Fascism is only opportunistically anti-capitalist, which you would know if you studied its history in various places as well as over time.
Fascism has large, privately owned corporations, but it is not in any way "capitalist". And the difference between fascism and socialism is fairly small in practice, because in socialist countries, the people who get to be in charge of large state-owned enterprises really act pretty much the same as owners of big corporations in fascism.
And, of course, what Hillary, Sanders, and the American "left" propose is not a socialist economic model (public ownership of the means of production), but a fascist economic model, namely private ownership of the means of production with strong public regulation and strong taxation of profits and "unearned income". So, even if you take the view that socialism is preferable to fascism, the American "left" is not in any way socialist. In fact, they are going down the same route as the progressives and fascists of the early 20th century.
social democracies like Sweden are much less like the fascist regimes of the early 20th Century
Sweden is neither fascist nor socialist. Sweden, like most of Europe and the US, is a democracy with a capitalist/free market economic system, and some social welfare components. In fact, social expenditures per capita and government services in the US are higher than in nearly all of Europe, so the US is, if anything, more of a social welfare state than European countries.
You think it's more likely that Russian hackers conspired with Donald Trump to keep Hillary from becoming president by starting a DDOS on Newsweek? That is the nutty conspiracy theory.
The more realistic theories are that Newsweek screwed up or that some random hackers with a botnet attacked Newsweek for some reason.
So, you start taking your meds and come down to reality, because you're obviously a conspiracy nut right now.
Funny how everyone fawning over Musk and his pet projects are so quick to point the finger of blame everywhere else, even before the facts are in
I'm not "fawning over Musk"; I don't like the guy. And I'm not "pointing the finger of blame" either. I am simply stating that industrial sabotage is a plausible possibility.
Given the amount of money at stake, I wouldn't put it beyond Musk and SpaceX to lie about the causes either
So? Where did I say it wasn't? How does pointing out that industrial sabotage is plausible contradict that in any way?
Fascism and socialism are entirely different in their nature.
Actually, they are almost identical in their nature: they are both fiercely anti-capitalist, they both advocate a supposedly temporary period of totalitarian government in order to achieve their goals, and they both promise to take from the rich and give to the poor. They mainly differ in some details, such as their beliefs about race, religion, and nationhood. In practice, they both lead to poverty, violence, oppression, police states, and economic collapse.
You maker the most expensive choice, and you complain that paying for it costs a lot. Brilliant logic.
My choices have no influence on how much I pay. Furthermore, I am already forced to pay much more than I actually consume. Hence, when I do consume, I'm going to insist on the best and most expensive treatments and drugs I can get.
And I'm not "complaining", I'm explaining to you why drug prices are high and insurance is so expensive, because I'm doing what everybody else is doing: it's the rational and reasonable thing to do. It's why the current system of ACA, FDA, insurance companies, and government regulations is not sustainable.
No, the FDA isn't the problem as anyone that actually looked into this would know. Generics are available as the drug is available, other types of auto-injectors are available and *shock* there are even auto-injectors with the drug in question available!
The FDA puts limits on the circumstances under which people can substitute generics in prescriptions. Furthermore, government regulations have historically isolated consumers from the prices of such drugs, which is why there didn't use to be a lot of complaints.
The problems are elsewhere like Mylan actively hindering places (schools++) that need to stock auto-injectors to use a competitor product, the FDA have nothing to do with that.
The price increases have little to do with who stocks the injectors; the fact that schools stock them is a separate governmental failure. Furthermore, it is absurd to argue that a private company can "actively hinder" public schools from buying alternative products. How do you imagine that works? What public schools decide to buy is determined by public school administrators and politicians. So that problem is indeed not caused by the FDA, but it is still caused by politicians, public administrators, and regulators.
It's not the consumer's fault. As you point out, if the doctor writes EpiPen, then the pharmacist can't substitute. Furthermore, the price increases happened while insurance mostly covered the costs.
Personally, I make a point of getting the most expensive drugs out of my insurance company: under ACA, I am forced to overpay for my insurance, so I'm going to get any cent out of it that I can.
Furthermore, the lack of more and better alternatives is the result of government regulation.
I thought I was being very explicit that there is not much point making that comparison.
Yes, and you were wrong, get it? We effectively have a choice between two candidates.
Yes, yes, women wrecking the joint and all that - even though I think she is slime unfit for office aren't you going a bit far beyond ridiculous with the "wreck this country" line?
