Since Napster we've had 9/11, the housing bust, and the bailout. People don't have as much discretionary funds to spend on content. Had you thought of that? Nope, you just jumped at a correlation that you could use to claim a causal link between the two. Yeah, facts are stubborn things.
That's an excellent analogy I hadn't realized. Piracy really does do the same thing a public library does, but it's over the internet. I'll remember that.
"So, there are two forces at work here, and both are holding back the dissemination of information. Publishers are reluctant to offer publication to scholars whose works (even in "draft" form) are available for free online. Tenure committees insist that only books are the "true" measure of scholarly competence. This handily places all of the power in publishers' hands."
They do this because they think having absolute control over a work equates to greater profits. And this false assumption is the source of their current dilemma.
At least in anarchy, you don't have to deal with coercive concepts like private property. The way it is now, corporations own everything under the sun, including us.
I was going to say the same thing. Why is being an anarchist a bad thing? They're just trying to wave the bloody shirt on him and turn mindless sheep against him. These morons must still think that anarchy is synonymous with chaos. It's not. Anarchy is merely the absence of coercive authority. That means that in an anarchistic society, there are no coercive forces imposed by humankind, just voluntary participation.
You would prefer that private banks pull money, that doesn't exist and backed by nothing, out of the ether and require you to pay it back and with interest that is also backed by nothing? Do you want your income constantly devalued in this way? The reason being that this is how they hide the reduction of your income without seeing any cuts on your paycheck. That's your alternative if you refuse a state bank. I don't know of any other non-profit, usury-free bank systems. If my other demands are met (i.e. upholding the 4th amendment), then what do you have to worry about in a state bank?
Income tax and health care:
Yes and no. State Funded, not state administered. It should be administered by a board of doctors. You forget that without the banks making money out of thin-air for profit, the government can create money out of thin-air for the public good. They have the exclusive power to create currency. If they create the money by using it to pay for essential infrastructure, in supplement to sales tax, they can expand the money supply when needed and pay for health care at the same time.
Campaign contributions:
Money is not speech no matter what the damn courts say, because those with more money would have more power of speech and in this country all citizens are to be given equal rights. Giving the rich the power to use money in order to expand their speech is a violation of equal rights. So no, contributions should be banned. You can still have a campaign with out monetary contributions from others. It's called "volunteer workers". You win your election by commanding the support of the people, not by the size of your wallet.
However, there are some monetary requirements that are beyond a single person's financial capacity, so all campaigns would require some kind of state stipend that is the same for every candidate and every penny must be accounted for to the distributing agency. Any negligent waste or abuse of funds will be met with an order to repay all issued funds effective upon notice and all authorized uses will be clearly explained to the candidate.
If you want to petition the government to not rezone the land your business is on, then I suggest you go door to door and ask your community to sign a petition if they feel they need your business to stay where it is. If you have established yourself as an essential member of your community, they should support you and going against the will of the community will not go well for the city council's re-election. You know, "grass-roots" politics? That's how it should be done. That's how the rest of us without gobs of cash on hand do it. Get it? Have the community tell them that they want you there and not the other thing. If they refuse to sign, then you're in no less trouble than those that lose their homes to eminent domain.
You have not lost any free speech by not being able to leverage money to further your political ideals. By removing money from politics, we've actually leveled the field for those that don't have the monetary power of a corporation so that the people's voice is superior to the corporations. The government serves the people, not fictional legal constructs. If a corporation can compel the community to support their petitions to the government, then so be it. But it's only by the will of the people that a corporation shall be granted the government's ear.
You're making the same bullshit argument the capitalist is making in the cartoon! He may own the machines, but the laborers made the products he sold so he could buy those machines.
So without the machines, the worker can only make a hypothetical $15 worth of products. However, there was a point where they didn't have those machines and the laborers made products without them. The capitalist used the money from those products to buy the machines, yet the labor made the products that made the money to pay for the machines. No matter how you try to twist it, the laborers are the ones that earned the money used to buy the machines. You're the one that isn't basing anything on reality.
