Moore: If There's No Revolution, I Quit

Attempting to propose a solution is always troublesome. Marx's criticism of capitalism was astute and accurate. His solution, on the other hand, was flawed for many of the same reasons. Ultimately a handful of people will always accumlate power, and take actions for their own benefit, to the detriment of everyone else. Thus it has always been, and thus it will always be.

If corporations are buying influence in government, it is usually to keep that government from implementing real regulation or restrictions. Although I agree that the fact that so many of our politiains are, essentally, owned by corporate interests, making government smaller just accomplishes the sames ends for corporations, without the effort or money. In other words, you will be fueling the problem, not solving it. There is no way that any small government can successfully counter the unfair advantages and abuses of mega-corporations. The very idea is simply illogical. How to reduce the influence of money is the problem, and sadly not one for which I have a solution.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism. The problem is that corporate behavior is inimical to democratic processes. The corporate buzz machine has reduced democracy to mean the mere presence of an electoral process. You can cast a ballot in an election, therefore you're free. Everything else in the Bill of Rights, you're going to have to pay through the nose to get. The more money you have, the freer you'll be.
If we are to have a democracy as planned by the Founding Fathers, we will need to eliminate corporations.

Capitalist really is dreaming, dreaming of the grand illusion of a free market, one where the lowly consumer actually gets a moderate amount of say in what happens. There is not, and never really will be any such thing as a free market outside of economics textbooks. Corporations manipulate markets even more than government, and without government to interfere at all, corporations will just manipulate the markets until we just have one or two that dominate everything, and we will be even more slaves than we are now. Look at what happened to the media market once government removed the control to prevent mega-mergers. Imagine that for everything. To me, that is a nightmare.

I agree that the FIRST thing that needs to be done is to regulate campaign finance in order to get rid of crooked politicians, and the SECOND thing is to repeal corporate law in order to make business owners accountable for the actions of their companies. But that still leaves in place the potential for fabulously wealthy individuals to buy government policy. This is true in ANY form of centralized politics, whether it be capitalism, communism, tribalism, or whatever.

The only potential solution is direct democracy, but as philosophers have known for thousands of years, the capacity of that system to work relies on the intellegence of the average citizen, which in many countries, including the US, isn't very good.

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People are still throwing out the labels of "Socialism", "Communism" and "Capitalism" like they know what they are talking about. So called socialist Europeans cracking the shits over how evil US capitalism is, while the US rednecks fear 'Communism' more than having a black family living next door. What's true for both is that they will rather disagree with someone solely based on the other persons party affiliation than try and meet mid-way and work out a solution.

It's easy to veto a proposal, but it's much, much harder to come up with a working solution, and with US politicians and media people crying like little girls, throwing the toys out of the pram instead of having a proper conversation, it's going to be a long time until there are any improvements for the people that really matters, the ones without a voice and health care.

Instead of throwing around labels like 'Commie' and 'Socialist', why not just try and come up with a proposal that will make sure as many people as possible can live a decent life? Compassion is neither communist nor capitalist....

What ever happened to the discussion? It seems the question of systems is so boring and alienating, as if capitalism is boring and always unjust. In truth capitalism has been made scientifically knowable by Marx in which he describes the three knowable parts of capitalism as 1) constant capital, the machinery of production, 2) variable capital, the varying working class, and 3) surplus value the third part of capital, which is the amount kept by the capitalist from the socially necessary laborer's added value each and every day of the week, over and above the rate of pay that the capitalist allows the worker for food, clothing and shelter--for a living wage.

In socialism, the workers take over the means of production, and socialize the means of production to the community, and lastly to the capitlaist share holder who gets last claim on the value added per year. First the workers get their claim of the value of socially added necessary labour, then secondly the community gets its share, then the capitalist and shareholders as such. In this sense socialism is a reverse of process from capitalist relations. Workers first, community second, and the capitalist last. That each worker knows the material truth that if everyone works, poverty ends. That ends the boom, bust capitalist cycle which was caused by inequitable distribution of the wealth into fewer and fewer hands. The socialist prospect is rather exciting for the majority which is the workers in each and every country of the world. It is the reason Peoples China is gaining strength, while the capitalist countries are enriching themselves at the public taxpayers expense, while the workers are foreclosed and living in tent cities without genuine medicare. No laughing matter. America needs to reverse the process and bail the working people out, instead of the trillionaire banks and private insurance companies and their militaries, who caused the crisis in the first place. No end of crisis that way.