I have no problem voting for a woman. This has nothing to do with "women", even though Hillary likes to use her gender to detract from her political problems.
Are you pushing the line of "Hillary is bad too so vote for Trump?" Yes or no?
No, not at all. I think Hillary is eminently qualified and skilled. The problem with Hillary is what she actually wants to do, and the fact that (unlike Trump) she actually has the skill and the power to implement her program. Nixon was also qualified and skilled, but that didn't make him a good person to vote for.
grumpycatgood.jpg. Send the CXX suite to prison for a few years, fine then the millions they made on the scam, and maybe it will slam on the brakes to other companies jacking up the price of generics that were discovered 50 years ago.
The only reason they could jack up the prices so much is because the FDA and the federal government gave them the means and the monopoly to do so in the first place; and they did that because the company is politically well connected.
All the posturing from politicians now is just because the scam has become a political liability.
The company claimed on official government forms for multiple years that the drug is a generic. Make it so. Job done. The government can do that.
Why would the government do that? The government is responsible for these excessive prices in the first place.
In May, the FDA actually attempted to hurt generics even more by "allowing them to change labels" relative to prescription drugs; that sounds harmless, until you realize that what that actually means is that it places generic drug manufacturers at huge risks and extra regulatory burdens.
The FDA has got to be one of the most corrupt departments of the federal government.
Authoritarian leaders are not the least consistent about policy.
Just like Hillary then.
That's why scholars have had so much trouble characterizing fascism as an ideology, because it's not an ideology. It's a disease of ideology; it's politics rotting from the head down, like a fish.
Indeed: fascism and socialism are actual, working policies, they are the propagandistic use of a particular set of grievances and empty promises. And, again, those overlap strongly with Hillary's promises.
While that may be true it doesn't by magic turn Trump into a Prince even if he acts as if he is as entitled as one.
Indeed, it doesn't.
You don't have to play the "lesser of too evils" game.
Well, you can vote for Johnson.
But between Hillary and Trump, Trump is the lesser of two evils. Why? For the simple reason that he is so politically inept and powerless that he can't get anything done. Hillary, on the other hand, is a skilled politician who would wreck this country if she managed to implement only a fraction of her stated agenda.
You are incorrect. This hasn't been true of the left probably ever, but definitely not in a generation or two.
It has always been true of the left and progressives; and, of course, the left and progressives have always denied it too and are fooling themselves into believing that the authoritarian policies they are advocating are not, in fact, authoritarian.
How about an example to support your tired talking points?
There are plenty of books; von Mises "Socialism" is a good start.
Face it, nobody gives a shit about your conservative nonsense.
What rock are you living under? Left wing ideologies have failed all around the world, and the majority of Americans rejects both "the left" and progressivism. For that matter, so does much of Europe.
Because authoritarians follow charismatic leaders...
Authoritarians follow leaders advocating authoritarian policies, like Hillary does.
Just saying repeating what someone else says doesn't make it true, no matter where you claim your loyalties lie (or in this case loyalties you disclaim).
Honey, I've been saying that Hillary is a lying, authoritarian, corrupt, incompetent bitch since long before Trump even entered the race.
Alternatively, Newsweek may have simply screwed up their servers and decided that blaming it on "Russian hackers" was going to give their story more credence. Or Hillary or her supporters may have engineered such attacks, for the same reason. You can't believe anything these people say.
They are authoritarian followers, that fight anybody that disagrees with them with violence. They are irrational and dangerous. They are unable to find a middle-ground with others.
You're describing Hillary's followers here.
This is the same type of people that are responsible for countless mass-murders throughout history and have establishes countless totalitarian states. These people are the enemy of anybody not in their camp. And they destroy nations.
Again, you are clearly describing progressives and their policies. In fact, Hillary herself, as SoS, has literally authorized mass killings, aided and supported totalitarian regimes, viciously attacked her political opponents, and destroyed nations.
Trump and his followers may be uneducated and stupid, but Hillary and her followers are smart, violent, and vicious.
The distinction between serious content and amusement is the wrong distinction. Newspapers publish self-serving corporate crap even when they are trying to be serious. For example, on some science or technology issue, they may write a perfectly reasonable sounding article, but their selection of experts and quotes may be biased, often probably unconsciously. Books aren't burned or banned, publishers simply don't even publish them. Etc. Furthermore, there isn't some nefarious master plan to "control" the population; management, journalists, and editors simply act in their own self-interest, like everybody else; the problem is that the self-interest of these people isn't to give readers good information, it is to sell more newspapers, sell more ads, advance their own careers, win prizes, etc.
