Olympic Protests

[grahambino]

quote:Originally posted by custosnox

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by guido911

Oh that's right Grahambino, U.S. is close to or just as bad as China. More mindless "blame America first" crap. If you are looking for a big difference, here's one: You and your ilk can move out. No questions will be asked (except if you go to Cuba)

Our government is in no place to criticize any other on human rights.  Not in the past, not in the present and not in the future.  

I suppose I could say the same thing to you.  Feel free to move if you don't like reading opposing viewpoints or freedom of speech.

Since you don't like this country, why don't you move and see how much you miss that freedom of speech you like so much

You're damn right I 'like it', I value it.
Its a right worth defending.

Statements like 'if you don't like it, get out' that you and 'Chairman Guido' make, only serve to cheapen it.

To me, it sounds like you'd be a model Chinese citizen...or an ostrich.

Its too easy to only see things in black & white.  

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Originally posted by Ed W

 My employer, however, can effectively coerce a search without any recourse on my part.

Your recourse is to quit and find a different employer.  The trump card for either party in a contract is the ability to walk away (employment = at will contract).  It is much harder to walk away from your country (if not for nationalism then for societal reasons).

How common are drug tests for not DOT / OSHA safe jobs - like office employees?  I understand why an employer might want to test welders or machine operators (safety of them and others) - but if an office employee is a pot head/drunk at work and still doing a good job, who cares?  If they are or aren't drunk and suck - is there a difference?

[tulsasignnazi]

The live feeds look like a train WRECK about to happen.  Before this is over in SF, there's gonna be a whole lotta people in major PAIN.

[si_uk_lon_ok]

Gordon Brown isn't attending the opening ceremony. I think this is also the case with Merkel in Germany. I think this could be a domino effect with world leaders. I know at my work not one person disagreed with the protests even if they did block the torch.

[tulsasignnazi]

It's already a MAJOR embarrassment.  Why put more people in danger?  They oughta just snuff the Torch.

[custosnox]

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by custosnox

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by guido911

Oh that's right Grahambino, U.S. is close to or just as bad as China. More mindless "blame America first" crap. If you are looking for a big difference, here's one: You and your ilk can move out. No questions will be asked (except if you go to Cuba)

Our government is in no place to criticize any other on human rights.  Not in the past, not in the present and not in the future.  

I suppose I could say the same thing to you.  Feel free to move if you don't like reading opposing viewpoints or freedom of speech.

Since you don't like this country, why don't you move and see how much you miss that freedom of speech you like so much

You're damn right I 'like it', I value it.
Its a right worth defending.

Statements like 'if you don't like it, get out' that you and 'Chairman Guido' make, only serve to cheapen it.

To me, it sounds like you'd be a model Chinese citizen...or an ostrich.

Its too easy to only see things in black & white.  

You know, you can't set here and play both sides of the fence without getting called out on it.  You want to put this country down and compare it to one that allows you no rights, but then boost that you have the right to do so and that I cheapen it by telling you to go somewhere else and try it.  Sorry, but you can't eat your cake and have it too.

[Ed W]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Your recourse is to quit and find a different employer....

How common are drug tests for not DOT / OSHA safe jobs - like office employees?

When you're close to retirement, quitting and getting another job really isn't much of an option.  Besides, my government set the drug testing requirements for private businesses, yet my government cannot perform similar invasions of privacy without a warrant.  That's the part that disturbs me most.  

What's more, the large transportation businesses most effected by the costs of performing the testing are arguing that they should scale back in order to save money.  The tests aren't catching many people, so there's a concern that they're not cost effective.  Now, it could equally be argued that they have a deterrent effect, but it's so hard to prove a negative these days.

It's not much more than security theater.

(This is wandering from the original topic, so if we are going to continue, perhaps it should have a thread of its own.)  

[Double A]

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

quote:Originally posted by Ed W

 My employer, however, can effectively coerce a search without any recourse on my part.

Your recourse is to quit and find a different employer.  The trump card for either party in a contract is the ability to walk away (employment = at will contract).  It is much harder to walk away from your country (if not for nationalism then for societal reasons).

