New York City

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's why many believe that profit driven enterprise needs to be curbed in favor of public social programs. Corporations are beholden to near term profit and if they do not uphold near term profit, then they go out of business. It's self defeating. They cannot get outside of the box to do what needs to be done when the pursuit of short term profit is driving us all off a cliff. Socialism is not a great evil. It's the only thing that can potentially turn us around (if done right). But it needs to be democratic socialism, socialism that has the well being off all of society's members in consideration, not just the short term profit of a business.

The sober analysis

It is a good thing that Mamdani won in NY. Simply because all of his programs will fail, likely catastrophically. If you do the ‘sober analysis’ you yourself will predict the outcome.

Curiously you (as a thinker) exemplify why an abstract idea (redistribution of wealth for the benefit of the poorer classes) takes hold: you have zero experience in business and likely have worked very little. Because of this impracticality in your understanding, it “feels right” to think in Mamdanian terms. The couch of abstraction is very comfortable!

The failure of the Mamdani Plan will work strongly against the Democrat platform in general and will (if this Hillsdale presenter has it right) demonstrate that going that route will turn out badly.

However and with that said I am uncertain how to counsel those among the working poor who genuinely feel the pinch.

Socialism is not a great evil. It's the only thing that can potentially turn us around

I think it fair to say this statement is completely false. Turn us around from what to what? Gary, I believe it fair to say you have absorbed the Chomskian viewpoint! Like you I have read it all and it is so seductive to an idealist’s mind.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I found this analysis of the rise of “fragility” in children (of the recent generations) to be very interesting. If you raise children who do do not have the skill to deal with the world in mature terms, that generation will expect to be “taken care of”.

[Immanuel Can]

Maybe some of those who are paying billions to fund the military or police departments or to pay for juicy government contracts for Elon Musk's companies could pay for health care? Is there something wrong with everyone having health care?

Is that what you see happening? Under the Democrats, did Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or George Soros, or Fink, or the elites of Hollywood, or any of the Dems get poor? Did you see them redistribute their personal earnings in order to create equality, or to fund the healthcare system? Why didn't that happen, if the Dems are advocates for it?

Answer: because they're not. They're elitists, "limousine liberals," who want to keep their own millions while telling the poor of America what to do. They don't risk their own money; they just take yours.

I'm not sure I see that happening under Trump either. So what is accomplished by redirecting anger toward Trump back to the Democrats?

The current administration is not constraining human rights. The previous administration has abundantly demonstrated their intentions to go Socialist. So for now, the Dems represent the very worst possibility, however flawed the Repubs may be.

The Democrats have become inept at accomplishing anything they profess to stand for.

Well, they profess to be advocates for the anti-racists, but all they do is gin up racism. They claim to be advocates for justice, yet they advocate gross injustices. They claim to be advocates for America, but they sell out America to waves of migrants and criminals. They claim to be advocates of the lower classes, yet they get richer, and richer and richer all the time, and share nothing. And they claim to advocate for personal rights, but they're totalitarians and Socialists. So yes, there's a lot of lying going on. But I honestly don't think it's ineptitude. It seems to me they're producing exactly the results they want to, as often as they can.

Like most, Biden

Well, Gary, let's talk truth: he was senile. Even the Dems betrayed that they knew that, when they backstabbed him to insert Kamala.

he let corporations and people with evil intent get what they wanted to get.

That's the Dems' program now, Gary. They've decided they can partner with the rich, such as Fink and Soros and Bezos et al., and they can get further ahead that way than by catering to the lower classes. So they've sold ordinary Americans out. If you ever thought their "Socialist" love of the poor was real, you should be able to detect that it wasn't. It was always about getting power, and now, catering to the rich globalist elites and to China is serving their turn better than representing Americans. So they're being pragmatic about that, and they've switched their allegiances.

I recall the Biden administration being frustrated that no progress was being made but couldn't understand why or what to do in response.

They aren't children, Gary. They know what they could do; they just know it isn't in their interests to do it. So they continue to self-represent as if they care, but they really don't. They just realize they don't have to do what they say, when they can say something that wins more votes with the naive.

That's why many believe that profit driven enterprise needs to be curbed in favor of public social programs.