I still think Postman's ideas are well worth reflecting upon, but I think he often combines a good cultural insight with a flawed analysis and flawed implications for how to address the problem.
Newspapers are also extensive, experienced intelligence gathering organizations. They look for news. They do a better job than most of identifying stuff that matters. And then, they tell people about it. Some of the bad actors out there are quite good at hiding; it takes time and skill to sift the nuggets of information from the muck.
What matters first of all is their motivations. The more powerful an intelligence organization is at gathering information, the more effective it is at screwing people over. The STASI and the Gestapo were actually quite good at intelligence gathering, and as a consequence were very effective at screwing people over.
So, in a sense, you are right: newspapers gather "intelligence" on people, a lot of it simply embarrassing and irrelevant dirt, and publish it, largely to further their own political and commercial agenda. What they mostly don't do is provide insight into, and educate people about, science, technology, statistics, or economics; that's because newspapers are staffed by people who are great at uncovering dirt on people but are ignorant about almost everything else. Science coverage in the news consists largely of hype and quoting multiple people with impressive academic titles.
A Google login, whether you get it via gmail or "G Suite", ties into all of the Android apps and keeps search history and integrates it into other Google products, and runs synchronization of most app data so they can see a great deal of what you do on the phone.
Gosh, what does that remind me of? Oh, right, every networked workstation since networked workstations have been around: they store their mail, configuration files, history files, and documents on a central server and run remote management, configuration, and update scripts. They do that because it's convenient for users: it provides backup and means users don't have to work as system administrators for their own computers. Of course, Google has an additional reason for doing it: they run machine learning software over it to (1) send you relevant ads (that's why these services are free), and (2) give you functionality you wouldn't otherwise get. Oh how very evil of them!
About the worst that you can do is turn on device management. It will take about two days to turn off and during that time it will do its very best to force your email users to put their devices under your control. After that you apparently even have control over booting of the device.
Centralized control is the whole point device management exists. Why would you turn it on if you don't want to use it?
It's enough to make me want to support another open phone. Mozilla just gave up the ghost on that.
Well, if you only did! I'm sure the only contribution that cracking the technically tough nuts of large scale privacy-preserving remote management, machine learning, and backup still needs is your benevolent support! People are just holding back all the good stuff because Bruce Perens hasn't given it His blessing! Never mind that Firefox OS isn't meaningfully more private or secure than any other of the shitty phone operating systems out there! Remember kids: all it takes to create great technology is Bruce Perens' blessing!
Anything that traditional media corporations publish is "too much" as far as I'm concerned: they are money-making enterprises that will say whatever it takes to maximize their profit and power, and that usually involves a combination of: (1) trolling the public and causing discord, (2) spreading FUD, (3) kowtowing to politicians and the government. What these media corporations don't do is care about your well being or give your reliable and unbiased information.
"Our struggle with the Russian hackers that we announced in June is ongoing -- as we knew it would be -- and we are choosing not to provide general updates unless personal data or other sensitive information has been accessed or stolen," interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile told CNN.
If you find it to be a "struggle" to keep your phones or your computers safe from "Russian hackers", then your party and its candidates are clearly not competent to hold higher office.
But recently, as the Daily Beast reported in May, the character "S" has been co-opted by a faction of Internet denizens who decided to reclaim it from the mainstream, and began sharing it in anti-Semitic contexts. "Images of the letter "S", variously used in words like "sucks", "songbird", and "simple" have appeared in recent weeks in hateful messages aimed at Jewish and other users on Twitter," the ADL wrote in a statement. "Once again, racists and haters have taken a popular letter and twisted it for their own purposes of spreading bigotry and harassing users," wrote ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a bunch of other problems with Java. Why not fix those at the same time as changing the compilation model?
We could call that new version of Java "Swift" or "C#".
Fascism has large, privately owned corporations, but it is not in any way "capitalist". And the difference between fascism and socialism is fairly small in practice, because in socialist countries, the people who get to be in charge of large state-owned enterprises really act pretty much the same as owners of big corporations in fascism.
