We basically agree. I am totally disillusioned with free market capitalism and do believe the very structure is always corrupting if not evil.

I like social democracy best. I do think the chaos and bloodletting can at least be minimized if there is a plan and a movement to get into place asap.

I just sent you a friend request as TalkingStick on the FDL facebook. If you go to “my account” by hitting it on the top bar and hit my profile from the menu that comes down. You should be taken to a page with a section lower right called toolbox and there is a menu to find people. It will take you to the member directory put the user name you are seeking in the search box and when it comes up there is a button to request friend. Good luck.

Special note to my Mr or Ms FBI person who reads blogs and anyone else……Re my #137 post, I mean to say I hope the inevitable revolution will be well planned and political and bloodless. I oppose violence in any cause.

I don’t do the FaceBook part of here except the occasional diary. Email me at TalkingStick….at….windstream…..net and I will send you my real name and how to hook up with the account I use. (You know how to convert what I put up to a regular email address I am sure.)

Did I say I want to regulate capitalism? Hell no. I want to get rid of it or make it so small you can drown it in a bathtub. But you have to have something ready to replace it with. And I would like to see some plans to revolution, hopefully bloodless.

I think there is a spectrum of alternatives. It is not just Friedman Capitalism or Stalinist Communism.

Yes the states are really the labs for just how extreme they can get. Unopposed they will eventually fall from eating themselves but not before eating us. We have to be planning for ways to grasp the opportunity to put them down politically when it comes and know what to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution will not be an intellectual exercise.

Yes and one begun from decay and corruption will not be bloodless. However we better be ready to govern ourselves but we also need some executives with executive smarts…. Of course I do not think it is hopeless to erode and replace the oligarchy we have now relatively bloodlessly but there must be a cohesive plan for governing and its implementation. That was the source of the success of what we have now and on a positive note, the plan and also the 1776 Revolution. They had a plan.

I am disturbed by this apparent acceptance of breaking up the nation into small locally operated cooperatives townships. There is no better way to virtually completely disempower the people to have any control or impact on all but the small parochial needs for living. Can you imagine a community sustained on its local river and community garden providing more than 19th century country doc medical care? Or having any capacity to protect the quality of the water in the river from upstream septic tanks? Can you imagine how much power small state would have over the next door state that is putting climate poisons into the atmosphere? We simply must have a national government to provide not only uniformity of laws but a system of shared resources. And even if it just a loose arrangement with some services at a federal level don’t you believe for a New York minute the moneyed national power brokers care for small town Alabama’s needs.

I live in a state with over 100 tiny counties and one big city. Of course it is Republican dominated and big into nullification and states rights etc. I know what it is to have one unapologetic broadband service part of the time that won’t upgrade because there is no competition and most of the regulations are local and 10% sales taxes and bad roads and miles to medical care. It looks like paradise but it is not.

We have a system of government that encourages private predatory looting. It is not just “capitalism.” (And there are many ways structure government possible it is not just a choice between communism and capitalism.

I resent the implication that recognizing this brings enfeebling apathy. It can and must be changed. I resent the implication that examining the limitations of small enterprises and poltical units is negativism.

Ah made it back. Of course an economic system can be changed or replaced. That’s how we got this current system which is operationally fascist. Klein in Shock Doctrine describes (and I watched it) in detail how this radical libertarianism, neoliberalism or neoconservatism was designed and the detailed plans for implementation developed. She focuses on shock but I personally see that can just be taking the opportunity when it arises.

I respectfully see addressing the national politics as doing as doing something. And I am not intending to suggest that we shouldn’t experiment with your wonderful ideas. In fact I live in a small parochial rural community that does do some of those things.

I am all for lots of experimentation as to ownership models but it is critical that we strengthen our central government not only to provide rules enforcement but the uniformity of services and opportunities.

I respectfully suggest your model of small states collaborating just isn’t feasible in this otherwise connected world.

Yes we can experiment at state and city county levels. And your ideas are truly wonderful. But likely successfully in only a few in that the GOP is more strongly entrenched and radical in the majority state governments than even in Washington. Imagine some of these worker co-ops in Wisconsin, Florida, Kansas the entire deep south and most of the west to the coastal states.

I have to go. Thanks so much for your cordiality. I look forward to reading the book and will return later tonight to read the other comments.

Thanks you have so quickly put into words the concern I have been trying to express. :-)

The elephant in the room is a corrupt plundering moneyed business that controls the governing process. IMO that has to change as well.

I am sorry I have not read the book. But getting it into a short few sentences would help.

“Ownership forms” sounds awfully like “ownership society,” more privatization and more neoliberalism. :-) How is that different? A small co-op is as vulnerable to predatory practices of business as an individual. Personally I think we need to regain public land and public services.

I know we do need a cohesive philosophy and doctrine that can be easily stated and understood on the ready for when opportunity arises. And the people to know how to act. Sort of a shadow government structure.

Do you have an elevator description you could share?

Do you see any indication of such being developed? I have to say I don’t.

Thanks for coming. So good to see people thinking and writing on this subject. But I think we have far to go. So far what i have seen for some 40 yr from liberal intellectuals is a lot of whining elitist language. This is accompanied by a strange reluctance to embrace or recruit the necessary populist base, labor and the ordinary people.

IMO it will not happen spontaneously as a result of disenchanted voters purely at the ballot box. I think now is a period of vulnerability of the credibility of neo-liberalism.

What hope do you have that we are on the way?

Re-reading Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine. It leaves me feeling helpless. The neoliberals have created a priesthood which endows only the clergy with the keys to the mysteries of what they call “the science of economics.” Whole nations and governments are seduced into turning over their assets including their souls and those of the people to these technocrats who have no souls.

Moving beyond helplessness it seems obvious to me we need to develop our own clear and cohesive “shock”doctrine to be held at the ready to seize the moment with a detailed pre-plan for implementation.

I couldn’t agree more with you assessment for what passes for liberal “intellectuals.” It is going to take a populist labor and peasant revolution, hopefully non-violent.

We too often try to relate to them and reason with them as they are normally endowed humans. They are not. Their souls have become calloused. I don’t know an effective way to try to deal with them, perhaps shaming them based on their value systems.

Masaccio. Keep on trucking. You give solace and energy and as well the language for the rest of us to keep trying also.

From the mouth of Goddess: Only take seriously the parts you like. :-)

The intellectuals must first heal their class. They tend to pursue acceptance and uniformity within their group. Impressive language is a higher value than content. Many also have the disturbing trait of fear and avoidance of sentimentality. They, and don’t we all, need therapy to understand and learn how to use their feelings.