[ExI] anti-capitalist propaganda, was: retrainability of plebeians

[Jeff Davis]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:32 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
...

> I was joking too Jeff.  I was swinging on your vine there.

That famous driest of dry wit.

> I am more
> liberal that you, Jeff, more than anyone, for I think all drugs should be
> legal, all abortions are fine with me, all the liberal everything is fine,
> the military should be no larger than necessary,

I take it all back.  You the man!

>  but the federal government
> should be out of most of what it is doing.  Completely.

That govt is best which governs least.  Huzzah!

>  In my view they
> would do little more than operate the military and maintain the interstate
> highway system.

                               snippage...

>> start thinking about proposals for the new administration
>> about how to transition LockMart from death machine welfare
>> queen to extropic vanguard of new paradigm life-enhancing
>> technologies...
>
> Better military technologies do exactly that.

Blecch!  You not the man.

...

> The newest warfare paradigms are a logical extrapolation: one
> carries the weapons aboard a drone, operated by guys in an air conditioned
> office in Nevada somewhere, and shoots not at the soldiers but rather at the
> trucks, armor and missiles.

Dream on my brother.  At the moment this seems like a good idea, since
the current drone "phenomenon" is entirely ours, and is flying over
nowheresville shooting at rebellious Muslim subhumans.  What happens
when these little planes are flying over ***your*** neighborhood?

But, returning ever so briefly to the Af-Pak war,... The hunt for Bin
Laden, having failed utterly, has been replaced by a boundless Global
War on Terror with its equally boundless profit potential.   The
catastrophic prospect of peace, which loomed menacingly after the fall
of the Soviet boogieman has been swept away, replaced by the
militarist's fondest dream: perpetual global war, starting with a war
against forty million Pashtuns ie, the Taliban and its parent tribe.
The Taliban were never our enemy, the Pastun were never our enemy.  So
why are we fighting them?  Revenge, frustration, political inertia,
and the cancerous parasitism of opportunistic militarism (war for
profit: political and monetary).  Sheer madness which can only result
in penury and blowback.

>  The logical extension of shooting to wound the
> enemy gives way to the new paradigm of not shooting the enemy soldiers at
> all, but rather to send them home perfectly healthy, for the super accurate
> tiny missiles are not particularly effective as anti-personnel weapons
> anyway.

I thought of this first, many many years ago.  Soldiers are innocents,
it is their overlords who deserve to be blown up.  I ***love*** the
idea of a "military" theory aimed at neutralizing but keeping safe the
soldier pawns of the adversary political class.  But dream on if you
think the current crop of US warmongers and warmakers are thinking
this way.  That little missile -- not big enough for a tank -- with
your name on it, will still be aimed at the humans in the machine, and
their death will be sought and celebrated.  Imagining otherwise
constitutes the deepest of deep denial.

> But they are great for punching a small clean hole all the way thru
> the engine of a truck, disabling it.

...

> This approach

Someday, upon its sincere adoption

> eliminates a lot of problems.  No war refugees to protect and
> feed, no prison camps to have your own soldiers photographing themselves
> misbehaving, none of your guys being taken prisoner and being asked their
> name, rank and serial number just before a tiny minority saws his goddam
> head off, no Private Ryans to rescue, no expensive planes being shot down,
> no wrecked buildings to pay for, reduced carbon dioxide emissions due to all
> that motorized armor that no longer runs, no stressed out soldiers going
> crazy and slaying their comrades, no reason for concern over the sexual
> orientation of the joystick jockey sitting in the next cubicle, no husbands
> or children missing their mothers who have gone off to war.
>
> Now, given that technology, do we still call them death machines?  Jeff I
> would call them life machines.

Your heart's in the right place, but your head's,... not. ;-)

> What you already own is irrelevant to the government for
> that isn't taxable.
> Only what you make is what the government can tax.

Taxation, unlike say, gravity, is not subject to some immutable law,
but rather man made and man modifiable: make it taxable.  In fact
eliminate all other taxes -- all, as in ALL -- and have one flat tax
based on net worth, or, as another list member suggested, a financial
transaction tax, you know, like a sales tax on everything, but
particularly to include investment transactions: stocks, bonds, and
the like.


 > The  rich already pay the whole damn bill, if you define rich the way the
> government does.

And when they get through paying, they're still rich, not jobless and homeless.

Go thee and sin no more.

Hope good fortune smiles upon you and Shelli and the pod.

Best, Jeff Davis

    "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti."
                       Sophia Loren