People Power

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Originally Posted by ioan

Go back 3 pages and read again, and let's hope that 3 pages later you will not get back to the same point where you are now.

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I don't need to go back 3 pages. Your last post stated that you wanted government to level things out. How do you propose that works?

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

In mainstream politics, I said — i.e. within the mainstream parties in the world of elected politics. I would have thought this was clear.

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But your veiled reference to the T.E.A. Party (ie right-wing nutcases) means that you think they are somehow "mainstream", yet OWS is not. Why is that? What is stopping a left-leaning type of T.E.A. party if OWS is not it.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

This is basically what the T.E.A. party is about, demanding something better from our politicians, holding them accountable, etc. There is enough weight behind the T.E.A. party that if they chose to they could start a fairly viable 3rd party. But they seem to have chosen to try to change the Republican Party from the inside. Same with the OWS people. There are probably enough of them that if they really wanted to they could start a 3rd party.

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That's what I am mostly afraid of, the weight behind the political parties is nowadays corporations who are rubbing their hands at the thought of shiny new laws tailor made to suit them.

You'd need to put some filthy rich, smart and altruist people in charge to make it 100% sure that the laws will be changed for good and enforced. Very difficult task.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

But your veiled reference to the T.E.A. Party (ie right-wing nutcases) means that you think they are somehow "mainstream", yet OWS is not. Why is that? What is stopping a left-leaning type of T.E.A. party if OWS is not it.

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I see almost no similarities at all. The TEA Party is, no matter how much you may wish to portray it as being an independent, non-partisan organisation, very specifically affiliated with one particular political party. This is simply not the case with the Occupy movements.

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Originally Posted by ioan

That's what I am mostly afraid of, the weight behind the political parties is nowadays corporations who are rubbing their hands at the thought of shiny new laws tailor made to suit them.

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Do we think that a TEA Party government in the USA would be heroically independent of big business? I thought not.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

No, a thousand times no.

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Right, so how are economic inequalities that can result in poverty, a lack of education and poor health (all of which affect an individual's ability to fulfill their potential) any different?

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Originally Posted by chuck34

I don't need to go back 3 pages. Your last post stated that you wanted government to level things out. How do you propose that works?

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I think I posted the answer a few pages back.
Taxes need to be equal and enforced, no more loopholes, no more offshore business and similar crap. All we need is some politicians who want to make it work, and this is where the difficult part starts.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

What is wrong with the voting population demading a change at the ballot box?

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Who do you vote for that will make any difference whatsoever? It's worse in the United States because you've voluntarily shouted out the left (largely as a result of McCarthyism) and now have no plurality of voices. You're given a choice of almost identical nitwits, both of which have proven that they're incapable of running the country and an entire economic system that's perfectly fine with that.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Do we think that a TEA Party government in the USA would be heroically independent of big business? I thought not.

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There is no party out there that isn't backed by someone, after all it's not like they can pay hundreds of millions needed for their electoral campaigns from their own pockets.
Heck even the Chinese Communist Party works on the same model nowadays.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Do you not believe in taking personal responsibility? If you do, you should also feel that these corporations should take responsibility for their failure to pay as much as they should, and do the decent thing.

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Corporations will not take responsibility for their failure to pay as much as they should because of two main reasons:
1. Self-Interest - Adam Smith noted that every entity in economics acts for their own self-interest; in the case of a corporation that means turning a profit.
2. Genovese Syndrome - Otherwise called the "bystander effect". Collectively it operates with corporations in the same way as it does for individuals who not not offer help to a victim in an emergency when other people are present.

Taken together, if society becomes more uneven, it has a tendency to remain that way unless acted on by a major social or calamitous event. Basically, because a Corporation is a non-corporeal entity, it has no conscience and therefore acts as such. Also, I think it's kind of obvious that people generally are losing any sense of moral compass they once had for a number of reasons.

Society itself is become fuller of crud and the institutions like governments and corporations which it appoints are also becoming fuller of crud.