Members of "an idea" have declared war against us.

[Doug1943]

Aktually, Marx and Engels wrote that even then, in XIX century, humanity could solve many problems. But capitalism gets in the way.
In the 500 years of its existence, capitalism has not solved the problem of hunger, nor the problem of inhuman exploitation, including slavery, nor the problem of wars. Regarding wars, capitalism has brought the world to the brink of destruction, as the achievements of science are put primarily in the service of militarism.
And there is nothing capitalism can do about it, for its raison d'être is profit at all costs.

Yes, slavery was a problem, abolished in the capitalist West in the 19th Century. Marx and Engels enthusiastically supported the capitalist North against the slavocracy South.

Capitalism has long ago solved the problem of hunger --( I'm assuming you're talking about mass starvation, not somebody'd longing for a good old Mc Donalds.) Where there is starvation, it's not because of capitalism but because of the governments concerned: either deeply corrupt, or at war with another tribe, or ... implementing socialism, as in the Ukrainian mass starvation orchestrated by Stalin, or the Chinese starvation during Mao's 'Great Leap Forward'.

As for war, yes, there is nothing about capitalism that makes it immune from the age-old human impulse to solve problems by waging war.

Actually, it's not the capitalists themselves who are especially war-like. (A poignant anecdote from Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, about the start of WWI: a Manchester businessman, horrified at the British move towards war, who complained, "Don't they know that when they kills a German, they kills a customer?")

But capitalist society, like socialist society, has a state. And the people who run this state make the decisions about war and peace.

Lenin thought that WWI was about imperialism's need to get colonies, driven by the falling rate of profit domestically. But in reality, WWI was stumbled into, not driven rationally. And Hitler didn't care about getting markets ... he wanted to avenge German defeat in WWI, and have Germany take its righful place (as he saw it) as master of Europe. His capitalists had to take orders from him, not the other way around.

And when the Soviet Union and China fought each other ... was that the capitalists' fault? Or when China invaded Vietnam in 1979. Capitalism?

The kernel of truth in what you're saying is this: capitalism is based on self-interest, not altruism. And wars are caused by governments pursuing what they see as their self-interest. But the drive to pursue self-interest is not specific to capitalism -- it's the necessary result of grim Darwinian evolution: those of our potential ancestors who did not pursue their self-interest successfully, didn't become our ancestors and didn't pass on those niceness genes to us.

The rise of capitalism coincided with the Enlightenment, and the rise of rational thinking. Rational thinking lets us pursue our self-interest in ways that can avoid war. But it's still pretty rare at the top, in governments, because governments are not dominated by the profit motive: they can just tax you.

A capitalist has to satisfy his customers by making things they will buy. A government, in the democratic countries, just has to win elections, or appear to.

And in the competition between nation-states, force is the ultimate determiner of who wins. Because this has had such catastrophic outcomes, the big capitalists and the politicians influenced by them seek ways to eliminate wars -- thus things like the World Economic Forum, the UN, international treaties, cultural exchanges.

Unfortunately, these haven't been able to prevent our move towards war. If the US goes to war with China, and/or with Russia, it won't be because of the capitalists on either side: it will be the fault of the stupid politicians.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxNH8MECM2KcABiKsRRwReoun2RACbpsyT

ANDY NGO REPORTS: Former Texas mayoral candidate revealed to be Antifa member who suggests terrorist attacks

“The media wants to call ANTIFA ‘terrorists?’” Dethrow wrote. “I’m not quite sure we shouldn’t just prove them right. History has proven there is only one way to rid the world of Nazis.”

thepostmillennial.com

Queen Antifas minions get more and more looney with each passing day. ANTURDS should have been declared enemies of the state decades ago, and shipped to Chile with some fuel so that Pinochet could deal with them. We ought to be outsourcing some of these jobs because they need to be done if the country is going to survive.

 

[Moonglow]

And ?
We all know that .
But what is your point or next analysis and forecast ?

