternative—fuel alternatives to global warming, as well as the new militarization, on a global scale together. The three, four options being offered to contain emissions are biofuels, which, in fact, will increase emissions; carbon and emissions trading, which is reversing the “polluter pays” principle and is making the society pay the polluter, rewarding them with credits. Most of these credits are then being given to polluting industry: HFC companies, sponge iron plants, cutting down forests and then planting palm oil. These are becoming clean development mechanisms, which are really dirty.

But the dirtiest of all, dirtiest of all the new clean options is nuclear. The US-India nuclear agreement is being offered as a clean energy option, as a solution to climate change. But it is, in effect, an instrument of permanent war. In the Hyde Act, which overrides the India-US agreement, Iran has been mentioned fifteen times. An agreement between India and the US mentions a third country fifteen times. This is about a new security policy, a new security policy in which a militarized empire seeks the last resources of the poorest person and wants to use the worst form of violence to appropriate the resources that people need for living.

And across the world, people are saying, “No. We want peace. We want democracy. We want sustainability. We will live in a different way.” And those alternatives are growing. Our work, in Navdanya, we are saving seeds that can tolerate the salt after cyclones, seeds that can survive the floods, in which we have lost 2,000 people in India this particular extreme monsoon. And around the world people are creating alternatives, so we really have these two trends right now: one, a declining trend, but very visible trend because it’s so violent, and violent is always visible; and the other, a peaceful trend and nonviolent trend, quiet, but much more pervasive.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Vandana Shiva, you’ve been a spokesperson for years over the impact on the world’s agriculture, of this corporate dominance. A new battleground has developed recently in Burma with Bayer and Bayer’s efforts, the German giant, in terms of rice. Could you talk about that?

VANDANA SHIVA: Yeah, but it’s not just the German giant in Burma. It’s the American giant, Monsanto, literally killing Indian farmers. Since 1997, I’ve been doing studies in every area where farmer suicides have happened. These happen to be the cotton belt, the cotton areas where Monsanto has now gained total monopoly. The Bt cotton seeds that Monsanto is selling have pushed farmers to the edge, because of the high prices, because of the high levels of failure and the high requirements, exactly like the rice of Bayer for Burma will be.

As the corporations that came out of warfare gained control over the chemical industry for warfare, they became agrichemical giants, because they deployed chemicals used for war into agriculture. Over time, they bought up the seed industry. Over time, they bought up the biotech industry. And, of course, these guys are the same people who sell us the medicine in pharmaceuticals. So what we’ve got, a convergence of death. We’ve got a convergence of destruction.

And in India, we are witnessing this destruction from the seed end through Monsanto’s monopolies on seed, and that is why I have been working with Indian farmers, both to save our native seeds and save our freedom, and do the seed Satyagraha, like Gandhi a hundred years ago in South Africa—and we’re remembering Steve Biko today—when Gandhi started the Satyagraha, the non-cooperation with an unjust brutal regime. But the global economy has become an unjust brutal regime. And everywhere—we are defending the Yamana, because they want to even use the land where the rivers flow for real estate. I don’t know why land becomes real estate when it moves into the hands of the rich, and it’s treated as nobody’s land, no man’s land, when it’s generating survival for the poor. So India is definitely at the heart of the new debate about the real democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Vandana Shiva and David Korten, I want to thank you for being with us. Vandana Shiva’s latest book is Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. David Korten’s latest book is called The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. They’re both part of the International Forum on Globalization that is holding a conference this weekend in Washington, D.C. at George Washington University at the Lisner Auditorium.

When we come back, we’ll be joined from two others who are participating: the author and professor Michael Klare and the British climate change activist Simon Retallack.

Mark, I hesitate to mention this because Steve Turner hails from Lowestoft and that, alone, is more than enough of a burden to load on his shoulders.

But the earliest evidence of civilization in the UK (long since evaporated, I know) and, indeed Europe, dates back 700,000 years. This early humanid is known affectionately as "LOWESTOFT MAN".

You see the cause of my concern.

So to summarize, man irrupted in Lowestoft, proceeded to inhabit the planet, killing it with the infection he inherently carried as he went.

If you've ever been to Lowestoft on a saturday night you'll understand...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article764618.ece

So, is ST a thawed-out, frozen-in-time Lowestoft man? If so, they were more aware then, than most are now.

I fear the inaptly named Homo sapiens [sic] is really the 'problem' on the planet. The very worst of our potentially noble species claw their way to the 'top'; using: deception, propaganda, violence, theft, greed, domination, et al. Almost without exception, those who have had the most power and money in the last few thousand years were the least deserving, least empowered to be leaders or models for others to follow. The species has lost its way. Many noble individuals have existed and exist still....but they mostly have been marginalized by the 'thugs' that rise to the top and gain the most power of late.

Even on this Forum, I find it very disturbing, personally, that while the minutea of the JFK Assasination is an interest and passion of mine, most here are not interested when it comes to the bigger issues - the ultimate issues - the philosophical basis for why this happened and continues to happen - in 'other forms'. Most here are like 'stamp collectors' - interested in the latest on the most 
bizzare new issue or misprinting - the larger picture escapes even these wiser-than-most of Homo ovis, apparently. Post a thread on a photo alteration and get 10.000 viewers. Post on the destruction of life on the planet and you are lucky to get 70 viewers. Some sense of 'balance and perspective' - let alone awareness. This is targeted at no one - and everyone.

Ha. Thanks for that info, David.

Homo heidelbergensis, Homo antecessor, Homo sapiens etc. Why do scientists insultingly refer to us all as Homos?

I still don't understand why evolution would propel our intelligence so far, so quickly and much further than we need to survive.

I guess this thread had ventured far off course. Thankfully this has escaped censure from Homo Moderatus. I'll save further rambling prognostications for later while I sally forth to work lest I be reclassified as Homo Unemploydus.

That says it all. Talk about screwed up priorities. I share your concerns about all these issues, Peter.

Another worry is the possibility of the Gulf Stream shutting down, which could usher in a mini ice age in Northern Europe, possibly as early as 2010:


http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/cover

David David David, GREAT YARMOUTH. And that, believe it or not, is more than a heavy enough burden.

Sorry Steve.

Confusion reigns in my shabby mind. It is as though they are twin towns, like those you see on council signs as you enter their jurisdiction. "Welcome to Lowestoft, twinned with Antwerp" -- except some joker has spray painted over the two letters "An" , added an "s" on the end of the sign.

It was always the "Homo Erectus" that got me. Well, not actually "got" me, if you see what I mean....

I understand your confusion, as the hunter gatherer ethos contiunues apace in old Yarmouth Town. The hunting usually takes place on a Saturday night after ten pints of Pinktons old rot-gut, the gathering is usually performed in the local branch of Woolworths, or Palmers when shut.

Looks like a typical night's work by some Jack Tars!

How apt. That we are discussing a topic entitled "the Conspiracy Against Socialism" and we have a contribution posted by someone that epitomises the very essence of that ‘conspiracy’. The above post tells us everything about why socialism i.e., fairness equality and peace, is unlikely to succeed in our lifetime.

Why should we pay taxes? This seems to be the subtext of your contribution. Oh yes you add the caveat that ‘some’ tax must be paid but seem quite adamant it should be a rock bottom bare minimum.

Taxation is an onerous and omnipresent form of governmental intrusion. And
Taxation is nothing more than the governmental taking of the earnings of one person's efforts, at the threat of imprisonment, and spending and re-distributing such person's earnings as it sees fit.

Well, that IS the basic essence of a Parliamentary democracy is it not? You seem aghast that this state of affairs should be allowed. An elected government making decisions on the nation’s finances! Whatever next? That’s what we elect them to do!

But never mind that that "one person's efforts" has to be educated for at least 12 years; that that individual’s chance of survival has monumentally increased as a result of public sanitation works and a fully funded health service: that whatever may happen to such a successful person should they encounter unforeseen disasters (bankruptsy, Wall St Crash, Sub-Prime crash etc…) would still at least enjoy free healthcare and housing rights and a state pension, along with millions of low paid workers who could never afford a private one! All this is paid for by taxes.

I don't want the government reducing my opportunity to succeed by taking even more of my earnings and redistributing them to someone who doesn't share my work ethic.

Clearly the word “success” here DIRECTLY equates to “amount of money”! Personally I find that embarrassingly shallow. However, like others, I commend you for your achievements, I really do. I have immense respect for people who are driven, work hard, overcome all obstacles and achieve their goals.