And, of course, what Hillary, Sanders, and the American "left" propose is not a socialist economic model (public ownership of the means of production), but a fascist economic model, namely private ownership of the means of production with strong public regulation and strong taxation of profits and "unearned income". So, even if you take the view that socialism is preferable to fascism, the American "left" is not in any way socialist. In fact, they are going down the same route as the progressives and fascists of the early 20th century.
Sweden is neither fascist nor socialist. Sweden, like most of Europe and the US, is a democracy with a capitalist/free market economic system, and some social welfare components. In fact, social expenditures per capita and government services in the US are higher than in nearly all of Europe, so the US is, if anything, more of a social welfare state than European countries.
You think it's more likely that Russian hackers conspired with Donald Trump to keep Hillary from becoming president by starting a DDOS on Newsweek? That is the nutty conspiracy theory.
The more realistic theories are that Newsweek screwed up or that some random hackers with a botnet attacked Newsweek for some reason.
So, you start taking your meds and come down to reality, because you're obviously a conspiracy nut right now.
I'm not "fawning over Musk"; I don't like the guy. And I'm not "pointing the finger of blame" either. I am simply stating that industrial sabotage is a plausible possibility.
So? Where did I say it wasn't? How does pointing out that industrial sabotage is plausible contradict that in any way?
Actually, they are almost identical in their nature: they are both fiercely anti-capitalist, they both advocate a supposedly temporary period of totalitarian government in order to achieve their goals, and they both promise to take from the rich and give to the poor. They mainly differ in some details, such as their beliefs about race, religion, and nationhood. In practice, they both lead to poverty, violence, oppression, police states, and economic collapse.
My choices have no influence on how much I pay. Furthermore, I am already forced to pay much more than I actually consume. Hence, when I do consume, I'm going to insist on the best and most expensive treatments and drugs I can get.
And I'm not "complaining", I'm explaining to you why drug prices are high and insurance is so expensive, because I'm doing what everybody else is doing: it's the rational and reasonable thing to do. It's why the current system of ACA, FDA, insurance companies, and government regulations is not sustainable.
Given the amount of money at stake, I wouldn't put it past them to engage in a little bit of industrial sabotage.
The FDA puts limits on the circumstances under which people can substitute generics in prescriptions. Furthermore, government regulations have historically isolated consumers from the prices of such drugs, which is why there didn't use to be a lot of complaints.
The price increases have little to do with who stocks the injectors; the fact that schools stock them is a separate governmental failure. Furthermore, it is absurd to argue that a private company can "actively hinder" public schools from buying alternative products. How do you imagine that works? What public schools decide to buy is determined by public school administrators and politicians. So that problem is indeed not caused by the FDA, but it is still caused by politicians, public administrators, and regulators.
Pleased to meet you, Mr. Clueless Idiot.
It's not the consumer's fault. As you point out, if the doctor writes EpiPen, then the pharmacist can't substitute. Furthermore, the price increases happened while insurance mostly covered the costs.
Personally, I make a point of getting the most expensive drugs out of my insurance company: under ACA, I am forced to overpay for my insurance, so I'm going to get any cent out of it that I can.
Furthermore, the lack of more and better alternatives is the result of government regulation.
Yes, and you were wrong, get it? We effectively have a choice between two candidates.
I have no problem voting for a woman. This has nothing to do with "women", even though Hillary likes to use her gender to detract from her political problems.
No, not at all. I think Hillary is eminently qualified and skilled. The problem with Hillary is what she actually wants to do, and the fact that (unlike Trump) she actually has the skill and the power to implement her program. Nixon was also qualified and skilled, but that didn't make him a good person to vote for.
The only reason they could jack up the prices so much is because the FDA and the federal government gave them the means and the monopoly to do so in the first place; and they did that because the company is politically well connected.
All the posturing from politicians now is just because the scam has become a political liability.
Why would the government do that? The government is responsible for these excessive prices in the first place.
In May, the FDA actually attempted to hurt generics even more by "allowing them to change labels" relative to prescription drugs; that sounds harmless, until you realize that what that actually means is that it places generic drug manufacturers at huge risks and extra regulatory burdens.
The FDA has got to be one of the most corrupt departments of the federal government.
The fact that Mylan can charge these prices is government regulations and government-granted monopolies.
And it's hardly surprising why Mylan got this monopoly on a silver platter: they are politically well connected (with Democrats in this case).
Just like Hillary then.
Indeed: fascism and socialism are actual, working policies, they are the propagandistic use of a particular set of grievances and empty promises. And, again, those overlap strongly with Hillary's promises.