The bottom line is, the capitalist paid for the machines with the labor value that his workers created, so the laborers are the ones that really paid for them. The capitalist didn't create any of the value, the workers did and he kept a big chunk for himself. Then, he used it to buy machines that increased the volume of products he could sell. So the capitalist made $15 on every product, paid a portion of that to the laborer, and kept the rest for profit and resources. Which he used to buy machines so that the laborer could produce $100 worth of product and pay him $25.
People don't terrorize without a reason and we are certainly not under siege. If you listen to this guy, we should believe that every terrorist is a cartoon exaggeration whom plots the destruction of the United States (maniacal laugh). He's a liar and a charlatan.
If I were a terrorist, I'd be quite pleased with myself for the fear and paranoia I have sewn amongst the citizens and government of the United State of America. Take a look at the state of our DoJ and congress. The terrorists have exactly what they want, people startled by shadows and whispers.
Who's saying that they should? I'm not. I'm just pointing out that the US isn't unique in their behavior. It's a cycle of empires that come and go. They rise up, earn the admiration of the rest of the world and then rots from the inside out. It's truly sad how we fail to learn from history and just repeat its mistakes.
No it doesn't. It makes perfect sense. It says that the wealth of capitalists is derived by skimming from the value generated by the laborers. No matter how far back you go, the wealthy became so because they exploited the labor.
So the capitalists own the the machines? They paid for it with the value generated by the laborers, not profit. Profit is a fiction.
Go back further. Where did they get the money to pay for the initial costs to start a business? Either they come from a family with money (i.e. They've been leveraging the lower class for generations) or they seek out a loan/investors (which is financed by the same people). Either way, the money that funds a business came from skimming from the value of labor.
To put it bluntly, everything that the capitalists own came from the labor of others. The capitalist is just another middleman skimming value by controlling the flow of goods between the workers and the consumers. They're not rich because they "earned" it. They're rich because they leveraged resources that were transformed into commodities by other people.
Without the labor, the capitalists would have nothing. Their contribution to the economy is private property ownership. They have influence on the economy because they own resources the rest of us need. They didn't create the resources, they already existed, but they control them. Since they control them, they can exploit people that need those resources.
Capitalists don't create economic wealth (i.e. all the resources and labor that possess economic utility), they make money. In short, a capitalist is nothing more than a resource exploiter. They simply exist to exploit that which they own.
"...not having government employees regulate industries they worked in would be difficult"
It might be difficult, but the alternative is a revolving door of corporate agents using regulatory capture to benefit their bosses for a cushy position and a huge pay raise after their term is up.
"Regarding banking, there are a lot of efforts to restore post great depression banking legislation that worked pretty well for over 40 years, until deregulation started in the late 70's and early 80's."
None of which dealt with the core problem: Fractional reserve and interest. That's the real problem. They can't cut labor wages directly to maintain profit because people would be upset. However, if you institutionalize the constant devaluation of their wages through inflation, it ensures that capitalists can continue to profit because it takes more wages to pay for fewer goods. In essence, inflation gives capitalists the ability to take a portion of the value labor creates and keep it as profit.
"I'd like to see huge swaths of the central government cut myself. As to any amendments to the constitution, it would be nearly impossible these days..."
Yes, it would be hard. But anything that should be done can't be deterred because it's hard. Revolting against England was hard, but it had to be done. If we had rolled over because it was hard, then we'd all be citizens of the United Kingdom.
Forget that. I don't want him punished. I want total and complete reparations for the damage that our government and their corporate paymasters have done to this nation.
I demand the 16th amendment repealed.
I demand the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Bank that it created DEMOLISHED.
I demand the government to be the sole agency permitted to create and issue currency. No fractional reserve.
I demand the Patriot Act be repealed and then made illegal by constitutional amendment.
I demand campaign contributions and corporate involvement in government be banned.
