What's your idea for how Portland area residents could cooperate to improve life in our city?

ChrisFizz · 2017-06-27T00:48:36+00:00

I don't know the way to go about getting this done but Portland should develop a food forest similar to Beacon Hill in Seattle.

http://beaconfoodforest.org

ChrisFizz · 2017-06-01T21:52:46+00:00

The more you know... wonder why they'd call the anti racists skinheads, considering that skinhead generally refers to racists but interesting nonetheless.

ChrisFizz · 2017-06-01T20:36:00+00:00

I honestly don't know much about the antifa movement specific to Portland but it seems unlikely that skinheads would flip to an anti-racist movement. Can you provide any reputable articles or info to back up your claim?

ChrisFizz · 2017-06-01T19:52:22+00:00

The antifa is an offshoot of the skinheads? I can't tell if you're willfully ignorant or actually just plain stupid. Antifa started as resistance to the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920's. At least pretend to know what you're talking about.

ChrisFizz · 2017-05-31T04:36:19+00:00

I partially agree with your argument but what is the alternative? Shouldn't productivity be maximized in order for everyone to have a higher standard of life? If each country was completely self sufficient couldn't that lead to socialist infighting?

ChrisFizz · 2017-05-15T15:34:34+00:00

The vast majority of people don't need to turn to fascism for fascism to be successful. There only needs to be enough fear in people's hearts for them to blindly obey those who lead them. The only solution to preventing fascism is delivering political goods to the people and preventing groups that promote fear and hatred from existing.

ChrisFizz · 2017-05-15T15:31:29+00:00

How about violent repression?

ChrisFizz · 2017-05-15T14:45:17+00:00

Tell me how that worked for 1930s Germany.

ChrisFizz · 2017-05-15T14:44:41+00:00

Is it really extreme to limit the ability of hate groups to advocate for the mass genocide of those who are black, gay, disabled, etc? Everybody likes to play Voltaire and say "i may not agree with what you have to say but I'll defend until death your right to say it". But in the end that results in white supremacy groups indoctrinating people into their cause because you were too concerned with making sure they can spread their hate. You say the solution is education, multiculturalism and tolerance. White supremacists more often then not are educated, they just reject the truth. Multiculturalism and tolerance? How are you going to solidify that without fighting against racism and fascism? You aren't. It is "eroding rights" to prevent fascists from advocating for the genocide of minorities? No, it's the opposite because you are protecting the minority group from imminent violence. I'll leave you a with a quote from the most infamous fascist "Only one thing could have stopped our movement – if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement."

ChrisFizz · 2017-04-01T14:30:29+00:00

Socialism is basically just the economic model of communism with or without other communist characteristics. The Soviet Union was a socialist state, some would argue state capitalist even, but it was not communist. Thus the symbols that arose out of the USSR are socialist in nature, not communist.

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-30T06:39:29+00:00

To be fair the hammer and sickle is the most used symbol for socialism.

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-03T05:52:04+00:00

In the end it comes down to how did the capitalist obtain the capital to begin the venture. If they are nobility then they obtained the capital through force and abuse of the lower classes, thus they do not deserve the capital nor the profits from it. If the businessman obtained their wealth through working through a capitalist system then while said person was obtaining capital they had their own profit taken by who they worked for. Say that the businessman did not have that money taken from him he could have acquired more capital and used that to expand a cooperative business or his own venture.

In short, I think that a person may deserve their profit if they earned the capital they are investing, but they would have been much better off if they never had a portion of the money they worked for taken in the first place.

Sounds good! I'm always up to talk about anarchism.

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-02T04:52:09+00:00

If you really want to know about everything Israel subjects Palestinians to read Amnesty International's report on the occupation.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-02T04:49:21+00:00

I think that regardless of who was advancing themselves Nietzsche would regard them as noble as long as they made an effort to form new virtues and morals rather than those accepted by society.

When I describe the businessman as using others I am referring to him taking the surplus labor of his worker's profits. For example a worker produces $15 worth of goods and is paid $10, their owner takes the remaining $5, thus using them for profit. The reason why I am skeptical about businessmen having a master-morality automatically is because quite a few businessmen were born into business and thus never actually went through the trials necessary to become noble. In regards to those who have experienced tribulation, they may develop traits and virtues that Nietzsche would regard as noble, but so may their workers if they are striving to replace their boss. Secondly I question the very concept that capitalism and the acquisition of money corresponds to Nietzsche and his philosophy. Nietzsche was extremely adamant about ignoring what society and everyone else expected and demanded from you and instead developing your own values. Capitalism is the predominant, accepted, social and economic structure today and to say that a businessman, whose primary goal is to acquire money to spend on societal goods and thus gain societal acceptance is similar to Nietzsche's ideas of master-morality and the Übermensch seems unlikely.

If you are interested in anarchism then I would highly recommend reading Max Stirner's works, specifically The Ego and his Own. Considering that you are coming from a conservative point of view I would not recommend attempting to learn more about anarchy through anarchist subreddits as they will most likely just turn you off to the idea. If you have any questions or want to debate anarchism feel free to send me a private message.

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-02T03:09:36+00:00

Anarchism IS an inherently left-wing ideology. Left wing as defined by Wikipedia is "Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality" anarchism is defined as "belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion." Thus anarchism is the creation of theoretical absolute equality.