How common are drug tests for not DOT / OSHA safe jobs - like office employees?  I understand why an employer might want to test welders or machine operators (safety of them and others) - but if an office employee is a pot head/drunk at work and still doing a good job, who cares?  If they are or aren't drunk and suck - is there a difference?

The thread about The People's History of the American Empire actually has some relevance to this question, IMO.  

So Howard Zinn is doing a Marxist reading of American History, and while that probably sounds like blasphemy to the ZOMGCOMMIES!11!!!! flag-wavers, it's still a legit way of looking at everyday transactions of power and money.  A Marxist critique is essentially asking quintessential Capitalist questions:  who's got the cash, and how are they keeping it? who doesn't have the cash, and how are they seeking it?  and how do the two clash?  

We can talk about big movements in history in this way:  how the people with power tried to keep it, and how the ones without tried to get it, with varying levels of success (in this reading, the American Revolution would be an almost perfect 10); we can also talk about the things EdW mentions, which are the little day to day coercions of your employer and of the economy in general, things that allow the employer to maintain a measure of control over their staff.  

As you say, CF, there are recourses, but they are inherently drastic measures for the individual and not-so-drastic for the company. In situations like EdW's drug tests, all the leverage rests with the institution doing the testing, and none with the employee being tested. If the only way an employee can change the contract is to leave the contract entirely, you've got an inherently unequal situation.

An irony I'm constantly aware of is that big-c Conservatism -- especially the Libertarian wing -- relies on a Marxist reading of how governments work with their citizens to justify shrinking it.  Republicans look at the way bureaucratic power is abused and wasted and abridged, and how individual rights are taken away and argue that the government is a Behemoth to be whittled away at at all costs.  The irony is, though, that that Marxist reading is never extended to the economy, and to the corporate world.  Especially in the modern era, when the largest companies transcend national boundaries completely, there's a baffling reluctance on the part of conservatives to extend their critique of bureaucracy to business.  Not sure why that is, unless, as a Marxist might say, they are part of the Hegemony . . . . []  

[grahambino]

quote:Originally posted by custosnox

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by custosnox

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

quote:Originally posted by guido911

Oh that's right Grahambino, U.S. is close to or just as bad as China. More mindless "blame America first" crap. If you are looking for a big difference, here's one: You and your ilk can move out. No questions will be asked (except if you go to Cuba)

Our government is in no place to criticize any other on human rights.  Not in the past, not in the present and not in the future.  

I suppose I could say the same thing to you.  Feel free to move if you don't like reading opposing viewpoints or freedom of speech.

Since you don't like this country, why don't you move and see how much you miss that freedom of speech you like so much

You're damn right I 'like it', I value it.
Its a right worth defending.

Statements like 'if you don't like it, get out' that you and 'Chairman Guido' make, only serve to cheapen it.

To me, it sounds like you'd be a model Chinese citizen...or an ostrich.

Its too easy to only see things in black & white.  

You know, you can't set here and play both sides of the fence without getting called out on it.  You want to put this country down and compare it to one that allows you no rights, but then boost that you have the right to do so and that I cheapen it by telling you to go somewhere else and try it.  Sorry, but you can't eat your cake and have it too.

So, this all makes sense.  You're telling me what I cannot do and denying my individual rights to property (cake).

How did you get through the firewall?

[cannon_fodder]

I don't follow Wevus.  Are you saying I should worry about shrinking the size of corporations and crippling their power?  That is not analogous to governments.

Corporations are not governments nor sovereigns.  They are private entities owned and operated by citizens.  The things you speak of are relevant to governments but not individuals or private enterprise.

quote:Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That applies to GOVERNMENTS.  A citizens can not have this right violated, by definition, by another citizen or other private entity (unless acting at the bequest of the government).  If I enter your home to search it without permission it is a crime (breaking and entering) and additionally I am subject to civil liability (property rights are universal and may be violated by anyone).  But I did not violate a 4th Amendment Right to privacy by installing that camera in your wife's shower.

Furthermore, I am not required to live under the laws of my employer nor any given corporation.  I can refuse to do business with them - boycott, quit, or otherwise refuse transactions.  Unlike the rules of government, which by virtue of my birth in this land I am required to abide by (moving countries is, again, a much more drastic step and not comparable).  

