Monthly Archives: September 2012

Does Voting Even Matter?

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  • Maybe you can clear something up for me? They say “everytime you vote, you’re keeping the government corrupt” and it doesn’t REALLY matter who you vote for as you’re screwed anyways…but then they say that you should vote because its extremely important to “choose” who gets “control”…but either way, you’re still powerless because the corporations have already chose their president…

    Does that sound contradictory to you?

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    • Jessica Sharp likes this.
    • Tj Dreves There’s definitely a tension. Voting seems to imply that these elections still have some degree of legitimacy. And choosing the “lesser of two evils” has brought us to where we are now. But I suppose there’s some difference in driving toward a cliff at 50mph vs driving toward a cliff at 70mph.I don’t know enough about Canadian politcs/elections beside the obvious similarities in overlap between corporate and government power (fascism), even if not quite to the same extreme.In the U.S. I strongly encourage everyone who isn’t in a swing state to vote third party whether or not they’re ready to explicitly question the legitimacy of the entire process.What do you think?
      September 21 at 1:48am · Like · 1
    • Jessica Sharp I’ve heard a lot about Ron Paul (he’s considered third party, correct?). I haven’t got a chance to read too much about him, but I will. I’ve heard a lot of good things. Do you think that assuming he was elected, he’d be able to do anything? Or do corporations have essentially more power than the government?
    • Tj Dreves Well if things were different they’d be different. Ron Paul is a republican, so technically not third party, but he isn’t corporate owned and would end the imperial wars (probably why he’s the most popular choice amongst the U.S. military). So yeah, if he was a elected he would probably end the wars, but that’s part of the reason why he can’t be elected (corporations are more powerful than government, like you said).He’s a pipe dream with a lot projected on to him. He has horrendous social/domestic ideas.
    • Jessica Sharp So it essentially goes back to not mattering who you vote for or if you vote at all?Is there even a chance at all America will stop being run by corporations? It wasn’t always like that…
    • Tj Dreves I agree that it wasn’t always this way, although there have been waves of wealth concentration and progressive movements. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes, that sort of thing.But yeah, I think it’s arguably the case that the system has become too corrupt to change from within. We may have crossed that threshold. That’s why I was so excited about the Occupy movement. It’s a kind of recognition that the game is rigged and we don’t want to play anymore. How many times do we have to be lied to and cheated before we start to wonder if we can’t do better job starting over from scratch.There are two things I recommend to people:
      1). Natural Disasters do happen. Give serious thoughts to your back up plans.
      1b). Complex societies do in fact collapse. It’s happened many times and it can happen again, this time or not. It helps to have networks of mutual aid and support to get each others’ families through emergencies. Water filters etc.2). Can we please start talking about this more. It’s kind of a big deal.What do you think?
      Monday at 12:55am · Like · 1
    • Jessica Sharp Could we start over though? Is it possible or would it be worse then it already is? How do you just start over and do you think it would just end up the same way?What do you think is going to happen?I don’t really know what to think. I knew the system was fucked but I didn’t really realize exactly how much until this whole KONY thing…which got me thinking about other wars…and started asking questions about why our economy is screwed and then I found the documentary “Inside Job” and it explained it…then I started doing more research. It’s very scaring knowing how much power these people really have and what they COULD do with it.
    • Tj Dreves We have to start over no matter what; the question is whether it will be before or after collapse. It’s definitely possible. Iceland had a very peaceful and apparently successful transition. And we can definitely do better than we’re doing now. I really don’t know how long the unjustifiable can continue. I’d be much more pessimistic if I didn’t see technology playing such a large role. Decentralized information processing and the increased transparency that engenders will probably out-compete the hierarchically organized corporate dinosaurs dominating the landscape.These are some of the ways I’ve been trying to grapple with your question, if that helps:https://thinkahol.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/why-we-should-be-concerned-and-i-am/
      Yesterday at 12:27am · Edited · Like · Remove Preview
    • Jessica Sharp I’m going to bookmark that blog and read it when I have more time. I’ll get back to you.What do you think of Obamacare?
      22 hours ago · Like
    • Tj Dreves speaking of, can I put this conversation there on my blog? I was gonna redact the names unless you prefer otherwise. I could put a link to your blog if you have one or whatever.Obamacare. It’s better that health insurance companies have to cover people with preexisting conditions. Health care has been so bad, i don’t think it’s made things worse. I don’t know really. The way in which it passed exemplified so much about how better ideas are systematically ignored and marginalized, the masses are systematically lied to and the corporate state will continue to consolidate its power.http://themoderatevoice.com/56276/glenn-greenwald-hits-the-healthcare-debate-nail-on-the-head/