Because if the next step is for "them" to quality control air , water , food and where you live, then you have a different order of control .
Add in population numbers control and you would be in appalling trouble if you did not see it all creeping up , and / or pretended it would go away if you complained on Fakebook , or here.?
Now , finally add in censorship and fear reinforcement through created illness / vaccine killer shots, weather manipulation etc

Then what do you have?
February 2023 exactly .

I doubt they could ever control the air we breathe, you've been watching too much Stephan King.

 

[Moonglow]

Yes, slavery was a problem, abolished in the capitalist West in the 19th Century. Marx and Engels enthusiastically supported the capitalist North against the slavocracy South.

Capitalism has long ago solved the problem of hunger --( I'm assuming you're talking about mass starvation, not somebody'd longing for a good old Mc Donalds.) Where there is starvation, it's not because of capitalism but because of the governments concerned: either deeply corrupt, or at war with another tribe, or ... implementing socialism, as in the Ukrainian mass starvation orchestrated by Stalin, or the Chinese starvation during Mao's 'Great Leap Forward'.

As for war, yes, there is nothing about capitalism that makes it immune from the age-old human impulse to solve problems by waging war.

Actually, it's not the capitalists themselves who are especially war-like. (A poignant anecdote from Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, about the start of WWI: a Manchester businessman, horrified at the British move towards war, who complained, "Don't they know that when they kills a German, they kills a customer?")

But capitalist society, like socialist society, has a state. And the people who run this state make the decisions about war and peace.

Lenin thought that WWI was about imperialism's need to get colonies, driven by the falling rate of profit domestically. But in reality, WWI was stumbled into, not driven rationally. And Hitler didn't care about getting markets ... he wanted to avenge German defeat in WWI, and have Germany take its righful place (as he saw it) as master of Europe. His capitalists had to take orders from him, not the other way around.

And when the Soviet Union and China fought each other ... was that the capitalists' fault? Or when China invaded Vietnam in 1979. Capitalism?

The kernel of truth in what you're saying is this: capitalism is based on self-interest, not altruism. And wars are caused by governments pursuing what they see as their self-interest. But the drive to pursue self-interest is not specific to capitalism -- it's the necessary result of grim Darwinian evolution: those of our potential ancestors who did not pursue their self-interest successfully, didn't become our ancestors and didn't pass on those niceness genes to us.

The rise of capitalism coincided with the Enlightenment, and the rise of rational thinking. Rational thinking lets us pursue our self-interest in ways that can avoid war. But it's still pretty rare at the top, in governments, because governments are not dominated by the profit motive: they can just tax you.

A capitalist has to satisfy his customers by making things they will buy. A government, in the democratic countries, just has to win elections, or appear to.

And in the competition between nation-states, force is the ultimate determiner of who wins. Because this has had such catastrophic outcomes, the big capitalists and the politicians influenced by them eek ways to eliminate wars -- thus things like the World Economic Forum, the UN, international treaties, cultural exchanges.

Unfortunately, these haven't been able to prevent our move towards war. If the US goes to war with China, and/or with Russia, it won't be because of the capitalists on either side: it will be the fault of the stupid politicians.

Then why are people in the world starving? Oh, capitalism can't control the weather, famine, droughts, too much rain..Capitalism is just as hindered by nature as any system in place.

 

[Moonglow]

Andy needs another milkshake...

 

[Resnic]

The proof is always in the results. Capitalism built the greatest economic engine on earth, where the poorest are richer than the rest of the world. What has socialism/communism done except to impoverish and enslave it's people?

No one stops and thinks why America being about the youngest country in the world managed to rise to the top of the food chain and as a global leader. How did we so quickly become rich and powerful? Now they want to take away and change everything that got us here and don't even consider that might make us weaker?