If my government fails me I can end up in prison, without property, or dead.  If a corporation fails me the likely consequence is I end up going somewhere else.

This nation was set up to fear and control government and in support of a free enterprise system.  The Marxist notion that we should render control to the former to impair the latter in order to preserve our rights seem a drastic contradiction to me.   The concept is constantly applied to the economy and wholeheartedly rejected by the free enterprise system.

quote:all the leverage rests with the institution doing the testing, and none with the employee being tested. If the only way an employee can change the contract is to leave the contract entirely, you've got an inherently unequal situation.

There is no guarantee of or right to equality of bargaining power.  The very notion is unfathomable to me.  Where does the government stop telling people who and what they contract for and on what terms?  Certainly the employees in most instances have more power than the company - if enough employees were pissed off enough the situation were stop.  

However, if a drug test or pay cut or whatever else is not bad enough to render a response - then it will stand.  A very simple concept above and beyond the basic idea that there is no governmental recourse for inequity in bargaining.

quote:there's a baffling reluctance on the part of conservatives to extend their critique of bureaucracy to business

Bureaucracy in business is their own problem.  I do not have to pay for nor put up with it if I don't want to.  It does not usurp my individual rights nor spend money it has taken from me against my will.

Just like I can't mandate action in your home, I can not dictate behavior inside a private company.

It all comes down to the basic difference between government and private.  You are comparing apples to raw meat and that is probably the basis for our entirely different trains of though.  

I believe individual rights are more important than government, Marx believes the people exist to serve the government.  The State is more important and will take care of us, so it should have all the power and resources.

I disagree.  Individuals are more important.  By extension, the companies owned by individuals are above government on the list of entities with rights.  By my opinion, and by legal jurisprudence.

[mdunn]

do people still watch the olympics???They have such great events,such as Curling,Now thats a mans man game!

[shadows]

Bravo, bravo, we have reached the perfect solution to the civil rights of the conqueror of the lands.

We compare our achievements of existence to China, who's existence dates back centuries, ours with less time that can be counted on the fingers of one hand.   As the recorders of the past write, through greed we seek our place as a world empire.  As in the past failures of empires, the supply line grow too long.  We have troops scattered all over the globe.  

We compare human rights among a population that is like comparing the mustard seed to the peach  seed.   We do not own property, we only rent it from the governments and if we do not pay the rental (taxes) the government can seize it and sell to another person,  Many exceptions are available for authority to enter you home, with force. without a search warrant.  We are China's greatest debtor. China built the great wall long ago but we cannot build a fence on the border between US and Mexico.

Many point out that when China built the great wall it slipped into its dark ages.   If we built such a wall around the US, our defense army would be on the outside of the wall today,

Let the sleeping dog lie while we sweep out are own trash.  

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

I don't follow Wevus.  Are you saying I should worry about shrinking the size of corporations and crippling their power?  That is not analogous to governments.

Corporations are not governments nor sovereigns.  They are private entities owned and operated by citizens.  The things you speak of are relevant to governments but not individuals or private enterprise.

quote:Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That applies to GOVERNMENTS.  A citizens can not have this right violated, by definition, by another citizen or other private entity (unless acting at the bequest of the government).  If I enter your home to search it without permission it is a crime (breaking and entering) and additionally I am subject to civil liability (property rights are universal and may be violated by anyone).  But I did not violate a 4th Amendment Right to privacy by installing that camera in your wife's shower.

Furthermore, I am not required to live under the laws of my employer nor any given corporation.  I can refuse to do business with them - boycott, quit, or otherwise refuse transactions.  Unlike the rules of government, which by virtue of my birth in this land I am required to abide by (moving countries is, again, a much more drastic step and not comparable).  

If my government fails me I can end up in prison, without property, or dead.  If a corporation fails me the likely consequence is I end up going somewhere else.

This nation was set up to fear and control government and in support of a free enterprise system.  The Marxist notion that we should render control to the former to impair the latter in order to preserve our rights seem a drastic contradiction to me.   The concept is constantly applied to the economy and wholeheartedly rejected by the free enterprise system.

quote:all the leverage rests with the institution doing the testing, and none with the employee being tested. If the only way an employee can change the contract is to leave the contract entirely, you've got an inherently unequal situation.