      themoderatevoice.com

      Many of the commenters I admire most have been saying that the Left/Right dichot

      omy is inadequate to explain current dynamics and that Insider/Outsider along with Incrementalist/Radical are better descriptors. Glenn Greenwald notes this pitch perfect: One finds [corporatism] in far more than just ec…
      19 hours ago · Like · Remove Preview
    • Jessica Sharp Go right ahead. You can use names if you want, I’m not worried! You’ve been a huge help, thanks TJ!
      13 hours ago via mobile · Like
    • Jessica Sharp Another question : Do you think society CAN start over knowing what we know now technology wise and how do you think that would happen? What does it entail? Where do we start?
      13 hours ago via mobile · Like
    • Tj Dreves Assuming I’m understanding the questions: yes, I’m not sure, I don’t really know, and here’s my guess.This is my must see list of youtube videos below; I don’t know how it all fits together
      http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFFZ_3hm5dZcgN7noug53sAQj4oSDEEfp&feature=mh_lolz

      www.youtube.com

      ‎”Must See”, a playlist created by thinkahol
      10 hours ago · Like · Remove Preview
    • I think that’s where we start. I don’t really know how that plays with ideas like those presented here:
      http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_different_species.html
      and the first video of the must see
      10 hours ago · Like
    • Jessica Sharp Don’t worry, I’m read/watch them all.What do you think about the people who think everything is just a huge conspiracy?
      9 hours ago · Like
    • Tj Dreves depends on how you define conspiracy. There’s clearly a class bias in our governing structures that benefits that top .01%
      9 hours ago · Like
    • Tj Dreves some people talk about the bilderberg group, but it seems only semi-relevant to me.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group or which conspiracy I guess I should have asked. I do think most likely that 9/11 and the London train bombings were false flag attacks, of which there is a long history in this country
      9 hours ago · Like

Ethics of Abortion

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Most non-religious seem to agree there is a difference between a person and a potential person (I’d ask Christians when they think the soul enters the body, if identical twins share a single soul etc.). Given that there is a continuum between a zygote (the single cell fertilized egg) and a human being, there is no bright line differentiating the justifiable from the immoral. We shouldn’t forget that this debate is taking place in a context in which religious ideologues are trying to pass laws limiting abortion without exception for the woman’s health; there is no logical justification for privileging the life of a potential person over the life of an existing woman. There is a statistical point in development before birth beyond which we should do everything that we can to save the life of the child (excepting of course in cases where the life of the mother is threatened). The question is what science has to say about the rate of fetal development and where to use the force of law to draw a legal line in the sand. “[S]cientific consensus . . . holds that fetuses are unlikely to be able to feel pain before 26 weeks.”
“In most . . . states, abortions are banned only when a fetus is deemed to be old and mature enough to survive outside the womb, typically any time beyond 22 to 23 weeks.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18785-briefing-new-law-claims-a-fetus-can-feel-pain.html

As technology develops there will be more answers and more questions.

 

originally here:

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byu/allURboozeRbelong2us from discussion
inphilosophy

The Case for a Radical Break with the Status Quo

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Part 1 [Warning: angry tone]
& these:

Part 2:
originally here

I prefer the more radical, long term solutions: mutual aid societies, decentralized  self-sufficiency (and eventually defense), open source hardware etc., etc.

Reddit is a smart place:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/z7b33/no_one_has_gone_to_jail_for_crashing_the_world/