@Pluto's Republic

and energy. yes, the DSAs have been presented ubiquitously as Socialists, and none of them actually said they are only Reform Capitalists, save AOC's blather about 'not like Venezuela's; more like finland's' or some such.

Here's what I realized: Defining Socialism and discussing the kind of society it produces —

Is a fruitless effort in the US. There is no probable political entity on the Left to resonate with. Not only is the political body that represents the Left perspective entirely missing, it is not detectible on the spectrum of American political philosophy. The Left has no independent measurable affect. From the outside, the existence of the Left in the US has always been uncertain and theoretical. Socialism has rarely had a place to take hold.

But more importantly, Socialism cannot be defined in a universal way. It exists only when it is applied to a particular state in the present moment. It can only be fully understood in the context of the technological possibilities of the system it is applied to. It evolves and changes as rapidly as humans do. It's not a stand-alone theory. I see it as a utopian app that is designed for a living society.

now i can't decode a lot of those paragraphs, but i will say that at least some of the Green party contenders for prez are pretty darned socialistic. howie hawkins i do know best but his Perspectives and Policies section is pretty darned good (or was), most especially which sectors to socialize.

Money (the fed), Big Banks, Power Utilities, Health Care, Big Pharma, Broadband, & Arms Industry, with explanations in each category.

Uner Democracy Reform is 'end the senate' which i like a lot, as do i his Agricultural and Rural Peconstruction vision. Peace: he may have amended it a bit to 'deep cuts in the military budget', but i can't say for sure.

but i guess my point is trying to be that with so many claiming to DemExit here, and i wonder if it's growing, as well as the Greens welcoming the former sanders supporters, the party may grow.

but how convenient that jack dorsey chose to suspend his presidential campaign twitter, yes? maybe it was @howiehawkins20, although his personal account was still alive last i looked yesterday. and yes, there are so many definitions to that word, and no, not many are joining the SEP, but i'll sure vote Green for the fifth presidential cycle too. caveat: someone on the boards here said jesse ventura intends to run for Prez as a green; dunno about that one, lol. he might even think that's the way to get a Green in the White HOuse; i reckon howie and the others aren't under the same illusion.

forgive any typos.

#5

Thanks for the Peter Hudis link. I'll check it out. I was not aware that Marx left a gaping hole in his critique of capitalism by not including a specific working economic model of non-capitalism. So if Hudis cobbled one together from Marx' general body of work, then I suppose Marx conceived of a coherent system but decided not to go there. Good for him.

When Sanders brought 'socialism' to the 2016 campaign, it was regarded as an inconvenient turd in the political punchbowl, and was pushed out of the way and ignored. But in the 2020 campaign, Sanders came back to a more educated audience. He fished 'socialism' out of the punchbowl and plated it with confidence. This was an opportunity to examine how brain-edited folk from the 21st century would react to "socialism" now that Sanders' success made it an issue. USians had experienced a lifetime of propaganda that demonized socialism. Could they intellectually grasp this key concept of the Left — a political philosophy that is virtually unknown in the United States.

There were some promising discussion, which mostly occurred among a younger demographic, 50 years old and under. This younger cohort had not been exposed to the worst of the Cold War propaganda. They didn't witness the televised slaughter of Vietnam, a murderous war to beat back the onslaught of socialism and communism. This over-50 demographic, largely unaware of the monsters in DC, have suffered varying degrees of psychological damage administered by a totalitarian state that slowly betrayed them. They tend to cling to Joe Biden and Donald Trump — both with mental issues galore — to protect them from an evil world they don't understand.

Here's what I realized: Defining Socialism and discussing the kind of society it produces — Is a fruitless effort in the US. There is no probable political entity on the Left to resonate with. Not only is the political body that represents the Left perspective entirely missing, it is not detectible on the spectrum of American political philosophy. The Left has no independent measurable affect. From the outside, the existence of the Left in the US has always been uncertain and theoretical. Socialism has rarely had a place to take hold.

But more importantly, Socialism cannot be defined in a universal way. It exists only when it is applied to a particular state in the present moment. It can only be fully understood in the context of the technological possibilities of the system it is applied to. It evolves and changes as rapidly as humans do. It's not a stand-alone theory. I see it as a utopian app that is designed for a living society.

If Marx had designed a social economy that would display Socialism in action, I doubt it would make much sense after 1880. It would be a socialism where factories couldn't produce after dark, workers had no mobility, women were livestock, the average lifespan was 45, communications could travel only as fast as a horse could run. (The US Constitution has the same flaws and is easily hacked. We are the end result of allowing it to decay.)

I don't know why this is so long.

@Pluto's Republic

(and i don't use that word lightly) comment as the final comment on this thread. some call the global collective consciousness the noosphere, which subject has fascinated me for the last couple decades. to me, it short-hands as in times of events of great impact, ideas spread ever-more rapidly. i liken it to whales thousands of miles apart learning a new whale song...

fascinating thought that the chinese characters use right-hemispheric activation rather than our linear brains. i will say that since my brain damage, i tend to think visually now.

p.s. i would love to know about more about our eyes, if i could email you, you me, or PM.

#7

Before China became a political thing, when people forgot it existed, before they had to be brainwashed into hating China while knowing and experiencing nothing of it, I used to write on the topic of Chinese dreams. (Most Chinese claim they do not dream.) But I was referring to the dreaming of the collective consciousness. The planet is so configured that when we sleep, China is awake and animating the collective mind we all converge with. And the Chinese sleep their dreamless sleep while Crazy Uncle Sam is lighting up the collective. Together, we comprise perfect opposites. The Chinese read from right to left, from back to front. We read phonetically; from front to back. They read using pictograms (the characters are derived from tiny pictures) that carry meanings. However, the sound associated with any of the thousands of pictograms differs for speakers of the more than 200 different dialects spoken in China. So, while the Chinese may not all speak the same languages, they all read the same newspapers. They all write and communicate with the same written characters. Thus, they decode language and meaning using different hemispheres of the brain than we do. Our language is linear, their's is spatial.

We miscommunicate perfectly and dream the waking dreams of our opposites. What could possibly go wrong?

A magnetic essay of comments with a beautiful finale, Wendy.