How did that work, under the Biden admin? The corporations, particularly things like the military-industrial complex and Blackrock got massively richer, and how did the social programs go?

Don't believe what politicians say. Believe what they do. That's their real agenda.

Socialism is not a great evil. It's the only thing that can potentially turn us around (if done right).

Gary, it has a 100% record of abyssmal failure, resulting in economic collapse and murder every time. If 120 million dead people in the last century alone failed to convince us that Socialism is a disaster, how many more will it take to make that case to you?

it needs to be democratic socialism

There is no such real thing.

They say "we're democratic," but it means "we're Socialist." And Socialism is not democratic, because it requires total control of all persons and aspects of public and economic life by a totalitarian government. Moreover, it cannot accept any contrary democratic result, and must necessarily reduce the voting process to a sham. It cannot do otherwise. It's incapable of being genuinely democratic.

Here's the test: just how accepting of a contrary political result is the Dem party? Do they rejoice that the democratic political process has elected their rival, and say, "Well, it's a democratic result, so thank God democracy still works," or do they spend all their energy cursing the party that was elected democratically in their place? Why don't they like the democratic results of a democratic election, if they love democracy so much?

It's because what they love is power, not democracy. And presently, the democratic process has interfered with their ambitions for power.

If you think Socialist rhetoric cannot collude with Big Business, just look at how both allign in the Democrat rhetoric. They talk about the rights of Americans and about the democratic process, but the businesses that pay their bills just keep getting bigger and bigger, and their personal fortunes get bigger and bigger.

Follow the money.

[Gary Childress]

The knee jerk opposition to socialism is noteworthy. I don't see the myopic views of corporations driven by near term profit saving the world from anything. Profit is driving us toward environmental destruction. It's going to take more forward looking thinking to navigate us out of the present quandary. For profit does not have that kind of vision only human engineered measures (artificial incentives and guidance) will get us on the right track. It's common sense, not rocket science. The "anti-commie" rhetoric is archaic.

[Alexis Jacobi]

1) The knee jerk opposition to socialism is noteworthy.

So then is seeing socialism as an easy solution.

2) I don't see the myopic views of corporations driven by near term profit saving the world from anything.

What are we to be saved from? There might be a zillion problems, but is it accurate to have determined that “socialism” will solve them? You might have better results following the 42-Week Email Course …

3) Profit is driving us toward environmental destruction.

There is sn aspect of truth in this. But socialism in itself will not solve excessive exploitation of resources.

4) It's going to take more forward looking thinking to navigate us out of the present quandary.

That is likely. But the route of believing “socialism” to represent forward-thinking might be flawed.

5) For profit does not have that kind of vision only human engineered measures (artificial incentives and guidance) will get us on the right track. It's common sense, not rocket science.

From what then, from who, comes ‘vision’?

6) The "anti-commie" rhetoric is archaic.

Possibly. But criticism of the likely outcomes of Mamdani’s proposed solutions is not. Matzo Ball Soup is also archaic (see my pamphlet) yet we still make it, still relish it.

[MikeNovack]

Such politicians have no accountability other than “the vote.” Because of this and the greed for power over the benefit of the people, US career politicians have turned the government into a deep-state jobs program, much like the government teacher’s unions that are a reliable Democrat voting-block, and that have turned the education of the little children into first and foremost a jobs program for adults, hiring as many education employees (not necessarily front-line teachers) as the politicians who they put into office, can fund.

Pray tell me, in a representative democracy, what is this "other than"?

I thought the idea was that they represented the interests/wishes of those who had chosen to give them their vote. Are you suggesting that these voters are too stupid to know what is to their benefit? Somebody else, wiser, better, should be making that decision for them? LOOK --- we are debating Aristotle vs Plato. It is perfectly respectable for you to be on Plato's side here, but be honest about it if you don't believe in democracy instead of blaming politicians trying to operate in a democracy.

The people of NYC have every right to elect a socialist if that's what they want. If you are a New Yorker who objects, who voted otherwise, well that's how elections are, you can be in the minority. But if you are not a New Yorker, explain why it is any of your damned business.

