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Community > Posts By > Redykeulous
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Topic:
Pantheism
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Maybe I hang around a more educated crowd but I don't think that most religious people are so narrowminded in my experience. Except Jehovah's Witness. Man are they rigid!  Perhaps you do, all but two of my [real life] educated friends are atheist or just not concerned, and of those two only one is ever up for discussion That's too funny. Coming in just a little late and I just commented in a similar fashion - before I got to the post above.  |
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Topic:
Pantheism
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The religions simply state that there is One God, infinite and beyond our full comprehension. A God which is the ultimate origin of the universe and is omniscient and ubiquitous. I see no problem with visualizing this God in a pantheistic way. Nor me, s1owhand, and yet it seems that most tradtionally religious people do have a problem with it. Perhaps because it removes the identity of their personal god, it negates the need to attribute human characteristics and emotions to god (something which primitive man needed to do apparently). More importantly, perhaps, because it forces one to view God as a whole, both light and dark, good and evil, not seperate entities or characters like a God and a Devil. Maybe I hang around a more educated crowd but I don't think that most religious people are so narrowminded in my experience. Except Jehovah's Witness. Man are they rigid! Islam and Judaism though for example do not have a Devil opposing God as you describe it. It is more of an internal human inclination for good or bad. A more modern view is that the Devil symbolizes our evil inclinations testing us. Anyway it is pretty common for me and my college educated friends to think along the lines of a pantheistic view of God. What college? I'm in the midwest - Part of the Bible belt actually and most of my college educated friends are atheists or agnostics who simply don't consider god on any consistant basis. Of course most of them are in the sciences - maybe that makes a difference. |
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Topic:
Pantheism
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The religions simply state that there is One God, infinite and beyond our full comprehension. A God which is the ultimate origin of the universe and is omniscient and ubiquitous. I see no problem with visualizing this God in a pantheistic way. Nor me, s1owhand, and yet it seems that most tradtionally religious people do have a problem with it. Perhaps because it removes the identity of their personal god, it negates the need to attribute human characteristics and emotions to god (something which primitive man needed to do apparently). More importantly, perhaps, because it forces one to view God as a whole, both light and dark, good and evil, not seperate entities or characters like a God and a Devil. I'm just catching up with this thread so I'm a little late but I just wanted to comment the responce made above, I liked it - well put. |
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Topic:
Pantheism
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Monotheists believe in one God. Pantheists also believe in one God. Both are right. It is the same God. The rest is just different ways to frame their beliefs and rituals. None are "better" than the other. I find it amusing to see those who have some beef with one view or another trying to criticize each other over the manner in which they observe their worship of God. The Pantheist God is obviously the same as the Abrahamic God and all other concepts of a single deity - Native Americans etc. There is only One! It's silly! Now go forth and love one another.  Of course you are free to create the god of your choice, like everyone else. The gods that belong to individuals have minimal strength. It's the gods that are harnessed to religious dogatic organization that seem to cause some of the worlds greatest annoyances. |
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May have no choice... Plastic Diapers are made with processed hydrocarbons... FUEL! Oil is a finite resource. Eventually it won't be possible to make mountains of trash with it. 
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By many accounts we are on the down side of 'peak'oil reserves. At this point it will become more expensive to gain the crude that is still available and new technology will have to be developed for the hard to get to reserves.
The only fault of any president or other figure in authority is that they do not initiate and fully back renewable alternative measures. The XL pipeline will not resolve a thing. It would create an increase in the price of fuel and it would reak havoc on the environemnts through which it's placed. The cost of lawsuits alone will increase the price of fuel and converting tar sands oil to fuel is more expensive than converting crude, more environmentally destructive, and it is an expensive pasifier for those who are in denial. |
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Topic:
Pantheism
Edited by
Redykeulous
on
Tue 10/25/11 09:05 PM
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What little I have learned about pantheism is through reading about it in it's most ancient forms.