I demand all for-profit private banks to be closed and be replaced with non-profit state banks. Our money is not a commodity for rich people to leverage.
I demand corporate charters stripped back to their finite life spans (10 to 30 years) and restore their obligation to the stakeholders as a priority above the shareholder.
I demand government agencies to ban any private sector employee from taking office that regulates an industry they previously worked in (i.e. no revolving door for industry regulators and corporations).
I demand a single-payer health care system and an emphasis on preventative medicine so that the health care system isn't overburdened with cases that could have been prevented.
I demand the war on every ephemeral "enemy" of the people be yielded and refocus those resources into expanding lagging infrastructure (e.g. sustainable energy, internet, transportation, pollution control, housing, education)
I demand the complete and total repeal of the copyright act in whole. The internet does a far better job of promoting the progress than what copyright continually fails at doing.
Most of all, I demand the bill of rights be restored as the most sacred rights in this nation. The 1st, 4th, and 8th amendment especially. It should be the highest priority to prevent the conviction of innocent citizens. Convicting an innocent citizen is a higher crime than letting a guilty one go free. Capitol punishment should be deemed illegal by the 8th amendment for reason previously stated. Innocent would be at risk of being executed.
This is want I expect the government to do to atone for the damage they've done. Then, they can all hit the unemployment line so we can elect (by popular vote, no fucking electoral college) new government officers to actually represent us. They will maintain a constant dialog with their constituents by social networks set up by the government. Any citizen should be able to offer comment to their representative at any time and have it discussed by other constituents and reviewed by the representative. Accountability will be ensured by constant contact with the citizenry. No gate keepers at the phone, just open forum discussion.
Then, I might start feeling better about this nation and its government. I'd feel even better if "I" became "we the people."
The worst I get from the corporations is ads for penis pills or some other narcissism-feeding product.
What I can hope to expect from the government is to have some thug on a power trip jam a rifle in my asshole for some sarcastic comment I made, all to stop the "terrorists". There are no fucking terrorists except the ones wearing badges.
I'll take care of my own fucking security from terrorists thank-you-very-fucking-much. The government should be stopping everyone else from trying to infringe on my civil rights instead of violating them to make the security job easier. Any organization that tries to provide both security and liberty will fail at both. Security is the application of coercion and liberty is the absence of coercion. They are mutually exclusive.
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re: Re: Re: NEED clarification
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re: Re: Re: NEED clarification
On the post: Author Claims That 'Fair Use Is Theft By Any Other Name'
Re: Re:
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re: NEED clarification
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re: Facts are stubborn things
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re:
On the post: Writer of 'Daredevil' Comics: Equating Piracy With Lost Sales Is 'Baloney'
Re: Digital libraries
On the post: American Historical Association Says Scholars Should Lock Up Their Dissertations For Up To Six Years
Re:
On the post: American Historical Association Says Scholars Should Lock Up Their Dissertations For Up To Six Years
They do this because they think having absolute control over a work equates to greater profits. And this false assumption is the source of their current dilemma.
On the post: Government Argues Bradley Manning Was An Anarchist, As Case Closes
Re: aiding the enemy
On the post: Government Argues Bradley Manning Was An Anarchist, As Case Closes
Re: So What?
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Re: Re:
You would prefer that private banks pull money, that doesn't exist and backed by nothing, out of the ether and require you to pay it back and with interest that is also backed by nothing? Do you want your income constantly devalued in this way? The reason being that this is how they hide the reduction of your income without seeing any cuts on your paycheck. That's your alternative if you refuse a state bank. I don't know of any other non-profit, usury-free bank systems. If my other demands are met (i.e. upholding the 4th amendment), then what do you have to worry about in a state bank?
Income tax and health care:
Yes and no. State Funded, not state administered. It should be administered by a board of doctors. You forget that without the banks making money out of thin-air for profit, the government can create money out of thin-air for the public good. They have the exclusive power to create currency. If they create the money by using it to pay for essential infrastructure, in supplement to sales tax, they can expand the money supply when needed and pay for health care at the same time.
