[PLUG-TALK] Fair Use, etc.

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Mar 28 12:11:40 UTC 2002


I'm not going to pick these all apart just for the sake of time and
tedium, but I wanted to mention a couple of big points...

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, J.A.Henshaw wrote:
> Your money is replaced with debt instruments.

Money _is_ a debt instrument.

> Private property ownership is replaced with real estate ownership (
> real estate is everything from the ground up )

Clearly you don't know the difference between realty and personalty.  
Property law has been based on a distinction between the two for
centuries.

> Basically, all ten planks of the communist manifesto are in place,

Just for grins, run '"ten planks" "communist manifesto"' through
google.  Last time I did, I got nothing but right-wing sites claiming the
above... mostly all copies of the same document scattered about the
web.

In fact, I can't find one reference to "the ten planks" from a source that
isn't far right-wing.  (And exactly one that isn't a specific reference to
how "America" has implemented each one.)

Weird, huh?

And as for what these planks are and what they DO, well, I assure you it
has nothing to do with communism, socialism, or even, more generally,
marxism.

_IF_ they really were part of the original document by Marx and Engels,
then we must note that the document was a manifesto for a new political
party and the "planks" would be the planks of a platform.  A political
party's platform is a statement of purpose for the upcoming political
season designed to show what specific policies are generally supported by
the candidates carrying party support.  These particular planks appear to
be all about consolidating power.  The consolidation of power is, of
course, contrary to the philosophy inherent in the rest of the Communist
Manifesto and certainly contrary to any cause of good or right in the rest
of Marx's work.  BUT I can imagine a particular political group deciding,
at some point, that such a consolidation of power in the hands of a public
agency is a necessary first step in wresting power from the hands of the
private few who held it previously.  And if the organization involved in
reigning in that power and bringing it under one umbrella were truly of a
marxist bent, the next step would be redistribution of that power to the
people.

Now, that's a rationalization full of speculation.  It's quite possible
that those planks, as stated by the various right-wing organizations that
hold them up, were part of a particular communist party's platform when
that party was merely a front for a megalomaniac or greedy few seeking
power.  We all know full well and can point to examples in history showing
that evil and greedy people use the language of common good and populist
sentiment to mislead the people and dupe the gullible.

But one thing can be stated with certainty:  The "ten planks" as laid out
on the sites listed from the above google search are not communist in
nature and an implementation of the systems suggested within those planks
is certainly not necessarily communist.  (I'd be hard pressed, as a matter
of fact, to contrive a communist society that sustained such institutions
as described in those planks with even the most idealized and carefully
chosen denizens.)

> And you deny a conspiracy.
> Do you attribute the current state of affairs to the chaos theory?
> Or is it possible perhaps there was a plot somewhere and this was not
> the result of random chance?

You're talking about a basic destruction of civil rights and a loss of
popular control of the world's wealth.

I attribute the current state of affairs to greed and lust for power.  We
set up a system that covets wealth and allows that wealth to
self-propogate.  Small advantages existed for the wealthy to wield power.  
Lust for power and greed are incredible motivators.  The powerful
(wealthy) have the greatest ability to make change to society by
definition.  Those people, acting in their own selfish interests,
continued to modify the system to benefit themselves... first in small
ways (as their small advantage in wealth gave them a small advantage in
power) and then in larger ways (as their wealth grew, their ability to
turn that wealth into power and that power into wealth also grew).  This
degenerative cycle continues to this day and all that are not the wealthy
elite (e.g. you and me) suffer.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
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