Indeed, it doesn't.
Well, you can vote for Johnson.
But between Hillary and Trump, Trump is the lesser of two evils. Why? For the simple reason that he is so politically inept and powerless that he can't get anything done. Hillary, on the other hand, is a skilled politician who would wreck this country if she managed to implement only a fraction of her stated agenda.
It has always been true of the left and progressives; and, of course, the left and progressives have always denied it too and are fooling themselves into believing that the authoritarian policies they are advocating are not, in fact, authoritarian.
There are plenty of books; von Mises "Socialism" is a good start.
What rock are you living under? Left wing ideologies have failed all around the world, and the majority of Americans rejects both "the left" and progressivism. For that matter, so does much of Europe.
Authoritarians follow leaders advocating authoritarian policies, like Hillary does.
Honey, I've been saying that Hillary is a lying, authoritarian, corrupt, incompetent bitch since long before Trump even entered the race.
Alternatively, Newsweek may have simply screwed up their servers and decided that blaming it on "Russian hackers" was going to give their story more credence. Or Hillary or her supporters may have engineered such attacks, for the same reason. You can't believe anything these people say.
Independent here, not a "Trump fan".
You're describing Hillary's followers here.
Again, you are clearly describing progressives and their policies. In fact, Hillary herself, as SoS, has literally authorized mass killings, aided and supported totalitarian regimes, viciously attacked her political opponents, and destroyed nations.
Trump and his followers may be uneducated and stupid, but Hillary and her followers are smart, violent, and vicious.
The distinction between serious content and amusement is the wrong distinction. Newspapers publish self-serving corporate crap even when they are trying to be serious. For example, on some science or technology issue, they may write a perfectly reasonable sounding article, but their selection of experts and quotes may be biased, often probably unconsciously. Books aren't burned or banned, publishers simply don't even publish them. Etc. Furthermore, there isn't some nefarious master plan to "control" the population; management, journalists, and editors simply act in their own self-interest, like everybody else; the problem is that the self-interest of these people isn't to give readers good information, it is to sell more newspapers, sell more ads, advance their own careers, win prizes, etc.
I still think Postman's ideas are well worth reflecting upon, but I think he often combines a good cultural insight with a flawed analysis and flawed implications for how to address the problem.
What matters first of all is their motivations. The more powerful an intelligence organization is at gathering information, the more effective it is at screwing people over. The STASI and the Gestapo were actually quite good at intelligence gathering, and as a consequence were very effective at screwing people over.
So, in a sense, you are right: newspapers gather "intelligence" on people, a lot of it simply embarrassing and irrelevant dirt, and publish it, largely to further their own political and commercial agenda. What they mostly don't do is provide insight into, and educate people about, science, technology, statistics, or economics; that's because newspapers are staffed by people who are great at uncovering dirt on people but are ignorant about almost everything else. Science coverage in the news consists largely of hype and quoting multiple people with impressive academic titles.
Gosh, what does that remind me of? Oh, right, every networked workstation since networked workstations have been around: they store their mail, configuration files, history files, and documents on a central server and run remote management, configuration, and update scripts. They do that because it's convenient for users: it provides backup and means users don't have to work as system administrators for their own computers. Of course, Google has an additional reason for doing it: they run machine learning software over it to (1) send you relevant ads (that's why these services are free), and (2) give you functionality you wouldn't otherwise get. Oh how very evil of them!
Centralized control is the whole point device management exists. Why would you turn it on if you don't want to use it?
Well, if you only did! I'm sure the only contribution that cracking the technically tough nuts of large scale privacy-preserving remote management, machine learning, and backup still needs is your benevolent support! People are just holding back all the good stuff because Bruce Perens hasn't given it His blessing! Never mind that Firefox OS isn't meaningfully more private or secure than any other of the shitty phone operating systems out there! Remember kids: all it takes to create great technology is Bruce Perens' blessing!
Anything that traditional media corporations publish is "too much" as far as I'm concerned: they are money-making enterprises that will say whatever it takes to maximize their profit and power, and that usually involves a combination of: (1) trolling the public and causing discord, (2) spreading FUD, (3) kowtowing to politicians and the government. What these media corporations don't do is care about your well being or give your reliable and unbiased information.
If you find it to be a "struggle" to keep your phones or your computers safe from "Russian hackers", then your party and its candidates are clearly not competent to hold higher office.
There, FTFY.