Campaign contributions:
Money is not speech no matter what the damn courts say, because those with more money would have more power of speech and in this country all citizens are to be given equal rights. Giving the rich the power to use money in order to expand their speech is a violation of equal rights. So no, contributions should be banned. You can still have a campaign with out monetary contributions from others. It's called "volunteer workers". You win your election by commanding the support of the people, not by the size of your wallet.
However, there are some monetary requirements that are beyond a single person's financial capacity, so all campaigns would require some kind of state stipend that is the same for every candidate and every penny must be accounted for to the distributing agency. Any negligent waste or abuse of funds will be met with an order to repay all issued funds effective upon notice and all authorized uses will be clearly explained to the candidate.
If you want to petition the government to not rezone the land your business is on, then I suggest you go door to door and ask your community to sign a petition if they feel they need your business to stay where it is. If you have established yourself as an essential member of your community, they should support you and going against the will of the community will not go well for the city council's re-election. You know, "grass-roots" politics? That's how it should be done. That's how the rest of us without gobs of cash on hand do it. Get it? Have the community tell them that they want you there and not the other thing. If they refuse to sign, then you're in no less trouble than those that lose their homes to eminent domain.
You have not lost any free speech by not being able to leverage money to further your political ideals. By removing money from politics, we've actually leveled the field for those that don't have the monetary power of a corporation so that the people's voice is superior to the corporations. The government serves the people, not fictional legal constructs. If a corporation can compel the community to support their petitions to the government, then so be it. But it's only by the will of the people that a corporation shall be granted the government's ear.
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmmm...
So without the machines, the worker can only make a hypothetical $15 worth of products. However, there was a point where they didn't have those machines and the laborers made products without them. The capitalist used the money from those products to buy the machines, yet the labor made the products that made the money to pay for the machines. No matter how you try to twist it, the laborers are the ones that earned the money used to buy the machines. You're the one that isn't basing anything on reality.
The bottom line is, the capitalist paid for the machines with the labor value that his workers created, so the laborers are the ones that really paid for them. The capitalist didn't create any of the value, the workers did and he kept a big chunk for himself. Then, he used it to buy machines that increased the volume of products he could sell. So the capitalist made $15 on every product, paid a portion of that to the laborer, and kept the rest for profit and resources. Which he used to buy machines so that the laborer could produce $100 worth of product and pay him $25.
My narrative is correct, yours is not.
On the post: Why Does Rep. Mike Rogers Always Mock The Internet And Its Users?
Under siege?
If I were a terrorist, I'd be quite pleased with myself for the fear and paranoia I have sewn amongst the citizens and government of the United State of America. Take a look at the state of our DoJ and congress. The terrorists have exactly what they want, people startled by shadows and whispers.
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmmm...
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmmm...
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Re: Re: Hmmm...
So the capitalists own the the machines? They paid for it with the value generated by the laborers, not profit. Profit is a fiction.
Go back further. Where did they get the money to pay for the initial costs to start a business? Either they come from a family with money (i.e. They've been leveraging the lower class for generations) or they seek out a loan/investors (which is financed by the same people). Either way, the money that funds a business came from skimming from the value of labor.
To put it bluntly, everything that the capitalists own came from the labor of others. The capitalist is just another middleman skimming value by controlling the flow of goods between the workers and the consumers. They're not rich because they "earned" it. They're rich because they leveraged resources that were transformed into commodities by other people.
Without the labor, the capitalists would have nothing. Their contribution to the economy is private property ownership. They have influence on the economy because they own resources the rest of us need. They didn't create the resources, they already existed, but they control them. Since they control them, they can exploit people that need those resources.
Capitalists don't create economic wealth (i.e. all the resources and labor that possess economic utility), they make money. In short, a capitalist is nothing more than a resource exploiter. They simply exist to exploit that which they own.
