"Capitalism is Cannibalism"
- Eugene V. Debs, Five Times Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Party of America, Federal Prisoner No. 9653 (Convicted, Obstructing the Military Draft, Espionage Act of 1917, Imprisoned 1919-1921)
I would not be a capitalist; I would be a man; you cannot be both at the same time. (Applause).
The capitalist exists by exploitation, lives out of the labor, that is to say the life of the working man; consumes him, and his code of morals and standard of ethics justify the process, and this proves that capitalism is cannibalism. (Applause). A man, honest, just, high-minded, would scorn to live out of the sweat and sorrow of his fellow man—by preying upon his weaker brother.
We propose to destroy the capitalist and save the man. (Applause). We want a system in which the worker shall get what he produces and the capitalist shall produce what he gets. (Applause). That is a square deal.- Eugene V. Debs, speech at Grand Central Palace, New York, Sunday, December 10, 1905
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U.S. Unemployment Passes 20 million in April with 4.4. new million weekly claims, May 8, 2020"Stocks Rally, Dow Rises 400 Points Despite Record Job Losses" - Forbes, May 8, 2020
KEY FACTSThe Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.9%, 450 points, on Friday, while the S&P 500 was up 1.7% and the Nasdaq 1.6%.
Those gains came even amid a historically bad jobs report from the Labor Department, the worst since the 1929 Great Depression.
Some 20.5 million jobs have been eliminated in April—that’s nearly every job created over the past decade, gone in a single month.
The unemployment rate shot up to 14.7% as the economy ground to a halt due to coronavirus shutdowns.
But neither figures were as bad as expected on Wall Street, however: Economists polled by Dow Jones expected 21.5 million jobs lost and an unemployment rate of 16%.
“Today’s report tells us the labor market isn’t as dire as the headlines suggest, which is why equity prices and bond yields are getting a lift,” says Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.
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Anthrax (UK) – Capitalism is Cannibalism
(Chorus)
What a fucking set up,
What a real mess,
I can't make sense of it,
It doesn't make senseRaised from your cradle,
Teethed on possession,
Reared you upon T.V. capitalism,
Spewed out of school, get a nice job,
Get turned on when you're on top.
(Chorus)
Worry about profit margins
Don't give a fuck about human beings
Filed away in your cabinet are equal people
But they forget it, they make it.
So that you have to survive by producing crap.
Can you call that life? With the very same crap.
You have to buy back displayed on the supermarket shelf,
Over a thousand varieties to damage your health.
(Chorus)
Inside the factory are wages for slavery,
And every product at the end of the line
And every shit flushed away in your private bog,
Is a product of another persons slog.
There maybe a little in front of your name,
But everybody's shit still smells the same.
(Chorus)
Capitalism is Cannibalism
Comments
A jarring disconnect between Wall St. and Main St. USA
Which side are you on? How do you want to live? Are you ready to become fully human?
Are we headed for a
"Let them buy stock" moment?
Unfortunately, human isn't synonymous with humane.
We are headed for an open conflict between jobs and stocks
Clearly, there is a choice that must be made by the Fed and lawmakers about which will be rescued. In America, it has always been workers who are sacrificed to keep the economy afloat while markets and large companies are rescued. It's the way the system was designed, but people can choose to change that, but only if we make a conscious decision to demand that economic cannibalism ends in America.
We are moving toward
a new consciousness. Let’s work to open minds to the fact WE CAN MAJE THAT CHANGE!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
America's GDP is 80% from services
The making of 'things' (with the exception of weapons of war and their ancillaries) is now off-shored to nations which pay considerably less per unit of labor which serves to increase profit levels. I don't envision making 'things', other than things which make things, ever coming back to America.
The huge multi-national corporations, many controlling finances larger than half the nations in the world, no longer fly flags of allegiance which makes them next to impossible to control. They're like vampire squids sucking the wealth from the earth and it's inhabitants for the benefit of the few. We can cut off a tentacle but another quickly grows in it's place. It's life force is rapacious greed.
Sorry for being such a downer but I can't help but think we humans are nothing but a momentary virus which the earth will eventually shake off like a bad cold.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4]
Time to go out and plant my home grown 12" tomato seedlings in the warm earth.
EDIT: I just re-watched this video. I had remembered it from many years ago. I had forgot that George Carlin equated humans to a bad case of fleas that the planet will shake off. At the end he surmises, very apropos for today's situation, that it will be viruses that will finally finish us off and allow the planet to recover.