But what a pity you have zero empathy with others who maybe don’t want a high-flying career, (who don't want to be middle class ‘professionals’, or earn their living by squeezing the pips out of folk needing legal assistance), or
who don’t want to set academia aflame and who don’t want to own more and more and more….

These people are commonly known as workers. And these are the people that DO everything in this world. They have absolutely no political representation despite many attempts over the years yet these are the people who lay those golden eggs everyday. The golden eggs all those smart Harvard and Eton boys trade, swap and gamble with everyday, on the floors of the stock markets around the world. Of course the workers only get paid the shell while those that scoop huge chunks out of the yolk whinge about the relatively small amount they have to give back in onerous taxes!

They earn a fraction of a lawyer’s wage but does that mean they don’t work as hard? Tell that to the fish-filleters I used to work with, who, in order to take home a half decent wage, would stand in the freezing cold for twelve hours a day until their hands were blue and crippled by the age of 50.

Maybe they should re-educate?

But fish will still need filleting! Buses and trains will still need driving; trash will still need to be removed; roofs will still need fixing; goods will still have to be transported… Someone has to do it! However much the carrot of re-education is dangled not EVERYONE can “succeed”.

And not everyone wants to.

So why should they be financially and politically disabled? Why shouldn’t they share in the enormous wealth that, in the main, they, and only they, themselves create through their mind-numbing and relentless toil?

Taxation is an interesting subject and one that receives less attention than it perhaps should. I have no objection to taxation providing I have some control over how the national purse is distribued - i.e., fairly and equally. But I don't. It is spent corruptly by the corrupt in support of the corrupt dogma of selfish madness we call capitalism.

The history of taxation as published by HM Revenue (which I hardly think is a full and complete history) says that taxation was introduced in 1799 to pay for the war against Napoleon. Prior to this the King and various regional lords/barons merely took what they wanted when they wanted it, by force of arms. Leastways, that's what I gather from watching Robin Hood movies.

Frankly, I see very little real difference today than back in the bad old days of kings and barons - albeit the system is carefully "spun" to appear democratic. That way it saves open rebellion in the ranks.

In fact, the introduction of virtually every system of taxation in ancient times (Egypt, Greece, Rome etc) was to pay for warfare and/or the military -- plus the odd pyramid or two, I imagine. Thereafter, it became a means of financing royalty in their various personal extravagances, until democracy arrived to save us from royal greed by replacing it with common greed. Today, I would argue that common greed has given way to corporate greed.

But the bottom line has barely changed over the centuries. You pay it, they spend it.

And you still have no control over how the spend it, either.

David, you shouldn't believe what those Inland Revenue people say. The answer to most of these questions is Essex, in this case Maldon, Essex. In 991 the Vikings defeated the Saxon army at Maldon, and as a result the English government, very wisely in my opinion, decided to pay the clearly militarily superior vikings off with taxpayers' money.

Trying to settle the debate on human origins, again Essex is the answer. I was conscious that my own knowledge of 'Clacton Man' is based on visits I made years ago to the Natural History Museum. So I looked up 'Clacton Man' in Google, only to discover he's been charged with attempted murder. However, the fact that it was reported as only 'attempted' highlights one important problem - humanity's bumbling inefficiency. This doesn't bode well for introducing socialism and curbing population and consumption all at the same time.

I think most of the problems and solutions have already been aired. But here are a few more. Viewing the issues from a historical perspective it would seem that the original Clacton man would have used his wooden spear in co-operation with others, and that community was then fundamental to human life. This eon-long social experience would suggest that we are social animals, not individuals, possessive or otherwise, and we are actually kidding ourselves if we think otherwise.

The Industrial Revolution has fragmented and distorted not just communities but the whole idea of community. Village life, which to some extent continued the prehistoric human experience of sharing with a hundred or so other people, is rapidly disappearing on a global scale, to be replaced by megacities and global mobility. Modern consumerism, fed by advertising, distorts our lives. (Shortly after ending my brief career as a copywriter I saw my first 'My Little Pony' commercial, and my heart sank, rightly as it turned out.)

Our world, quite apart from plundering world resources, fragments humanity. The modern popularity of researching our family trees highlights, in my view, a massive tragedy of the Industrial Revolution, that millions of families broke up and lost touch with each other. A missionary friend I know who devised the orthography for a small Kenyan language, had difficulty establishing his credibility with the tribe concerned because he didn't know the name of one of his maternal gre