<The Myth of Election Year Price Manipulation The Oil Drum DrumBeat: October 9, 2008>

111 comments on How Much Nationalization Is Appropriate?

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NeverLNG on October 8, 2008 - 11:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Because people have been trained that way. Collective action is the only chance for survival for a species as physically weak as human beings. But the drive for individual survival (which is abetted by the power of hydrocarbon energy) has allowed "the leadership" to proclaim, for a few years that anything other than individual aggrandizement is "wrong." Those people have mis-appropriated a perfectly good word "socialism" and converted it into a punching bag for their own sinister purposes.

Why do Americans keep insisting that any sort of collective social action is commmunism? Because Rush Limbaugh told them so.

Why do they keep listening to that creep? That is a question I would like answered.

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dtbks on October 8, 2008 - 12:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'll tell you what question boggles my mind NeverLNG: Let's forget about banks and stuff like that for a minute and take a commodity like, say, water. How is it possible that collectively, people would allow water to be "owned" by a single person, and then pay money to that person in order to have access to that self-same water? Why would anyone allow water to be controlled by a corporation whose sole purpose is to make a profit? That boggles my mind completely.

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NeverLNG on October 8, 2008 - 1:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think "the people" don't allow it in the sense that they "vote" for it. Because of a corrupt system, they elect "leaders" who pass laws making common resources (The Columbia River, say) into a commodity that they can buy and sell -- and they (those "leaders") sell the River to the highest bidder-- and the bidders are all working with each other in a rigged auction.

Then the people, who didn't really get the money anyway, have to buy it back.

The system is so well tested and perfected -- English "inclosure laws" were very effective, and it the pirates' techniques have improved greatly since then. Maude Barlow: The Growing Battle for the Right to Water

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Autodidact on October 8, 2008 - 11:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Don't know where you live, dtbks, but here in the arid west water is a scarce commodity and the rights to it are defended to the death. AFAIK, we can't even collect rainwater in a barrel because that water has already been claimed. Talk about mind-boggling.....

http://www.blm.gov/nstc/WaterLaws/colorado.html

http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/7/the-cistern-conundrum_397.cfm

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Dragonfly41 on October 8, 2008 - 12:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

"Why do they keep listening to that creep? That is a question I would like answered."

Because people have lost the will to search for their own answers. There is so much information and misinformation out there making it very difficult to research your own answers. It is much easier to just listen to a so-called "expert" who has culled the data for you and boiled it down into easily digested info bits. This is particulary the case with older folks that are not so comfortable with the internet.

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lengould on October 9, 2008 - 1:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The real problem is that people willing and able to provide honest and true answers would never think of ever doing the sort of self-promoting publicity-seeking stuff the Limbaugh types do in order to hold onto their power bases.

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Petrus on October 8, 2008 - 3:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Collective action is the only chance for survival for a species as physically weak as human beings.

Are you sure? How about a crowd collective stampede over the cliff?

For the survival to have some chance, the action has to be:
1. Sane organized by sane people, OR
2. Voluntary so that the sane people can opt out.

I want to opt out from the Privatization plan. Tell me how!

Obviously, voluntary organized collective suicide is deadly for some madmen, but mandated organized collective suidice is deadly even for the sane.

Those people have mis-appropriated a perfectly good word "socialism" and converted it into a punching bag for their own sinister purposes.

No matter what word you like for it, the concept mandatory government stealing wealth redistribution is as destructive as stealing.

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111 comments on How Much Nationalization Is Appropriate?

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