The solution is to tax capital gains and upper incomes
for U.S. individuals and corporations at a rate proportionate to increases in the entity's actual wealth on a worldwide basis. Outlaw stock buybacks as it was before the Reagan deregulation. Require that capital gains be realized within a three-year period with a high penalty for gains that aren't reinvested in U.S. jobs creation. Ban dividend payments to stockholders during years a company reduces its domestic workforce or curtails productive activities.
Strengthen international agreements closing tax loopholes and tax havens. Treat tax evasion as a major crime, akin to drug smuggling and terrorism, subject to extraterritorial enforcement and apprehension and seizure of assets.
Do what Senator Kennedy proposed in the 1980s - control and limit intracorporate capital transfers in the same way that the sale of strategic assets to foreigners is still controlled - through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States:
If a wealthy person or corporate entity renounces its U.S. citizenship, or a company offshores, charge a one-time exit tax equal to ten or more years taxation or a high percentage of valuation calculating in lost employee wages, whichever is greater.
On the other hand, provide meaningful incentives to jobs creation and strong disincentives to jobs reduction and layoffs.
The late Bill Hicks said
humans were a virus in shoes.
I woke up this morning determined to drink less, eat right, and exercise.
But that was four hours ago when I was younger and full of hope.
makes me want to cry over Carlin's death again
what would he have said today?
The few good men always go too soom. Thanks CB.
So what to do about all those despairing minds of the
fewmany good men?stocks
I say: give such "humans" a full portfolio of this sort of "stocks":
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
We are at Greed, Delusion, IMO
https://www.siliconinvestor.com/subject.aspx?subjectid=51736
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
The Street is now fully into a Bull Trap.
The really hard landing is coming up, fast.
The capitalist's philosophy
I got this from multiple occasions of debating my more capitalist associates. It seems to always come down to this, independently. So, here it is:
"I can't make enough money off of my own labor. I need to make money off of the labor of others."
Implied in this is certainly a sense of entitlement and elitism. It happens only because we allow it to happen, believing the fallacy of rugged individualism and trickle down economics. It's a zero sum game, and they've got most of the sum and you get what's left. It's theft. It's money changing taken to the max. It's clearly immoral and should be illegal. But more than that, the system should be designed so that this is not even possible.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Having literally sacrificed a half-million American lives during
World War Two, and many more during the Depression, the people determined to tax the very rich at a rate proportionate to what they could realistically pay. The result was a thirty year period of shared real growth of incomes and the creation of the American middle-class. We are again in a period of sacrifice, and must again demand that wealthy share in that burden.
If they refuse, the middle-class must plow under and compost the billionaires along with the politicians who protect them. It's either us or them.
Demanding our share back
from the accumulators.
Without the protection of congress and police
these billionaires may trade equity instead of facing
torture at the hands of the victims they have crushed
without remorse
So we are being given the opportunity
to make that change to our economy. The virus is stopping everything so we can awaken, so we can think, so we can make meaningful changes according to our values. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
It's the best opportunity the people have had since '45 to
demand progress, justice and equity. Now might be the time we actually get it, because the rich may be ready to make a deal, knowing that things will only go downhill from here if they are seen to resist. That was the case in Britain and America at the end of the War.
The rich are terrified, and the more intelligent have known and been planning for years to fly their Gulfstreams to a safe place in case this moment arrived. See, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-supe...
depends on 'whose values'
of which you speak. i've also seen you posit that the novel cornoavirus lockdowns are a gift to the people. and yes, people of conscience and moral compasses at true north have been hoping against hope that human consciousness was spirally upward at least a far back as the 60s.
meanwhile, in lockdown, people are starving, millions haven't received any of their 'extended' unemployment benefits, no wonder some are bucking the orders. but the 'Democrats have Our Backs! i may bring some of it for fun soon...
levymg righteously asks us 'which side are you on?', as did billy bragg in 1985.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbddqXib814]
his 'wating for the great leap forward' is also excellent. #MeToo. how many of you will vote, and will vote Green this time? and, jesse ventura has decided not to run for the Green Party presidency./s
We are shifting to
a higher consciousness and yes people will suffer. How else do we know to eliminate that suffering without witnessing it - and for some, without their own suffering.
We are moving to a new world. You will see it in due time - everyone will. Higher vibrational thinking is in order.
Live in the present time for you cannot future plan in this uncertain time. This intelligent virus is touching the entire world. I respect its power. We will raise our consciousness!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
yes, yes, i know
your spiritual proselytizing on the subject, and your belief that you know that all you say is true. my belief just differs from yours, as in loosely: in times of great global upheavals, the planetary noosphere (global consciousness) is affected, communication is enhanced, let's say. but that doesn't mean that what comes next is necessarily beneficial to humanity, nor to the planet.
that's all.
