What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Saturday, April 25, 2026 00:05
VIEWED: 18057
PAGE 13 of 22
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Bollocks. That is EXACTLY the province of governments. "Free trade" only comes into play when governments decide to create and sign "free trade" agreements; otherwise tariffs, import duties, and tax policies come into play. Please don't believe that ministers and presidents are helplessly wringing their hands about processes that are out of the control of governments... they are actively fostering these processes at your expense, because that's where their money is.
Ahem. And to you as well.
I do believe there are global forces at play which are outside of government control. It doesn't mean that they can't have a response to the forces, and can't contribute to them, but I see them trying to play catch up, or ignoring those forces, depending on the current dominant idealogy. Climate change is one of those examples.
Unlike a lot of you on these boards, I don't see government as this big all powerful force that has complete control over their lives. I see them more as a bunch of chickens struggling to build their own henhouse.
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Quote:The government has fostered every single aspect of these "forces" since their inception: the creation and backing of currencies (sometimes by military force), the laws which govern corporations and profit, the development and backing of national and international banks and bank policies, the militarily-enforced inclusion of many nations into the capitalist hegemony, and the inking of free-trade agreements. Governments have been necessary, instrumental, or complicit is all aspects of the clusterfuck under which we now live. None of this would have been possible without them.
I do believe there are global forces at play which are outside of government control.
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So rappy, your objection to government is that it holds too many meetings and wastes money on pork?
Don't you have something more fundamental to object to?
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Quote:
Unlike a lot of you on these boards, I don't see government as this big all powerful force that has complete control over their lives. I see them more as a bunch of chickens struggling to build their own henhouse.
...Sort of. Yes, they're all idiots, but the analogy would hold truer if some were more fox-like and cannibalistic than the others, and instead of a henhouse, it's a machine that makes chicken pot pies.
We can call the more fox-like ones "corporate lobbyists" "military contractors" "intelligence agencies" and "politicians." And they're basically out to better themselves at the cost of the normal non-predatory chickens they're feeding into that machine.
But the predators aren't safe from each other, either, so they try to dismantle whatever the other chickens are working on while building up their own pieces.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:Quote:
Unlike a lot of you on these boards, I don't see government as this big all powerful force that has complete control over their lives. I see them more as a bunch of chickens struggling to build their own henhouse.
...Sort of. Yes, they're all idiots, but the analogy would hold truer if some were more fox-like and cannibalistic than the others, and instead of a henhouse, it's a machine that makes chicken pot pies.
We can call the more fox-like ones "corporate lobbyists" "military contractors" "intelligence agencies" and "politicians." And they're basically out to better themselves at the cost of the normal non-predatory chickens they're feeding into that machine.
But the predators aren't safe from each other, either, so they try to dismantle whatever the other chickens are working on while building up their own pieces.
Very true. Mostly they are concerned with feathering their own nest and some are more wiley than others, but mainly they are just clucking around incompetently shitting everywhere and getting very little useful done.
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:Quote:
Unlike a lot of you on these boards, I don't see government as this big all powerful force that has complete control over their lives. I see them more as a bunch of chickens struggling to build their own henhouse.
...Sort of. Yes, they're all idiots, but the analogy would hold truer if some were more fox-like and cannibalistic than the others, and instead of a henhouse, it's a machine that makes chicken pot pies.
We can call the more fox-like ones "corporate lobbyists" "military contractors" "intelligence agencies" and "politicians." And they're basically out to better themselves at the cost of the normal non-predatory chickens they're feeding into that machine.
But the predators aren't safe from each other, either, so they try to dismantle whatever the other chickens are working on while building up their own pieces.
Ooompa Loompa's....
Who would ever suspect a 3 foot tall orange faced man of being shady?
Wow, in the real RWED, that really is kinda scary, huh?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The government has fostered every single aspect of these "forces" since their inception: the creation and backing of currencies (sometimes by military force), the laws which govern corporations and profit, the development and backing of national and international banks and bank policies, the militarily-enforced inclusion of many nations into the capitalist hegemony, and the inking of free-trade agreements. Governments have been necessary, instrumental, or complicit is all aspects of the clusterfuck under which we now live. None of this would have been possible without them.
I think you give government more kudos than I do. They are not as united, cohesive or strategic as you give them credit for. Individuals and collections of individuals have power for a while and they may have certain agendas they want to see played out, but mostly they are reactive and compromosing.