There is no guarantee of or right to equality of bargaining power.  The very notion is unfathomable to me.  Where does the government stop telling people who and what they contract for and on what terms?  Certainly the employees in most instances have more power than the company - if enough employees were pissed off enough the situation were stop.  

However, if a drug test or pay cut or whatever else is not bad enough to render a response - then it will stand.  A very simple concept above and beyond the basic idea that there is no governmental recourse for inequity in bargaining.

quote:there's a baffling reluctance on the part of conservatives to extend their critique of bureaucracy to business

Bureaucracy in business is their own problem.  I do not have to pay for nor put up with it if I don't want to.  It does not usurp my individual rights nor spend money it has taken from me against my will.

Just like I can't mandate action in your home, I can not dictate behavior inside a private company.

It all comes down to the basic difference between government and private.  You are comparing apples to raw meat and that is probably the basis for our entirely different trains of though.  

I believe individual rights are more important than government, Marx believes the people exist to serve the government.  The State is more important and will take care of us, so it should have all the power and resources.

I disagree.  Individuals are more important.  By extension, the companies owned by individuals are above government on the list of entities with rights.  By my opinion, and by legal jurisprudence.

I'm gonna restate what I wrote before, because after rereading it, it wasn't very clear to me, either. So:

Zinn is doing a Marxist critique of American history. He is looking at how power dynamics between the classes have shaped our country over the years. This is, as Marx would look at it, specifically about class and economics, and how money is used as power.  

It is NOT a reading based on Soviet Russia, or Maoist China, or Castro's Cuba, etc.  It's imperative to know that Marx was dead 30+ years before the Russian Revolution occurred, and that he was in no way directly responsible for those authoritarian governments that decades later took his initial critique and extrapolated it in ways that are far from his original arguments.  

For instance, Marx did NOT advocate subsuming individual rights to the State.  Marx's ideal was not having a State in the first place, where all workers would live in Utopian bliss in communes (later used by Communists to justify their industrial farming model).  Marx did NOT have anything to say about taking away private property.  In fact, Marx spoke almost exclusively in philosophical generalities, and made no real prescription about how his ideas were to be implemented.  It was later generations of Russian radicals -- Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, and later, Stalin -- who took Marx's ideas and tried to apply them practically to governing a nation and an economy.  We know how that turned out, obviously, but please don't make the mistake of assuming that Soviet Russia in any way is what I'm talking about.

EdW's statement about how drug testing functions at his workplace is a solid Marxist critique of the relationship between a worker and his employer in 21st century America.  Ed's talking explicitly about how an entity (the company that employs him) leverages its economic power over and individual (with the implicit threat of firing) to arrange compliance with its policies (taking a drug test), at the cost of the worker's personal freedoms.  Marx would see that as coercion.  

As an aside, this is not fundamentally opposed to capitalism.  In fact, Marxism isn't an economic system at all. Marxism is really just a way to acknowledge the inequities of capitalism.  His book was called, after all, Das Kapital.

My comment about conservatism was meant to say that right leaning Americans have been doing Marxist critique all this time, but focused exclusively on mechanisms of government, rather than mechanisms of the economy.  In many ways, I think that conservatives are in the process of actively avoiding critiquing economic actors.  I want to know why that is.

Hope this clears some stuff up.

[cannon_fodder]

I understand your statements and largely agree with them Wevus.  I give Marx full credit for a very interesting alternative philosophy on power and economics.  He is certainly NOT responsible for the litany of oppressive authoritarian countries that have professed to adopt his theory.

However, I also need to assert that his theory on paper has never translated to real life.  IMHO, he failed to take the human element into account.  People are not as altruistic as he would like, and people make up governments - so by extension governments run the risk of corruption, power grabbing, and personal gratification.  Thus, it is my (and Smith's) assumption that people will automatically gravitate to what they think is best for them that guides me thinking (and subsequent distrust of government).

So while I understand Marx himself was not a "big government" advocate, the means necessary to achieve his aims have always been perpetrated by the use of force, which is reserve to governments (or what became, sought to become or effectively were governments).  

Yep.  []