Means of destruction is not means of production. The militaries of the Imperialist bosses are in fact perpetuating a system in decay, and needing change to enlightened state craft. That is the way forward. There is nothing enlightening about the U.S.A. and its Fort Benning Georgia, promoting Coup-d'-etats, with fourth fleet revisals around Latin America, and seven new Military bases available to U.S. special forces troops in Columbia, not to mention the U.S. Military base in Honduras which the enlightened President Zelaya wanted to cancel, and get out of U.S. sponsored Hegomony throughout the hemisphere by joining ALBA, the Bolivarian alternative. Empire building is a failed practice anyway you look at it, and all empires fall because they persist in doing evil and unjust things. Marx favours the means of production, and socialism because it solves the crisis of capitalism and thereby ends the oppression of permanent wars and pollution, gender discrimination, poverty and unemployment. All Pentagon BS propaganda aside, the path to liberation is flowing as a way forward by dismantling the war machine and its manufactury. It is not other, because the war machine besides being a misery to the living world, does not produce, but it does destroy the living ecological green power balance and does hold pollution in place, which causes another crisis that is capitalist in origin.

Bush failed because he freed the war machine with the publics tax payer money, and lied to and killed the people, plants, and animals, thereby excellerating the discontinuity of the web of life we all need to stay alive. In the commonwealth election, a majority and a correct programme is necessary. Bush had neither and so failed that mission totally. Well then lets admit the truth, that socialism is the next system to capitalism, and does more for the harmony and joy of the living world then polluting captialism and its destructive wars for the few, and misery for the many.. End pollution wars, not permanent wars for more pollution. Viva socialist liberation. Re-tool to wind, tidal, and solar power proven non-pollution solutions---electricity.

I guess the point michael is trying to make is that you can debate all you want but money is power, and power, in my opinion, in the hands of either capitalism or socialism does not resolve anything. I do not feel that there is a need for a complete overhaul of our health care system. All we need is the sincerity of cutting down profits and making sure that insurance cannot be denied due to pre-existing conditions. There are several ways by which we can cut the cost for doctors. Therefore, reducing the heavy bills. Also, there are many ways that we can insure health care for the part of the population that cannot afford it. But then again, as long as the money is in sight, these changes will not take place. Hence, Michael's opinion of waging war against Wallstreet. We need a culture reform and learn to get to know our neighbours. This money making has made us so selfish and self-centered. But i do believe there is hope!

Moore is absolutely right about getting the money out of politics. So long as our elected officials can be bought and paid for by corporate money we will never have a true democracy. Election campaigns should be financed only with public money and the Fairness Doctrine should be reintroduced and strictly enforced. Ownership of media should be regulated and broadcast licenses should be revoked when the Fairness Doctrine is not practiced. Most of the public has already forgotten that broadcasting on public airwaves is supposed to be licensed and not owned. If we never allow the public to hear the truth now and then they will continue to be ignorant and have a stunted thought process.
The spin doctors have led us to believe that there are only to types of economic systems and we must chose between plan A or plan B. Actually there are many types of changes that could be make that lie between these two extremes not to mention other intriguing ideas like Proutism that was first conceived by P. R. Sarkar. In the end the choice will be ours rather than Michael Moore's, therefore it is unjust to criticize him for not being more specific. We have become so accustomed to having MSM tell us how think that we have forgotten how to do it ourselves. I do take issue with Michael Moore for implying that our system is Capitalism. We are actually more like monopolism or some type of Fascism. There is no free wheeling market place. We have few choices as consumers, workers, parents, seekers, or voters. We are living like mindless drones enriching soulless greedy entities. It is worse than Orwell envisioned. Just about anything would be better than what we have.