"take over the means of production."--kloro.

Can't. They're all overseas at this point, and we can invade just so many countries at any one time.

KLORO is exactly right.

Seize ALL large corporate assets, offer their shareholders something or nothing and operate all means of production as a National enterprise.
Norway's oil production is Nationalized and it produces a large profit, as it does in the US. Except in Norway the money goes into the nations general fund instead of the offshore accounts of shareholders.
The problem IS CAPITALISM.
Just as Capitalism was an improvement over feudal Monarchy so Democratic Socialism is an improvement over Capitalism.
A system built on greed and "the love of money"...... the root of all evil, if you believe in the Bible, can never produce a good result in the final analysis.
Until we rid ourselves of the scourge of capitalism we will forever be tweaking around the edges of the problem without a hope of solving it.

I agree with Mastershake and RichM, regarding Conservatism, but we could go one further and call it modern Capitalism. In the UK, we have a Conservative leader who wants to limit individual donations to any political party to $50K, this is regardless of whether it is an individual, or a group such as a trade union. If this happens, then we in the UK could be plunged back 100 years, with no political party to help the common man. We can no longer count on the New Labour party to help us, because they are indistinguishable from the Conservatives.
For any aspiring politician to realise his/her dreams, they must first satisfy their sponsors, who are inevitably very rich and powerfull. There is no doubt that we need more regulation in the financial sector. The root cause of the sub-prime crisis in the US and here in the UK, is the carefree attitude which banks have regarded the mortgage market. They have been allowed to falsely inflate property prices, by allowing ever increasing multiples of borrowing. They are in a "win-win" situation, where they either make money, or repossess a property.

mastershake,

With some diehards, there is no dialing back to pre-propaganda space in their gray matter.

You cannot suggest the merits of single-payer
You cannot ask him which candidates currently in the running support it.
You cannot ask if he thinks that the CEO's of the insurance companies are in bed with the two corporate political parties.

I suggest going the other way. Approach him, straight-faced and say, "Yeah, I overheard your problems with the insurance company. I know the feeling. It's those g*ddamned liberals, the policies of FDR through that Clinton socialist and his wife. And don't get me going on malpractice suits either. That industry has been far too tightly regulated, and this is what we have to show for it."

Do it with a straight-face and you'll have a new drinking buddy for life.

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' of the market has been deified by the ruling elite empire to justify much more than Smith intended or even knew.

First, as a moral philosopher, Adam Smith believed in the concept of a 'public interest', common good, or commonwealth (as some of our states are called).

Whereas the current radically right ruling-elite empire of corporatist, as Al Gore accurately notes in his fabulous new book, "The Assault on Reason", do not accept and hold in contempt the very concept of any "public interest" existing at all.

Secondly, Adam Smith did not fully comprehend the nature of the now well understood 'market failure' of negative externality cost dumping.

It is primarily by 'gaming' this well known market failute of negative externality cost dumping (or hiding) that the current corporatist empire can run what amounts to a long term global Ponzi scam, which makes faux profits by dumping costs --- industrially in the form of cancer in smokers lungs and pollution in the atmosphere, and financially by hiding expenses in phony off-book shell companies like Enron and 'debt bombs' like CDOs and SIVs in the credit markets, which later explode and endanger our whole economy.

Adam Smith wold roll over in his grave if he saw the propagandistic purposes for which his life's work was being misused.

Adele (7:45) - actually, conservatives don't really give a hoot about government tyranny. They claim to, certainly -- but that's just for the sake of appearances. It's a "diplomatic nicety," nothing more.

What they really want is for the plutocrats to run the country unchallenged. They want government de-clawed & de-fanged, so that it can't regulate or limit them in any way. They believe government belongs to them, & should rightfully serve them. They need the power of the State to force the country into wars -- on behalf of their own (ie, the plutocracy's) economic interests. They need the State apparatus to repress & control the rest of the population. They need to control the courts to give the appearance of "impartial justice" to decisions which almost exclusively serve their own class interests. So they want government to be strong enough to do their bidding -- but nothing more.

To a conservative, the definition of "government tyranny" is any government that challenges or restrains the plutocracy's power or profits. For example, a real EPA that protected the environment would be an example of government putting a constraint on ruling class profits. To conservatives, that would be "government tyranny."

---------------------

Reb Farmer -- That's exciting news!

****************BREAKING**************

Kucinich won the lawsuit!!! Judge ordered that Kucinich was to debate on NBC in Nevada tomorrow or debate would be canceled!!! WAHOOOOO...

I sometimes think the fundamental difference between American conservatives and liberals boils down to this:

(A) Conservatives think we need more economic freedom, not less, to protect us from the threat of government tyranny; and

(B) Liberals think (to paraphrase Meyerhoff's article here)we need more government, not less, to protect us against banks and conglomerates and their sheer concentration of economic power.

The irony is that both points of view contain important truths.

Citibank and Merril Lynch are beign investigated?
For what?

Does anyone honestly believe that these investigations will lead to any action?

What did the courts do to Ken Lay and Schilling?
Let them off for squawking on each other?

While you can take the money and run.
So what if you spend a few years in jail?

Milliken is once again a billionaire (selling soya products).
You can take it all from here and put him in jail another ten years.