[Walker]

Well, there is the nuclear option of impeachment, but that seems to be a warhead with only Trump’s name scratched into it, and in a blue state like New York quite unlikely to be launched against a loyal Democrat like Mamdani, whose communist notions appear to dovetail with today’s bold new power-hungry Democrats carrying on the tradition of fundamental change, using the tired old promises to rile up the new generation.

So there's the vote, and then there's impeachment or a recall election without much in between, but in a civilized land the latter first requires some wrong doing, perhaps obvious idiotic fiscal malfeasance which will be difficult to prove against the indoctrinated acceptance of ... everything bad belongs to Trump, and also difficult to prove in a climate of hairbrained Democrat notions where folks want money for nothin', and chicks for free.

[Walker]

But if you are not a New Yorker, explain why it is any of your damned business.

Because the sweat and pain and life force of the tax paying citizens of every state will be the payment that restores NYC when the buses break down, the bodegas are put of business by government stores, and the money from the millionaires and the middle class either runs out or moves on down that lonesome highway.

Are you another one of them there Lefties with only fantasy glue connecting cause to effect?

[Walker]

(continued)

A Scottish view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC1Pdsp ... rt_radio=1

*

The word is, folks in the country less than ten years were the big vote for Mamdani.
Gimme gimme gimme. There's the greed.

[Age]

Then, because you never lie to yourself

From the very outset you have shown and proved, once more, that you, still, have not yet been able to comprehend and understand what I have said, written, and meant, here.

So, because of your lack of comprehension skills, and because of your complete misunderstanding, here, the rest of what you said and write, here, is moot.

which is entirely possible even at this time in the history of the world, without my further input from me you should have no trouble exactly understanding the following content relevance, although you may need to ponder and independently verify, which you should do as a functioning adult about things anyway, in order to be fed understanding from the source within, which is different than trying to make the unknown fit into what you already know and broadcasting ignorance when it does not.

Entrepreneurs prefer the philosophy of Zero-based budgeting. Before he was POTUS, Trump was a successful brick and mortar entrepreneur specializing in luxury. Today, Robin-hoods everywhere know their The Sheriff of Nottingham’s rules, so they hire experts who know some more about those rules, they play by the rules, they use the rules to the advantage of their objective, and they produce. This is reflected in Trump's current career as the most powerful politician on the face of the earth, which was the second political office he won, after learning the ropes as 45.

This was proven by the close examination of Trump’s record with the intent to destroy him, his businesses, and his family. All that resulted from that was the Legal Mickey Mouse show.

In contrast to Zero-based budgeting, the philosophy of baseline budgeting is preferred by politicians because numbers become dependent upon political influence.

- Before he was a politician … the current Senate minority leader had no job experience.
- Before he was a politician …the current mayor-elect of NYC had no job experience.

Such politicians have no accountability other than “the vote.” Because of this and the greed for power over the benefit of the people, US career politicians have turned the government into a deep-state jobs program, much like the government teacher’s unions that are a reliable Democrat voting-block, and that have turned the education of the little children into first and foremost a jobs program for adults, hiring as many education employees (not necessarily front-line teachers) as the politicians who they put into office, can fund.

But, you are talking about an unnecessary thing, in Life, as though it is necessary. Which just goes to show and reveal your very distorted worshipping and thinking, here.

[Gary Childress]

5) For profit does not have that kind of vision only human engineered measures (artificial incentives and guidance) will get us on the right track. It's common sense, not rocket science.

From what then, from who, comes ‘vision’?

People who aren't fettered by the limitations of economic profit. Do I need to spell everything out for you? You can't see any of this yourself? Have you ever worked for large corporations? I have and they owe their soul to "shareholders". Again, common sense for anyone who's had real life economic experience.

[Alexis Jacobi]

People who aren't fettered by the limitations of economic profit. Do I need to spell everything out for you? You can't see any of this yourself? Have you ever worked for large corporations? I have and they owe their soul to "shareholders". Again, common sense for anyone who's had real life economic experience.

I see all sorts of things, and I am definitely very aware of the critical posture that motivates what you are expressing.