So far the discussion here seems to have missed a very important point and in some cases, having missed the point, we see how beliefs evolve. Pantheism is not a belief in 'a' god in the same vein as the monotheistic beliefs of 'a' god. In pantheism, there is no sigularity and thus no individuality assigned to the god force. The force that is god is universal and it exists in every element that makes up the universe. With that perspective, there is no god without the universe and every 'thing' that exists within the universe, being made up of the stuff of the universe, is a thing to be respected. Many of the Native American belief systems were pantheistic. When they spoke of or to the spirit in the wind, or the father sky and mother earth, they were speaking out of reverence. When they killed a bison they praised the animal for it's worthy fight and thanked it for giving its life so many could live. They were fanatical about utilizing every part of the animal because it respectful to the animal that its life was not given in vein. They were nomadic, due in part to the weather, but more than that they knew that settling in one spot too long would put stress on the nature of that envirenment. Now THAT is pantheism and I see no connection what-so-ever between that idealism and any major religion that exists today. What I have seen however, are people inserting their tunnel vision, like a knife, into that beautiful pantheistic concept of god as universe, and twisting that knife to make the pantheistic concept more homogenous to their own narrow view of 'a' god. In pantheism there is no singularity about god and no indiduation that separates god into things that are not god. I don't think even atheism is as opposite of monothesim as pantheism is. EDITING TO ADMIT A MISTAKE: Jeanniebean seems to have been supporting a much more realistic version of pantheism and she is getting guff for it. I think that's a testament to the deep rooted desire of all believers in a god to find the similarities in all beliefs. There are far more differences that most believers want to admit. |
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Topic:
The main difference
Edited by
Redykeulous
on
Sun 10/23/11 08:43 PM
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You could say the same of "Philosophy" but both Philosophy and religions address important issues of ethics, the nature of humanity and our relationship to the rest of the world. Yes I think that quote highlights a big difference between religious beliefs with regards to the environments in which we live, and on which we depend for life. Many of the older Native American beliefs included a great reverence for nature and the environment – I can’t really think of many religious beliefs (short of more cult oriented beliefs) that pay any attention to the environment or our relationship with it. In short, I think you are wrong that all of the questions addressed by religion or philosophy have no answers. There are useful answers about what is right and what is wrong and why. There are points of view which put our significance and insignificance in perspective. Want to back that up with some examples because it’s not clear to me what you are trying to say. If you ask a Christian “Why did my beautiful loving and giving daughter have to suffer and die?” I’d be willing to bet that 99% of all Christians would have some kind of stock answer and they would believe it. Do you need some examples or have you heard them all a million times? In what way and compared to what are humans significant or not significant and by what perspective would you make those judgments? To say that questions concerning these issues have no answers is extremely simplistic and not true in general as I see it. Then what is the point of human suffering? Do you have a simple answer? What is the point of all these religions that instigate segregation and propagate homogeneity as long as it’s homogenous to their own beliefs? Is there a simple answer? And of course the question: “What are the main differences between religious beliefs.” Not even philosophy would attempt to try to answer that one today. Would you? My question is: For all the major differences that occur within a single religious category, why are these not seen as differences by those within the category – take Buddhism for example. There are more gods and goddesses than anyone really knows but they have all agreed that these are just different manifestations of the main gods. OK. How that different than say, Christianity vs. Mormons? |
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Topic:
On belief...
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Then explain what you mean by this: I think that there is a necessary causal connection. Perhaps it be better put, thought/belief requires a certain chain of events which happen in a specific order. TimeSpace is an inferred concept. The concept could not have been inferred without first having had some questions pertaining to all the previous knowledge which also came about through previous human perceptions. All previous human knowledge or beliefs are cumulative having passed to new generations, whether directly or indirectly, and all such knowledge or beliefs have been influenced by human perception both past and present. Humans perceive time apart from the concept of timespace. When we refer to time we refer to a linear concept because that’s the only way in which humans can perceive the passage of time – we pass from moment to moment in a progressive linear fashion. A human lives, progresses, and passes out of this realm. Born into an active scenario and then exiting an active scenario reflects the linear progression of events. We have no knowledge of future but we certainly can infer future events based on current knowledge and beliefs. We are motivated to stock up on food because we know we will eventually get hungry but how did that belief come about. Did someone from the future send a message to the past through unknown channels to tell people to stock up on food or they will suffer from hunger and eventually die? Why did we develop the belief that we needed to stock pile our food? Isn’t that what led to the technology which enables ability to stock up on food and what are the chain of events that led to this ability? What new knowledge and beliefs have occurred because of the chain of events that began with the belief that we need to stock up on food? We don’t look to the future – we have no way of doing so. We look to the past. It’s the only method known to man that yields repeatable, fairly dependable results. From those results we gain knowledge and form beliefs. Adding another element into this discussion which is based on belief that was developed through a creative process without any empirical evidence only belabors the course of the discussion. With that, I would suggest that for this topic it should be accepted that humans progress in a linear fashion. Thus the quote I think that there is a necessary causal connection. Perhaps it be better put, thought/belief requires a certain chain of events which happen in a specific order. Should be acceptable or not but if not then the argument should still be based on the only empirical concept that humans have of time. |
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I think of value when I hear 'respect' it has no connection to 'favoritism' for me as favoritism means placing someone ABOVE others I respect many people without placing them 'above' others I can respect what people do or what they accomplish and it translates to respecting the person on some level but I dont necessarily have FAVORITISM for a person because I am able to respect something about them there is a difference between respecting accomplishments or opinions and favoring the person who has achieved or expressed them its kind of like how I view not 'judging' we are to judge actions and words in order to gauge our own, but we are not to pass a judgment of the 'person' because we know no person completely enough to do so,, only God does I was about to respond to Miles but I see that the response was made above. I might just give an example, which also demonstrates what the link in the OP had to share. The word respect, as defined by Miles, has undergone changes. The example that comes to mind is the first ammendment of the Bill of rights: " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Using msharmony's explanation we can understand that in this case respect means to favor over other beleifs. This example also stands out in support of what the speaker from the OP link is trying to convey - that context is the most important aspect of language interpretation. Words can produce minor changes within context or they can produce major changes to the point of being opposite of what we might think. Not every change may effect one's overall belief but knowing that these varaiation exist and can be major, is an important reason to keep an open mind and for those who harbor religious beleifs, faith, without being fundamentally committed to language,is the most important factor in any belief system. When it comes to religious beliefs, faith should always be kept in 'context' with one's beliefs. I agree with that. The problem is most people do not understand what living the word is. to me its like your career. If you want to make the most of it then you are going to learn every thing you can about it. thats how I define " The Living Word" Yahshua our example to follow.. our mentor, our teacher..Blessings..Miles I may have said this to you before so forgive me if I repeat. There are many things about faith that you have in common with a rather well-known old-world philosopher: Sǿren Kierkegaard Kierkegaard was quite feisty when it came to opinions about religion. He wrote about (his philosophy) the offence that has been perpetrated, by many millions of people for millennia who “…under the guise of perfecting Christianity, sought little by little to cheat God out of Christianity, and have succeeded in making Christianity exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.” (1944) He would not agree with any of the religious fundamentalist thought of today. He came to existentialism naturally through his own research and because he felt so strongly that faith was not personal but required the individual to set their values in accordance with their faith. Faith, for Kierkegaard, was an internalization of the external power of God; therefore, convention as well as the establishment of the church depersonalized that which can only be experienced between the individual and the absolute, God. While his personal strength of character is one to admire, his existentialist philosophy is somewhat short-sighted and underdeveloped. But there is no doubt that he lived through his faith and perhaps that was the greatest legacy he left in support of some of his philosophical insight. I also agreed with his quote that I included above. |
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Topic:
"Educators"
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I believe the obligation to teach children cultural difference still lies at HOME. The schools are having a difficult enough time teaching children academics apparently without the obligation to teach them every possible thing within the WORLD of differences that humans have. Speaking only in terms of "in country" meaning mainland USA, we tend to think we know about all the cultural differences that exist in country. We do not. Children's exposure to culture requires experiences that can be explained or they do not develop cultural awareness. Those children grow and have kids of their own and rarely have the means or the knowledge to teach or expose their own children to these cultural differences. If we can't do it in school the cycle will not be broken. Now consider the fact that many of the cultures that exist in our own country are muted by the assimilation of individuals into our own culture and what remains obvious is only a fraction of their cultural traditions and beliefs. If we expect our children to have the best opportunities in their adult life we need to make sure that all children, who have not had a privliged life, at least have exposure via education. This is one of the reasons so many schools in underprivileged areas seek mentorship form the more exerienced adults. That being said, I do think an educator should EDUCATE earnest and sincere inquiry when possible instead of punishing it. Simply letting a child know , or reminding them, to keep questions and comments relevant to the discussion at hand is much more productive than disrupting their process by sending them from the room and suspending them. Those things, in my opinion, should be for repeat offenders. I would agree, we do need to address all inquiries as openly and honestly as possible give the age bracket of those inquiries. But we need to take that a bit further and teachers should be listening for signs that education is needed. Not to press any particular points here, but if educator hear children calling another person a spick or 'ho, or responding "that's so gay", I think it's within bounds that the educator should stop the behavior by providing education rather than punishment. The reason I give that responsibilit to the educators is specifically because much of that behavior comes from the home environmens in which there is no cultural awarness. |
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With his history as editor, and author of two best selling books, I somehow doubt he has to have teleprompters any more than ANY modern president in order to speak to the public. Not to mention, having seen him twice in person without teleprompter and any number of times in live television interviews, I believe its an incredible stretch to imply that he has any issue with expressing himself intelligently to the public or anyone else. He is probably the best educated and best public speaker we have had as president since George Washington. I doubt he needs a teleprompter. Its the people to try to dictate to him what he should say who probably got nervous. For George Bush, it would have been a disaster. Let's not be to hasty about that. I think I agree with many of the major historians that Lincoln and Kennedy take the case as the most charasmatic and profound speakers, but we've have several others who had some great moments, including FDR. Although I totally agree about G. Bush - his speeches were a disaster even when prompted! |
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I think of value when I hear 'respect' it has no connection to 'favoritism' for me as favoritism means placing someone ABOVE others I respect many people without placing them 'above' others I can respect what people do or what they accomplish and it translates to respecting the person on some level but I dont necessarily have FAVORITISM for a person because I am able to respect something about them there is a difference between respecting accomplishments or opinions and favoring the person who has achieved or expressed them its kind of like how I view not 'judging' we are to judge actions and words in order to gauge our own, but we are not to pass a judgment of the 'person' because we know no person completely enough to do so,, only God does I was about to respond to Miles but I see that the response was made above. I might just give an example, which also demonstrates what the link in the OP had to share. The word respect, as defined by Miles, has undergone changes. The example that comes to mind is the first ammendment of the Bill of rights: " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Using msharmony's explanation we can understand that in this case respect means to favor over other beleifs. This example also stands out in support of what the speaker from the OP link is trying to convey - that context is the most important aspect of language interpretation. Words can produce minor changes within context or they can produce major changes to the point of being opposite of what we might think. Not every change may effect one's overall belief but knowing that these varaiation exist and can be major, is an important reason to keep an open mind and for those who harbor religious beleifs, faith, without being fundamentally committed to language,is the most important factor in any belief system. When it comes to religious beliefs, faith should always be kept in 'context' with one's beliefs. |
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This is an interesting article about some of the challenges of accurately interpreting the bible http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-joel-hoffman/five-ways-your-bible-tran_b_1007058.html I agree, it was interesting and thanks for posting it. |
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Topic:
"Educators"
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I just wanted to add a note about IQ tests. After the development of the Intellegence Quotient testing methods, it was thought that African Americans were simply not as intelligent as Whites.
It took a while before it was recognized that no IQ test can be generalized between culture nor can they be generalized in countries in which the inhabitants for sub-cultures which continue for generations. Intelligence can only be measured using the cultural norms of the individual and so far a generalized IQ test is a rather illusive thing. I only added this post to show how important it is that we begin to socialize our young poeple with knowledge of as many cultures and world views as possible. I would say the more than half of all children in this country do not have adults in their lives, other than their teachers, who can bring this information to them. I agree with you that we need to teach the important stuff that is not and cannot be taught in the home or within the family unit. Sources of diversity is just such knowledge. |
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Topic:
"Educators"
Edited by
Redykeulous
on
Sun 10/16/11 06:39 PM
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I dont have any problem with the idea and reality that adults should be trying to teach kids(regardless of profession). BUt I think the PRIMARY purpose of a teacher is to TEACH, and there are too many topics under the sun to EXPECT everything be taught so we expect them to teach those things that will make them competitive and able to provide for themself when they grow up. Knowing the history of christians or thanksgiving doesnt necessarily do that and there are other lessons already intwined in history class that can be used to present the ideas of diversity and fairness and the implications of the opposite. So, although I would take no ISSUE With parties and such IF the children were first being taught what they NEED to produce and survive in life,, I dont consider it an entitlement that I would fight for if it was decided against. My main concern is my children are EQUIPPED when they grow up, the extras are up to the school and me, the parent, at home. Perhaps you are not thinking broadly enough. We are in the midst of creating global communities. The best jobs, right now, are going to more highly educated people who have knowledge of other cultures and the skills to work within the boundaries of each culture. The number of expatriats within the workforce continues to grow significantly every year. No country continues to live in isolation and diversity of people and cultures is considered an asset. We have an opportunity to teach more than just math, more than just the 'American' way. We have an opportunity to shape the future of the world and all we need to do is include in our teaching some historical facts and tid-bits about the diversity that exists in the historical archives. Diversity that spans all religions, gender...(like I said before). It's not necesarily a new time slot for teaching something, but utilizing old time slots in new and improved ways. Such improvements will expand the opportunities available to our kids. |
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Topic:
Now, who's the Warmonger?
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Barry Sends 100 US Troops to Uganda to Help Combat Lord’s Resistance Army Oct 14, 2011 1:54pm ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report: Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.” He said that “although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.” The president said that for more than two decades the LRA has been responsible for having “murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa” and continues to “commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.” A senior Defense official says the 100 military personnel will be mostly Special Operations Forces and that they “will be traveling out to field locations in the areas affected by the LRA where they can interact with and advise those forces that are actively pursuing the LRA.” The official stressed, “they will not be engaging in direct combat against the LRA.” The US has been helping the four African nations counter the LRA for several years by providing local militaries with training and equipment. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo the US helped train a light infantry battalion deployed to fight the LAR and over the last three years in Uganda the US has provided $33 million to help Uganda’s military. As for how long the US troops will be in the region, a spokesman at US Africa Command says he could not provide specifics, “but our forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently. The president in his letter noted that Congress passed “the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,” signed into law on May 24, 2010, in which, the president said, “the Congress also expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.” When the president signed that letter in May 2010, he said the bill “crystallizes the commitment of the United States to help bring an end to the brutality and destruction that have been a hallmark of the LRA across several countries for two decades, and to pursue a future of greater security and hope for the people of central Africa. The Lord’s Resistance Army preys on civilians – killing, raping, and mutilating the people of central Africa; stealing and brutalizing their children; and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Its leadership, indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has no agenda and no purpose other than its own survival. It fills its ranks of fighters with the young boys and girls it abducts. By any measure, its actions are an affront to human dignity.” The act passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming support on May 10, 2010 with language that included “providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army.” http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/14/obama-sending-combat-troops-to-central-africa-to-aid-rebel-fight/ And again,he asks no formal Permission from Congress to get involved there! Does the shout "NEVER AGAIN" mean anyting to you? This situation has been ongoing. We've had military there to observe on several occasions and what they observed was genocide in action. Some of those troops brought word back to the public when they could not get the military or government to take action. The public was unaware, whether it was because the media was never informed or they produced nominal reporting on the topic perhaps becasue the inforamtion they received was played down as back page news. Our complicit role in allowing the German holocaust to go on as long as it did was due to similar treatment from administrations of that time. When the public became aware of our complicit role the cry went up "NEVER AGAIN" will this country allow such genocide to continue with our knowledge. We have no excuse for our lack of knowledge in this current case. We have access to a media that is world-wide and what has been going on is not secret to the rest of the world. There have been organizations working against mainstream media to inform the public at large but it seems most people still only read and believe their choice of local news media. Millions have died, millions more have suffered atrociteis, and millions are currently homeless and starving. I'm appauled that anyone would recklessly state And again,he asks no formal Permission from Congress to get involved there! There should NEVER be a lack of consensus for the highest official of any nation to declare "never again" and send troops to halt genocide, by force when necessary. With regards to the action of our administration in this matter, it is too little that is offered and far too late to be considered a move toward justice and right by this administration. To me this is a campaign ploy because the atrocities have gone on daily with the knowledge of this and other administrations before it. We also continue, not only to be complicit but we are often responsible for the genocide of the Palestinians. With wealth and power comes a level of responsibility. Our government has had only one sector they have responded to with responsiblity and the corporate interest has no concern for genocide in the world, nor for altruistic claims made by an outraged public who are lied to regularly. (sorry to the owner of the quote I used, it wasn't personal, but it was a great example of why we need to think about what we say and maybe research something before we comment.) |
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Topic:
"Educators"
Edited by
Redykeulous
on
Sun 10/16/11 05:21 PM
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Every opportunity for interaction between adults and children is an opportunity to exchange knowledge for curiosity and for both parties to learn something new. Teachers have the greatest opportunity for such exchanges because its their job, theri entire focus to have such exchanges with the young poeple in their care.