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re: Hmmm...
It might be difficult, but the alternative is a revolving door of corporate agents using regulatory capture to benefit their bosses for a cushy position and a huge pay raise after their term is up.
"Regarding banking, there are a lot of efforts to restore post great depression banking legislation that worked pretty well for over 40 years, until deregulation started in the late 70's and early 80's."
None of which dealt with the core problem: Fractional reserve and interest. That's the real problem. They can't cut labor wages directly to maintain profit because people would be upset. However, if you institutionalize the constant devaluation of their wages through inflation, it ensures that capitalists can continue to profit because it takes more wages to pay for fewer goods. In essence, inflation gives capitalists the ability to take a portion of the value labor creates and keep it as profit.
This comic strip says it all:
https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lteibwweWC1qdc32wo1_500.png
"I'd like to see huge swaths of the central government cut myself. As to any amendments to the constitution, it would be nearly impossible these days..."
Yes, it would be hard. But anything that should be done can't be deterred because it's hard. Revolting against England was hard, but it had to be done. If we had rolled over because it was hard, then we'd all be citizens of the United Kingdom.
On the post: Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process
Re:
I demand the 16th amendment repealed.
I demand the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Bank that it created DEMOLISHED.
I demand the government to be the sole agency permitted to create and issue currency. No fractional reserve.
I demand the Patriot Act be repealed and then made illegal by constitutional amendment.
I demand campaign contributions and corporate involvement in government be banned.
I demand all for-profit private banks to be closed and be replaced with non-profit state banks. Our money is not a commodity for rich people to leverage.
I demand corporate charters stripped back to their finite life spans (10 to 30 years) and restore their obligation to the stakeholders as a priority above the shareholder.
I demand government agencies to ban any private sector employee from taking office that regulates an industry they previously worked in (i.e. no revolving door for industry regulators and corporations).
I demand a single-payer health care system and an emphasis on preventative medicine so that the health care system isn't overburdened with cases that could have been prevented.
I demand the war on every ephemeral "enemy" of the people be yielded and refocus those resources into expanding lagging infrastructure (e.g. sustainable energy, internet, transportation, pollution control, housing, education)
I demand the complete and total repeal of the copyright act in whole. The internet does a far better job of promoting the progress than what copyright continually fails at doing.
Most of all, I demand the bill of rights be restored as the most sacred rights in this nation. The 1st, 4th, and 8th amendment especially. It should be the highest priority to prevent the conviction of innocent citizens. Convicting an innocent citizen is a higher crime than letting a guilty one go free. Capitol punishment should be deemed illegal by the 8th amendment for reason previously stated. Innocent would be at risk of being executed.
This is want I expect the government to do to atone for the damage they've done. Then, they can all hit the unemployment line so we can elect (by popular vote, no fucking electoral college) new government officers to actually represent us. They will maintain a constant dialog with their constituents by social networks set up by the government. Any citizen should be able to offer comment to their representative at any time and have it discussed by other constituents and reviewed by the representative. Accountability will be ensured by constant contact with the citizenry. No gate keepers at the phone, just open forum discussion.
Then, I might start feeling better about this nation and its government. I'd feel even better if "I" became "we the people."
On the post: National Intelligence Lawyer Wonders Why People Are Fine With Sharing Data On Facebook But Not With The Government
Why don't I want the government having my data?
The worst I get from the corporations is ads for penis pills or some other narcissism-feeding product.
What I can hope to expect from the government is to have some thug on a power trip jam a rifle in my asshole for some sarcastic comment I made, all to stop the "terrorists". There are no fucking terrorists except the ones wearing badges.
I'll take care of my own fucking security from terrorists thank-you-very-fucking-much. The government should be stopping everyone else from trying to infringe on my civil rights instead of violating them to make the security job easier. Any organization that tries to provide both security and liberty will fail at both. Security is the application of coercion and liberty is the absence of coercion. They are mutually exclusive.
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