I am just now reading The Place of the Hidden Moon (a study of the Vaishnava and Sahajiya religious traditions of Medieval India) and the Vaishnava and Sahajiya devotees were, certainly, extreme idealists and described a devotional path that favored inner transformation through extreme forms of devotion to God. It might seem like a far-fetched comparison, but I think it has some validity: Your dissatisfaction with ‘the world’ (you constantly talk about this) motivates this desire for transforming experience and I have a feeling it might stand behind this sense of what ‘vision’ is.

(I started a corporation so I might look at things from a different angle. A very small incorporation I should add.)

My impression of many who were attracted to Mamdani, and at least some who campaigned for him (seen in videos talking about why), gave me the impression of “extreme youthful idealism” but of a sort that naturally tends to a type of authoritarianism (in attitude). Similar to the moral authoritarian mood in some of what you write.

Excuse me for not feeling I can simply cooperate or associate with this mood of mind-set.

For about a decade The Dems (to use a common generality) have presented their radical doctrines of “wokism” and all manner of extreme forms of (what many see as) deviancies expressed in extreme authoritarianism.

So pu-leeeese try to understand why many watching the Mamdani advent look at it with skepticism.

I think that you will appreciate this quite radical exposition by John Meershiemer that is deeply critical of the way the US has been doing things. It is hard not to agree with him on many points. Check it out. (Better with a matzo ball nosher but some Campbell’s soup can be substituted in a pinch…)

[Immanuel Can]

The knee jerk opposition to socialism is noteworthy.

It's funny how you call a reasoned and historically accurate description of Socialism "kneejerk."

Socialism has a 100% record of failure, and a disastrous record of hundreds of millions of abused, plundered, tortured, exiled and murdered. NOTHING has a worse record, in all of human history. And that's what you want?

I don't see the myopic views of corporations driven by near term profit saving the world from anything.

Tell that to the Dems...and their friends at Blackrock, Amazon, etc. They don't seem to have gotten that message from you.

Profit is driving us toward environmental destruction.

There are just no serious discussions of fixing the climate that do not begin with the words, "China and India." If China and India don't fix their situations, nothing anybody else does will matter a fig. That's reality.

[accelafine]

The knee jerk opposition to socialism is noteworthy.

It's funny how you call a reasoned and historically accurate description of Socialism "kneejerk."

Socialism has a 100% record of failure, and a disastrous record of hundreds of millions of abused, plundered, tortured, exiled and murdered. NOTHING has a worse record, in all of human history. And that's what you want?

I don't see the myopic views of corporations driven by near term profit saving the world from anything.

Tell that to the Dems...and their friends at Blackrock, Amazon, etc. They don't seem to have gotten that message from you.

Profit is driving us toward environmental destruction.

There are just no serious discussions of fixing the climate that do not begin with the words, "China and India." If China and India don't fix their situations, nothing anybody else does will matter a fig. That's reality.

Well you've been enjoying the fruits of a so-called 'socialist' country your whole life apparently. The high standard of iiving and very reasonable tax rate that the general population enjoys must be a bitch

[Immanuel Can]

The knee jerk opposition to socialism is noteworthy.

It's funny how you call a reasoned and historically accurate description of Socialism "kneejerk."

Socialism has a 100% record of failure, and a disastrous record of hundreds of millions of abused, plundered, tortured, exiled and murdered. NOTHING has a worse record, in all of human history. And that's what you want?

I don't see the myopic views of corporations driven by near term profit saving the world from anything.

Tell that to the Dems...and their friends at Blackrock, Amazon, etc. They don't seem to have gotten that message from you.

Profit is driving us toward environmental destruction.

There are just no serious discussions of fixing the climate that do not begin with the words, "China and India." If China and India don't fix their situations, nothing anybody else does will matter a fig. That's reality.

Well you've been enjoying the fruits of a so-called 'socialist' country your whole life apparently.

Not at all. My country has never been Socialist. The most you could say is that it's been broadly a "capitalist" country with a few social programs that are bankrupting it; but you couldn't ever call it Socialist, because Socialism has never been in control of the means of production, which is its fundamental goal, if you know the theory.

Socialist countries, historically, have LOW standards of living, and a high rate of death. And they don't just "tax," but actively attack the whole concept of private property as well.