What's wrong with providing a hands-on active learning environment? What's wrong with limiting the inforamtion to age appropriate levels? Thanksgiving: Dress-up in historic costume for the younger kids and learning about the native people that inhabited this land before us. This is important becasue they will have to learn at some point that the treatment those people received was no less of a genocidal action than those of more modern times. Here we have opportunity to CHANGE the way we view Thanksgiving, we could tell our kids that what we are thankful for is that we have learned to celebrate our growing knowledge that diversity is not only acceptible, it is worth striving for peaceful ways to keep the diversity among us. Christmas: Here we have an opportunity to teach kid that about the religion that dominated our culture before we learned the importance of accepting diversity. With Christmas we have an opportunity to teach about the basic ideals of Christianity and and Judiaism and about the Pagan religions that served to influence the major Christian holidays. What's wrong with teach kids through hands-on making of ornaments and garlands and explaining their origins. What's wrong with showing and even lighting the menorah and explaing some rituals. What's wrong with teaching that all of these thing serve serve to create diversity. Halloween: What's wrong with the facts - sure dress up and explaing the religious beliefs that accompany it. When we teach about prominant and influential people in history we must make sure that all manner of role models are included. People of both genders, all colors, lesbians, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and people of all ethnicities, and those who have overcome great physical and mental challenges to rise to historic levels. Every child deserves the opportunity to see someone like themselves, someone respected that respesents some diversity that is their own and does not make them feel different, segregated and out-of-place, everyone deserves a role model. We are so darn busy trying to work our way through the prejudice and racism that has been so institutionalized in our country that we have ignored the greatest opportunities to teach our children that we have a vision of a better world, a world we can only hope they will grow up to believe in. The more knowledge about other cultures, other religions, and other world views that we can expose our children to, the more opportunity we give them to shape their own futures that the world those futures will be lived in. |
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It's my opinion that a return to old school industry is the wrong move to make.