Some of the forces that have not been generated by governments. Some of these are intrinsically connected.
The industrial revolution
The technological revolution
Global urbanisation
Population increase - 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7 billion currently
Climate change
Waining of influence of religion
Growth of individualism
Even the GFC, which was at least partly a result of shitty policies, wasn't planned by governments, its more a sign of how they bumble around ineffectually. I still think my chickens trying to build a hen house is the best analogy.
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Magons, I don't think that governments have a 400-year secret plan to foster worldwide corporatism. What I think is that governments (usually) are an unconscious evolutionary force which has become adapted to the presence of concentrated money, and that over time business and government have formed a symbiotic relationship.
However, since government makes the rules and government has the guns, government COULD behave in a non-symbiotic way. In fact, it sometimes does, as when a government replaces an old currency with a new one, or sweeps away the old rules of doing business. In other words, when revolutions occur.
There are a couple of aspects to this process which I think needs thoughtful examination. The first is to recognize where governments have specifically granted business more rights than citizens with the development of things like "intellectual property", the treatment of corporations with favorable tax laws, the pushing of (unlabeled) GMOs (because government has decided that it's safe and you therefore have no reason to know what you're eating), the bank bailout, the murky laws which allowed the crisis to begin with, the "ag gag" laws, the involuntary "taking" of a person's property for fracking, the rules against demonstrating on public property, ...etc. I'm sure that if we were to catalog how hamstrung the average person is before the combined might of business and government, we could develop a very long, scary list worthy of a dissertation which details exactly HOW FUCKED we really are.
The second part of this is to realize that this is all "evolutionary" behavior on the part of business and government. As a follow-on to that, we should realize that "evolution" is NOT the paradigm that human beings should be following. The concept that if we let various entities fight it out over long periods of time we will eventually reach some sort of nirvana. I think only people who have never REALLY looked at nature feel this way. Nature is wasteful. Evolution leads to the development of species which carry within them the seeds of their own destruction (the horned creature whose horns would, by age 9, grow into its own skull, for example), or which are "just good enough" to continue surviving in their niche by having a dozen... or several hundred-thousand... babies, 99% of which will die.
If we are going to develop our societies AND our species into something other than the clusterfuck we now have, we have to do this consciously, bc our unconscious floundering/reaction has gotten us to results that suck.
So, believe it or not, this is in response to
Quote:. I would like to open up the discussion to include a lot wider set of parameters to consider.
What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?
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You might want to consider, among other things, how often government comes down violently on the side of the wealthy
Cambodian protesters killed as police crack down on garment workers' rally
Quote:
At least three people have been killed in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, after security forces opened fire on garment workers rallying for higher wages, according to eyewitnesses.
http://rt.com/news/cambodia-garment-protest-dead-112/
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/09/26-0
Quote:
The government of Bangladesh has deployed paramilitary forces to the industrial zone of Gazipur in its latest bid to quell the massive protests and strikes that have swept the second largest garment industry in the world over the last week.
Bangladesh's government, known for its cozy relationship with the country's notoriously low-paying and dangerous garment industry backed by numerous U.S.-based corporations, has held a series of meetings with factory owners and vowed to take more harsh measures to shut down the uprisings.
Saudi Crackdown on Workers Turns Violent
Quote:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—The government pushed ahead with a nationwide crackdown on undocumented foreign laborers in an effort to overhaul the labor market, sparking deadly clashes between Saudis and foreign workers here on Sunday.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579188832
147386314
Police crackdown triggers anti-government riots
Quote:
Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- After battling for nearly two days with tear gas, water cannons and pepper spray, Turkish police retreated from Istanbul's central Taksim Square on Saturday afternoon, allowing tens of thousands of demonstrators to pour into the space.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/01/world/europe/turkey-protests/
State of Siege: Mining Conflict Escalates in Guatemala
Quote:
Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government misinformation.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-si
ege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala
A robust coordinated response is the only way to end this brutalization.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You might want to consider, among other things, how often government comes down violently on the side of the wealthy...
Yah, like every single goddamn time - remember, I had ancestors at Blair Mountain.
Quote:
that over time business and government have formed a symbiotic relationship.
Formed ?
Ahem.
Worth recalling I see essentially no difference between most Corps, Governments, and Mafias - same damn thing to me, end of the day.
-Frem
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