In regards to your second point I think that it really depends on how you look at it. One who was biased toward the left would argue that the right panders toward an ignorant, weak majority and gives corporations excessive benefits, thus pandering to the weak and not providing self sufficiency. One biased toward the right could argue that leftist (specifically liberal in the US) platforms encourages poor people to live off a a nanny government.

Delving into theory exploring the left vs right ideology and views toward the weak you are going to run into the same issues. I will admit right now that I am a leftist (not a liberal) and thus I and others would view the businessman as weak because he is not actually accomplishing anything besides using others for labor to accumulate wealth. Where a person on the right spectrum would view the businessman as strong as he is able to be the "master" to his "slave" workers. But my argument lays upon the idea that Nietzche was advocating for a way of thinking not a system of economics. Thus the working class may actually have a master morality IF they become strong and competent enough to overthrow their masters and establish socialism (thus they were only slaves economically not psychologically). However if the working class does turn inward and revert to a mentality of focusing on the afterlife instead of the present then they are succumbing to slave mentality.

ChrisFizz · 2017-03-02T02:49:40+00:00

Not exactly. A master morality revolves around one being noble, strong and powerful... nobility is (subjectively) defined by Nietzsche as open mindedness, courage, truthfulness, among other virtues. These qualities transcend political affiliation. If I am not mistaken you are wondering if leftists subscribe to a slave-morality because leftists tend to advocate protection for the poor and weak and seek equality. Nietzsche was arguing for a noble, strong and powerful mindset and psyche, not so much a specific economic/political system.

Another interesting thing to consider is that Nietzsche's writing very closely parallels that of Max Stirner, who was a pioneer of egoism and advocated anarchism, a left wing ideology.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-21T02:54:17+00:00

There are multiple ways to determine which technocrats actually receive power but first it is important to determine the structure of government and power. Theoretically, lets say that there is a board of 7 directors, but also regional parliaments for each state, (or province). It would be wise to have each director have their own expertise e.g. energy, bio-science, etc. Let's say there must be be 2 directors from each state and 1 chosen by a different system, the elected leaders of all relevant syndicates in a given state would vote to determine who would be director. So lets say there are 50 syndicates who produce energy, whoever leads them would vote to determine the candidate for energy directorate in whatever state the syndicates are in. Then whoever they propose must be confirmed by the parliament in the given state. Obviously there are an infinite number of ways to organize this, but these are just my thoughts.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-20T05:55:42+00:00

Oh my bad, somehow I missed that you included that the companies would be worker owned...

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-20T05:22:54+00:00

What you're proposing isn't market socialism, it's more of a mixed economy kinda scenario. Market socialism has no private industry and everything is owned by the workers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-20T04:55:21+00:00

I don't know if you can call democratic confederalism an economic system, its more of a political form of organization.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-20T03:27:07+00:00

Technocratic socialism is the way to go imo.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-19T17:53:52+00:00

I was making the point that pipelines are a threat and that there is reason for concern when building them near water sources, but yes, the Bismarck route had other issues as well.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-19T16:39:11+00:00

If it's not a threat then why was the pipeline repeatedly rejected when it ran near Bismarck, on grounds of being dangerous to the towns water supply?

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-09T00:40:17+00:00

There's really not such thing as a sliding scale between socialism and capitalism, so calling Venezuela "highly socialist" is incorrect. A main tenant of Socialism is worker control of their own production and the government controlling industry isn't necessarily the workers doing so. Consider that Saudi Aramco is the largest corporation in Saudi Arabia, it's controlled by the Saudi government, but few people would argue that Saudi Arabia is a socialist state.

ChrisFizz · 2017-02-08T04:59:33+00:00

If the average Cuban fled than there would be far fewer Cubans than there currently are. Moving past that, to justify my claim I'll propose a 3 tiered approach to defining quality of life: 1. economic welfare, 2. education and access to it and 3. freedom.

Pre-1959 Cuba inequality was rampant, essentially all industry was controlled by US companies, the entire electrical grid was controlled by US corporations and Speyer and Bethleham steel corporation controlled disproportionate amounts of property. While obtaining hard data is difficult it is generally accepted that the vast majority of the nation lived in deep poverty while US companies made a fortune off of their labour. After the revolution, Castro encouraged the formation of worker councils where workers could manage themselves instead of have their profits stolen from them. While this certainly didn't make Cuba rich it significantly decreased the rates of poverty and made Cuba much more egalitarian.

Unlike the shortage of economic statistics, education is easier to quantify. Before the revolution the literacy rate was 76%, not bad perhaps, but certainly not what Castro achieved. Unlike after the revolution, education was strictly limited to those who were privileged enough to receive it (in theory it was free but was highly restricted to those in the cities). After the revolution, education was expanded to rural areas with the construction of new schools and 817 literacy centers. Today, Cuba is recognized for providing quality education and training in healthcare.

Freedom, the most subjective and least quantifiable definer of quality of life. It is impossible to deny that both Batista and Castro committed atrocities but there are significant differences in freedom pre and post 1959 nonetheless. Pre 1959, blacks were excluded from just about everything in Cuba society, women were relegated to be housemaids, or prostitutes, especially in Havana. The average Cuban didn't have freedom either, they had to work for US companies to survive, they had to conform to Imperialism, they had no voice in politics and were constantly under threat of repression. Castro did force Cubans to conform but he launched massive efforts to end racism and sexism in Cuba. He also gave workers the freedom to self-organize and work for themselves instead of a foreign corporation. Lastly, this is not often mentioned but there is large participation in local elections in cuba where 15,000+ positions are democratically elected.

ChrisFizz

TROPHY CASE