He has the ways and means to do it again.
At the expense of the rest of us.

"..... the Federal Reserve released new mortgage lending rules "to protect consumers against fraud [and] deception." Banks making sub-prime loans will be required to actually consider the borrower's ability to pay and confirm a borrower's income before handing over the money."

Well, aren't they f$$king geniuses!: Too bad for the taxpayers that they're 5 years late and possibly $1+ Trillion short.

As if these predator-scam-artists didn't know all along that Congress, with our tax money, would either fully or partially bail them out after they walked away with $$ hundreds of millions stashed away in the form of CEO and other types of "screw-you" compensation plans.

"The Fed's recent rules allow action against predatory lenders only on showing a "pattern and practice" of unlawful conduct; disclosures of "yield-spread premiums" — kickbacks — can still remain buried in a mountain of loan documents."

Sounds like another FU plan to me. When the hell are people going to wake up in this country?

mastershake's story is too relevant. After being assaulted with propaganda for a lifetime that anything vaguely described as "socialist" is bad, many people will turn their backs on reasonable alternatives to the status quo simply because they have some sick response if these alternatives are deemed "socialist."

So there's two men standing on the street corner offering you help after you've been kicked in the teeth by the international corporate financiers. You really gotta be brainwashed to turn down Dr. Guevara's help because he's a socialist, as you walk away with Mr. Mussolini's arm around your shoulder.

Sure, regulation will help with predatory or criminal actors in the financial services industry. But until the attitudes of those at the top change to reflect actual value and respect for the human beings create the wealth that is so frequently (and often criminally) sucked up to the penthouse safe, or offshore bank account, we are all doomed to be the victims of these most dangerous of criminals: the articulate ones in the finely tailored suits.

Shame the rich. They are a pox upon us all.

No one ever promotes the slogan "Get Big Business off of Government's Back."

For that matter, get 'em off our backs.

Why regulate? Mammon will provide.

I'm sitting here in my office, listening to a coworker this morning (a die hard Conservative) on the phone with the Health Insurance company fighting for coverage of a 10,000+ hospital bill which they Insurance Company refuses to pay, and also fighting the hospital for more time on paying the bill.

This is the same person, who when I suggested that Health Insurance should be a non-profit model (not even single payer, just take the profit out of the equation, and input it back into the system, covering suffering patients who are paying members) she immidiately denounced it as "socialism."

I guess she prefers fascism over a non-profit Health Insurance system.

It's like I said with these Conservatives. I'm sorry to say, but they deserve exactly what they get, they deserve to be ripped off - them and their famalies deserve to pay 50% more in medical costs than every other western nation, for worse care, and higher premiums. They deserve to have to waste time, effort, money and build up stress in fighting the insurance companies, doctors, hospitals etc.

Once again, our Democrats don't seem to have any clues how to approach this crisis or prevent it from happening again. None of the leading presidential candidates are talking about any of this.

Corporate Amerika left alone...to self-regulate...what a concept! You mean it isn't working? You mean Milton Friedman Chicago School Economics is not the answer to all the world's problems? As Amerika becomes a third world country you'd think more politicians would take a good hard look at the improbable possibility of turning our sick,sick country into a social democracy...Where's Catfish Long when you need him...John Edwards is our best hope, but he's been assassinated by corporate media. Cuba's looking better all the time.

BULLSEYE.

(John R Hall: Huey Long = "Kingfish", not "Catfish.")

The Reagan-era sneering at "big government" was a kind of code phrase. On the surface, it sounded populist. (This was of course deliberate.) But it didn't really mean "getting the government off the people's backs." It actually meant crippling & defanging the government, so that it was unable to rein in the big corporations. (These guys are nothing if not clever.)

Actually, "big government" is the only force powerful enough to control the corporations. If government is enfeebled, we get rule by corporations. And everyone sees what that has done. What supposedly was "government of the people, by the people, etc" has devolved into just a government front for Wall St & the military-industrial complex.

Of course, it was actually always like that, to a large extent. But as the article author correctly sees, since the Reagan era, US corporatists have aimed directly at rolling back all the social & political gains of the New Deal. BOTH parties aided & abetted this process. The Republicans of course played the starring role in it, but the Evilcrats' role was especially shameful, since they had the (largely unearned) reputation of being the "Party of the People."

Cuba? How about Venezuela?

This is just a roaring 20's dedux. Only this time we are going 160 mph into the wall of destruction/depression. All these proposals for regulation are dandy, but way too late. This freight train has no brakes strong enough to stop the inevitable crash we all know is coming.

Fasten your seat belts and hang on for dear life. It's going to be a very nasty wreck for all of us.

lwhunt: Edwards has a clue but the MSM won't let him near a podium. They duct tapped Kucinich at the starting gate of course.

Hasn't Ralph Nader been saying this for a long time?

take over the means of production.

LWHUNT: Because both parties are beholden to the same corporate interests. Look at the number of lobbies in DC?

RICH M: Good analysis (as usual).

Perhaps the US now presents to the world a cautionary tale. Metaphorical (much like Bush, its mascot) of the spoiled brat who gets everything but has never worked a day in his life, suddenly all his accounts and free access get closed off. The world looks on and through this example takes a 2nd look at the false 21st century promise that greed leads to nirvana.