Lowering our EPA standards so that industry can continue to polute is not worth the new jobs - not when others can be created. We currently have the greatest college enrollment and greatest number of college graduates who are not working or are underemployed than we have ever had. We could be putting all that education to work in fields that would allow the U.S. to continue to lead the world into a new era. If the wars we're currently involved in were ended we would also have a great number of troops returning to civilian life who will need employment. The money we currently spend on military initiatives could be more wisely spend developing better technology for the industry we do have and will need in order tighten EPA standards. Once developed, that technology would be marketable to the rest of the world. The same holds true for research and development of renewable energy sources. NEW industry would occur from both EPA restrictions and renewable energy. Those two fields alone would require a diversty of employable individual, the highly educated to the teen who wants summer emplyment. The more we develop and rely on education the greater our potential for regaining the ability to lead the world into new and better directions. We have the people-power and we have the education, what we don't have is a leadership with vision,what we do have is leadership that allows itself to continue to be controlled by the corporate capitalists. Hard times mean that we have to pull together and work toward a future and that future cannot include bowing to the few who currently own the means of production. If the governments (fed and state)invest in development of future ideals, the means of production will begin to transfer to the people - possibly in the form of cooperatives - which will help to balance wealth, power, and control between the corporate intersts and the people. At this point, a return to older industry practices will result in greatly reduce income at all levels employment. With greatly reduced income consumerism will diminish as technology becomes unaffordable and food and shelter take priority. Those corporate capitalists will either be forced to sell for less with a reduced bottom line or they will continue to use their influence to change the laws that have been created to protect our human rights and slave labor will be the result if they are allowed to succeed. We cannot go backwards in time,we must envision a better future and make plans by which to attain that vision. Most of our current governments (fed and state) not only lack vision, but they are easily manipulated by those who own the means of production which our current government assemblies are convinced is the ony way back toward solvancy as a nation. One of the first steps to be considered at this time should be major changes to the way we choose our political candidates and the way in which they are allowed to campaign. The voting system is key to regaining power that will more aptly serve the needs of the people (the 99%). I deplore the fact that this current administration is making desicions based on the influence of the corporate sector and thowing money in that direction. I would like it if both the Republicans and the Democrats of this current administration never see eye to eye and continue to oppose each other to point of doing nothing and advancing no agenda short of addressing the shortfalls of our democratic process. The hope is that they cause no further harm by implementing industrial policies that will be more difficult to correct for a future administration of people who want to serve the interest of 99% above the interests of the major corporate capitalists. |
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Edited by
Redykeulous
on
Sun 10/16/11 01:27 PM
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to address the arguments about class, I offer that each has a point but by making the individual points, perhaps the bigger picture is getting lost.
It always seems easier to discuss class in terms of upper, middle, and lower and, as someone has already brought up, Marxist theory in which the classes are identified as the bourgeoisie, those whose power is derived through the ownership of the means of production, and the proletariat, whom we refer to as the working class. However, the Marxist two class system is greatly simplified as is the idea of upper, middle and lower class. Today, when discussing or researching such issues as class, the social class is regarded in terms of social stratification. Even within each broader class, social stratification occurs. Social stratification is determined by four things: wealth, power, influence and control. One can have power within the confines of smaller a class subset, or one may be an influential member of their social network but those who dominate the stratification ladder generally combine all of these determinants. One logical flow may be wealth equals power, power equals influence, and influence equals control. In my reading I have noted that most economic references consider 8 give or take social classes within our (the U.S.)stratification. In our society, in fact in most of the world today, it would be those who have the combined attributes of wealth, power, influence, and control who have become the highest or dominating class – we call them the corporate capitalists. The greatest reminder today of the imbalance that exists between the uppermost class where wealth, power, influence, and control are combined, and the lowest stratification is seen in the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations which aptly portray a two class system (similar to the Marxist theory) by using the logo “We are the 99%”, the 1%, of course, are the corporate capitalists. It seems that Marxist theory is developing as Marx imagined, those (the 1 %), who own the means of production, have the wealth and the thus the power to influence and control the other 99%. Has anyone here read Marxist theory to know what he suggested would happen when the 99% realized what was the extent to which they are dominated? Anyway, Marxist theory depends on stages of political and social development, a series of events, that must happen naturally (not be forced as in Russia or Vietnam). I think it’s interesting to read Marxist theory and generalize comparisons between his stages of development and the current political climate. In a paper I wrote two years ago, I suggested that Marx’s view may have been too narrow and he did not envision this stage, that we are currently in, to be so broad as to envelope a wider global community. On the other hand it could be that he envisioned the social, political and economic movement, referred to as communism, as a return to national isolation, being a temporary cure, before the next stage which may be more global. Perhaps he didn’t have the opportunity of completing his theory. So while there are many ways in which to describe class stratification within a society, the best method requires that we consider social, political and economic climates from the perspective of wealth, power, influence, and control. Does anyone here believe they are not part of the 99 % with regards to our current U.S. social, political and economic stratification or even within the broader world dominated social order? Below is a website and an excellent power point, presented by a college professor, that describe social class – also Wikipedia offers some great articles for further research. http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Class-in-the-United-States&id=939641 http://a-s.clayton.edu/ipage/Social%20Class%20in%20the%20United%20States.ppt |
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