I nwasn't sure whether this was addressed to me or SDF....: :
: : : : That is such a dopey term. Nobody is a slave, except those who think of themselves as slaves.
Did you hear the one about the Christian Scientist who wemt to hell? Someone asked him why he was there in that hot place, and he said calmly, "This is not hell, it isn't hot, and I'm not here."
: : SDF: The individual at the bottom of the current system is given a choice: work for an employer, under conditions set by that employer, or starve. This is not slavery?
: Absolutly not. The worker can leave any time he wants to and start his own company. My three youngest brothers did just that. They employ others too.
Be serious now. People are forced to work for an employer if they want to keep body and soul together. If soemone has no capital, no education, and is at the brink fo starvation, the chances are nil that he can 'start his won company' as you put it. Why don't you suggest your wonderful plamn for self-improvement to a California grape-picker. I'm sure they'd be interested (NOT). Perhaps you think taht teh choice bewteen starving, beoing evicted, and becoming totally destitute on teh one hand, or working for shit wages on the other is an admirable choice. I'm sorry, I believe that human life deserves a little better, you know? I think that for a human being to have any choices worth speaking of, he must first have the basics necessities of life. Food, shelter, health care, and education. i think that these are part fo teh sacrosanct rights of a human.
: : : Supposing a person is perfectly content with working a 9 to 5 job and meets all his obligations? He goes to work, comes home, turns on the boob tube and drinks a 6 pack. He's not interested in amassing a fortune. He's content.
: : SDF: What a great justification for paying such an individual an insignificant wage!!!
: Insignificant if your not the one who has to come up with the dough.
It coems out of profit. To make profit while your workers are destitute is immoral.
: : : Doesn't care about Marx or Smith. Is he a wage slave, or is he your typical blue-collar worker?
: : : You have a fucking low opinion of blue collar people. Such apathy is at least as typical of the business class who runs our sorry world.
: Don't know wheather to LOL or call you a fool...FOOL! I was a blue-collar worker for nearly thirty years! I worked with my hands! I was a tradesman!
That's irrelevant. they have african Americans who scorn their own race, you know? This fellow called Walter Williams, talk show host- he's black, but he once said taht African Americans were better off having eben enslaved than if they had stayed in africa. That's not a rumor- I HEARD him say it myself.
: What's your connection to the trades?
Why is it necessary that I have a connection with the trades? I'm not Jewish, but I despise the oppression fo Jews, you knwo what i mean? It's part of trying to be a moral human being.
: : SDF: They're looked upon as the "little people," as Leona Helmsley called them. They're the folks who built houses for Frenchy's dad, when Frenchy claimed "his dad" built all those houses, and when I asked Frenchy how they were doing, he said he didn't know. The debate is not about the possibility of prosperity, we know the current system can produce that for its owning classes. It's about the possibility of community.
: First of all, my dad certainly did build those first houses, except for plumbing and electric. Oh, and pouring the foundation. Everything else he did. I helped in whatever small way I could on Saturdays. (What did your dad do for a living Sam?)
ad homoinem?
:After many years he was able to build more then a couple of houses at a time and then hired out most of the work.
: Of course I don't know how his former employee's are doing. Adults grant each other the benefit that they will do those things which will be good for them. I expect most of those former employee's are doing O.K. My dad's first employer, when we moved to the states, didn't keep tabs on dad either. Geez, do you have to have some one go to the bathroom with you too?
Y0ou're missing the point. Sam's well-taken point is whether we want a society where we acare for and aree responsible fro each other, or a society where it's every man for himself.
: Hey, if the debate is about the possibility of community, why are you and Nikhil so down on me? What are you guys looking for? Clones?
You made teh inflammatory statements, and I responded.
.
: : : You might be interested to knwo that the lowest-educated, poorest americans were the most likely to oppose the Vietnam war and teh least likely to buy into our whole phony capitalist ethos.
: I don't know about that, all I know is that I joined the service (USN) in '68. Then, after two hitches got out and went to work. I seem to recall though that opposition to the war was strongest on college campus's (or is that campi?), not exactly where my crowd was likely to be found.
Actually, this si a common myth, one that I used to ignorantly believe. In fact, opposition to the war was NOT strongest on college campuses, at least not when measured as a percentage of teh total population. They were some of the more photogenic and activist war resisters (although the Catholic Left was as effective and consistent in their opposition to the war) but actually the most anti-war population consisted of elderly, grade=school educated poor women.
: Hey! By the way, what branch were you guys in!?
I was only born in 1980, five years after Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City. I don't knwo what I woudl have doen if I were around then- maybe I would have vandalized a few buildings and got thrown in prison for the duration of the war, or maybe just gone to prison anyway as a war resister.
:Maybe we can swap stories! Ever tell ya about the time we spotted the whole damn Russian fleet steaming back to Murmansk in November? Yeah, 8 nuclear powered subs in formation surrounded by 4 destroyer pickets and escorted by one of their huge guided missle cruisers. Awesome! We flew in at about 300 knots about level with the cruisers antennas! After the third pass Sensor III informed us that the cruiser had a lock on us. That means their fire control was trained on our lovely new P-3C. Nothing happened, they were just letting us know we were a nice juicy target.
: Now it's your turn.
: : SDF: Actually, Nikhil, such people are also deeply concerned about their own survival under capitalism, since their wages are usually insufficient to meet their expenses (especially those great numbers here in the US without medical insurance) or to provide them with much security.
: Yeah Sam, I'm poor and desparate. Living hand to mouth, don't know where my next meals coming from.
: Plese send me $10,000; counting on your sense of community. You too, Nikhail.
i don't ahev 10,000. Also, no one is saying that you're destitute. you certainly don't imply it- why should we assume it?