But you're right. Our poor are still way way better off than a billion people on the planet. And even a lot of our poor are poor because they reached their level of potential. Even bill Cosby (rapings aside) was a poor broke ass black kid from Philly but he had more potential.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Andy needs another milkshake...

It is remarkable how both sides need fear in their lives, they need a boogieman and will find one no matter what

 

[Moonglow]

It is remarkable how both sides need fear in their lives, they need a boogieman and will find one no matter what

This is why I turned off the TV years ago so I didn't have to listen to their blathering idiocy.

 

[Moonglow]

No one stops and thinks why America being about the youngest country in the world managed to rise to the top of the food chain and as a global leader. How did we so quickly become rich and powerful? Now they want to take away and change everything that got us here and don't even consider that might make us weaker?

But you're right. Our poor are still way way better off than a billion people on the planet. And even a lot of our poor are poor because they reached their level of potential. Even bill Cosby (rapings aside) was a poor broke ass black kid from Philly but he had more potential.

Ghee, try reading history.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

No one stops and thinks why America being about the youngest country in the world managed to rise to the top of the food chain and as a global leader. How did we so quickly become rich and powerful?

It is called geography.

Incredible natural resources and isolated from the rest of the world for most of our expansion never having to fight other nations for most of our land

 

[JoeC]

Capitalists have killed, enslaved, and abused humans also.

I never mentioned killing anyone in my OP. Don't confuse the acts of individuals with a system. Capitalism in and of itself is not evil.Neither is socialism....I'm merely comparing a successful system vs a failed one.

 

[Doug1943]

The Britsih did capture and enslaved nations along with other nations when colonialism was king, and then you had a mechanism which had the goal of stripping areas of resources to send to your own nation and the native populations were enslaved, exploited, abused, and killed.

The United States of America killed people to take their land and had slavery...

You're now using the word 'enslave' metaphorically. The British, like every major European nation, bought slaves in Africa -- from Africans -- to work in their New World colonies. But they also eventually outlawed the slave trade, and enforced this via the Royal Navy. They couldn't keep the Africans from warring with each other (nothing's changed there, we see) and selling captives to white slavers, but they could intercept these ships on the open sea. They eventually abolished slavery in their own colonies as well, before the American Civil War.

'Abused' and 'exploited' are just fuzzy emotional words. The British imposed their rule on other nations. This never happens peacefully, although the British Empire was not the worst. Nonetheless, people want to be ruled by those who look like them. And so, after WWII, the British left their colonies.

Churchill was against leaving India. He said that there would be mass slaughter -- by the natives, of each other -- if Britain left. And what happened? About a million people died, as Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims killed each other.
[ Partition of India - Wikipedia ]

(And many more thousands died 25 years later, when Muslim Bangladesh broke free from Muslim Pakistan -- the Pakistani Army kept Bengali women captive in their barracks and raped them repeatedly.

Members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias engaged in mass murder, deportation and genocidal rape, pursuing a systematic campaign of annihilation against nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel. The capital, Dhaka, was the scene of numerous massacres, including the Dhaka University massacre. Sectarian violence also broke out between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking Biharis.

[ Bangladesh Liberation War - Wikipedia ]
"Sectarian violence"? But ... but ... I thought "diversity is strength"!

The victorious Bengalis celebrated their victory over Pakistan in Dacca stadium. Here was part of the entertainment, provided by their prisoners.

And

The Third World is different from Europe and America.They are backward. Capitalism is still very feebly developed there.

In Jamaica, under British rule, the crime rate was among the lowest in the world. After they left, it come one of the highest in the world.

When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, the murder rate was 3.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in the world By 2009, the rate was 62 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world. Gang violence became a serious problem, with organised crime being centred around Jamaican posses or "Yardies". Jamaica has had one of the highest murder rates in the world for many years, according to UN estimates.

[ Jamaica - Wikipedia ]
But at least the Jamaicans got their independence, and don't have to follow British laws any more. In Britain, gay people are protected in law. But in independent Jamaica

Many Jamaicans are hostile towards LGBT and intersex people, and mob attacks against gay people have been reported. Numerous high-profile dancehall and ragga artists have produced songs featuring explicitly homophobic lyrics. Male homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment.

Wonderful progress!

Those mean old imperialists tried to impose their values on the poor Africans as well. For example, in Kenya, those wicked white Christians tried to impose their capitalist-imperialist values on the natives:

The campaign against female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya (1929–1932), also known as the female circumcision controversy, was a period within Kenyan historiography known for efforts by British missionaries, particularly from the Church of Scotland, to stop the practice of female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya.[a]Campaign against female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya - Wikipedia The campaign was met with resistance by the Kikuyu, the country's largest tribe. According to American historian Lynn M. Thomas, female genital mutilation became a focal point of the movement campaigning for independence from British rule, and a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association, the largest association of the Kikuyu people.

[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_against_female_genital_mutilation_in_colonial_Kenya]

But anti-imperialists should not worry, the story has a happy ending: the British imperalists did not succeed! Glory, glory, to the resistance against imperialism.

You are right that the colonialists took the Native Americans' land away from them. (My great-great-grandfather, Mosholatubee, chief of the Choctaws. was forced to sign the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Hill in 1835, whereby the Choctaw people lost their tribal lands and were forced to re-locate in Oklahoma.)

But before we get too weepy about the Native Americans, let's look at some of their normal customs:

Male and female captives as well as teenage boys, would usually face death by ritual torture. The torture had strong sacrificial overtones, usually to the sun. Captives, especially warriors, were expected to show extreme self-control and composure during torture, singing "death songs", bragging of one's courage or deeds in battle, and otherwise showing defiance. The torture was conducted publicly in the captors' village, and the entire population (including children) watched and participated. Common torture techniques included burning the captive, which was done one hot coal at a time, rather than on firewood pyres; beatings with switches or sticks, jabs from sharp sticks as well as genital mutilation and flaying while still alive. Captives' fingernails were ripped out. Their fingers were broken, then twisted and yanked by children. Captives were made to eat pieces of their own flesh, and were scalped and skinned alive. Such was the fate of Jamestown Governor John Ratcliffe. The genitalia of male captives were the focus of considerable attention, culminating with the dissection of the genitals one slice at a time. To make the torture last longer, the Native Americans and the First Nations would revive captives with rest periods during which time they were given food and water. Tortures typically began on the lower limbs, then gradually spread to the arms, then the torso. The Native Americans and the First Nations spoke of "caressing" the captives gently at first, which meant that the initial tortures were designed to cause pain, but only minimal bodily harm. By these means, the execution of a captive, especially an adult male, could take several days and nights.

Captives in American Indian Wars - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sweet. (It's probably what some of our Lefties would like to do to pariots!)

Moonglow, the human species are hairless, tailless apes. In our 'natural' state, we are unbelievably cruel to each other. But slowly, slowly, we are advancing beyond that. Capitalism and its imperialism were a part of that advance.

Western civilization is the best we have done so far.

We must defend it with our lives, from enemies within and without.

 

[Doug1943]

It is called geography.

Incredible natural resources and isolated from the rest of the world for most of our expansion never having to fight other nations for most of our land

This is correct, as far as it goes. We were also lucky to be colonized by the English, instead of the Spanish. We got the most radical, anti-monarchist, anti-Established Church elements available at the time. Lucky old us.

We're now running on the social capital accumulated during our period of ascent. The geography hasn't changed, but the qualities that made us a great nation are dying away, existing in fewer and fewer of each new generation.

At some point, quantity will turn into quality, as the Marxists say.

 

[CarsomyrPlusSix]

Antifa members need a mandatory all they can eat buffet of free one way helicopter rides.

 

[g5000]

Ummm, we aren't condoning it at all. We are being forced in to one by a bunch of crazed marxists.