Are you proselytizing we
live in fear? That's what I get from you. Fear, fear fear! I'm promoting love, love, love. What do you have against that? You don't want me proselytizing about love? I thought this was an open site where we are free to express ourselves. What's your beef with me, Wendy?
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
no, what i'd meant by
your spiritual proselyting has come from researching dolorous cannon (now deceased), whose devotee you seem to be. as in on a recent open thread of anja geitz's, bringing one of her videos:
you were called to her prophesy, therefore you are able to predict the future, including telling one member that bloody revolution is on it's way, it's all that's left: 'not yet, but it's on it's way'.
far from preaching love to me, amiga. but of course yo have your right to express yourself here, as do i.
You are talking in circles.
I am not a devotee if hers - I just found her videos truthful. You are making assumptions which doesn’t surprise me.
Whether you agree or not, the universe is at work here and nothing anyone says or does changes that. We are shifting to a new consciousness and there are many videos out there about it!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
given that this thread
appears to be quite dead, i'll expand. the book gannon was holding in the video on one of my threads or another's was this one of gannon's:
You’d also noted that the ETs among us have a non-interference prime directive, so they are teaching us how to find our highest consciousnesses. while i believe that's important, you'd also extrapolated to calling this virus 'intelligent', almost as though it had a purpose to lock us down, so that we might consult our inner God, as gannon calls our higher selves, or so i take it.
yes, i suppose on could call a virus's and a bacterium's biological imperative to replicate, adapt, or die...'intelligent', but that would also imply viruses (virii?) and bacteria are sentient beings. and of course, depending on which 'scientists' one listen to, it's already adapting.
anyhoo, thought i'd explain what i hadn't before. stay well and safe, RA.
You can expand
all you like about whatever, but let's not bully me or vilify me for trying to make this a better place, for helping others raise their consciousness. No one asked you to be the boss of everyone and I get that from you.
Whether you agree on the intelligence of a virus or not matters not to me. I know what I'm talking about. You can quote Cannon (not Gannon as you referenced) all you like - I watched two videos that told me that what I was paying attention to in 2012 is coming about.
I have been paying attention to the shift for a long time and now that we are witnessing it, I'm going to raise people's awareness with or without your blessing, which I don't need.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
i'm not trying to bully you,
but demonstrate why you're so often apt to type: THE UNIVERSE IS IN CHARGE, which baffled me until i'd discovered why you believe that's so. that's all.
i've known two folks who believe in the straus-howe forth turning theory, as well, and while i don't subscribe to it, i can see where it makes sense to others as generations are different.
i won't bother you again.
Hopefully.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Deb's comment that . . .
"I'd rather vote for something that I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want and get it" seems to become more true every day.
I'd vote for and with Eugene V. Debs
I might even be willing to go to jail with him for the same causes, which are eternal.
cannibal
Dear Eugene Debs,
I must object to your lumping capitalist pathogens in with honest, hard-working Cannibals. Capitalists live on the stolen labor of others; Cannibals live directly on the others after they no longer need what we take from them. This makes Cannibalism by far the more honorable pursuit, and I ask you to adjust your rhetoric accordingly. Thank You.
Most Cordially,
Alferd Packer
Denver, Colorado
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
far more efficient, too. ; )
In 1968 students at the University of Colorado in Boulder renamed the student union restaurant the Alferd E. Packer Memorial Grill. (the year i matriculated at CU boulder.)
good job, amigo.
We have less and less capitalism
If the wealthy hoard their capital, as it appears they do, that capital does no work. If the capital does no work is it even capitalism? If the 1% can own as much as the bottom 60% (with the difference escalating) and produces nothing of value, it would seem like capitalism is coming to an end.
In a game of checkers when one player has most of his opponents pieces the game is almost over. The best thing would be to confiscate that wealth and put it to work. Time to start a new game.
Preparing for new cold war with China
Just think how many more workers will be hired as Trump heats up the conflict. Great photo prospects for electioneering at these defense plants - think of it. Huge crowds of MAGA hat wearing workers waving the red, white and blue and cheering Trump, not only for keeping American workers employed but also keeping their families safe from the yellow peril. It's a twofer - can't go wrong.
So this guy from Wharton
Thinks there's no way stocks can go down. The Fed has pumped so much liquidity into it. And unemployment isn't that bad. The predictions were for 22 million and it eas only 20 million!
https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/66F5501A-913E-11EA-9208-AF2E6...
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "