What is capitalism?

RaceBannon said:

I like the let wing myth that Reagan was going to start WW3 and the Soviet Union wasn't going away so we need to live with them and probably be like them eventually

Then when the shit show collapses under the economic onslaught and military build up by RR the Soviet Union was always going to collapse anyway and we? had nothing to do with it

I had a lot of issues with the US and was liberal and didn't vote for RR but I still rooted for America. I was never stupid enough to be a commie and you wouldn't catch me with a VC flag or the hammer an sickle

To each their own

The good guys won. Kids today are fucking ignorant if they thing socialism/communism is going to help their stupid ass get anywhere

Get the fuck off my lawn

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HardlyClothed said:

RaceBannon said:

The socialist dream around the world was crushed under the coolness of the 80's in the West

We buried them. Nice try Nikita

Reagan won the Cold War by giving a speech being mean to communism is still the funniest right-wing myth in circulation.

The strawman's ass got just got fucked.

The Soviet Union was teetering and RR gave it a shove. He almost undoubtedly hastened its end, but it was going to end.

SFGbob said:

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HardlyClothed said:

RaceBannon said:

The socialist dream around the world was crushed under the coolness of the 80's in the West

We buried them. Nice try Nikita

Reagan won the Cold War by giving a speech being mean to communism is still the funniest right-wing myth in circulation.

The strawman's ass got just got fucked.

The Soviet Union was teetering and RR gave it a shove. He almost undoubtedly hastened its end, but it was going to end.

That certainly wasn't the conventional wisdom in 1980 and it wasn't what our own CIA was saying.

HardlyClothed said:

greenblood said:

HardlyClothed said:

greenblood said:

APAG, this might be one of the most ignorant threads you’ve ever started. We have the courts that punish companies for doing bad shit. Look at the recent Monsanto RoundUp lawsuit. In your dream of socialism, there is no oversight. The people owning the factories are the same people that are also the rule maker and the judge aka: The Government. No system is perfect, but at least In the free market capitalism, competition helps even the playing field and some government oversight is needed to keep it that way, like breaking up monopolies.

The only voices in America advocating breaking up monopolies are on the socialist left.

Then you must really love Trump. But then he’s also a facist. It must really suck being you. Living a life of contradiction.

Perfect example of a millennial. Not having any idea what he/she wants, but bitching for the entitled sake of it.

Trump and the conservatve movement writ large is a hollow vessel for the interests of billionaires and mega-corporations.

I’m not a millenial. I developed these views in the godawful Reagan years, bud.

HardlyClothed said:

Fenderbender123 said:

HardlyClothed said:

UW_Doog_Bot said:

Capitalism, at it's heart, is simply a free market in which individuals are free to trade their goods and services. The incentive of capitalism is to create the most value for the most people. You receive the most value back by creating the most value for others.

Cool, and when that value is naturally accumulated by a smaller and smaller cadre of people who then exert enormous power over the market and thus or livelihoods it’s fantastic.

How do they accumulate it? By going around and forcing everyone to give it to them? Or do they earn it? And why do they earn it?

Christ, so if they “earned” (which is a completely subjective term) that level of financial and political domination over the rest of us via capital accumulation that makes it OK. Praise our benevolent feudal masters!

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HardlyClothed said:

RaceBannon said:

The socialist dream around the world was crushed under the coolness of the 80's in the West

We buried them. Nice try Nikita

Reagan won the Cold War by giving a speech being mean to communism is still the funniest right-wing myth in circulation.

The strawman's ass got just got fucked.

The Soviet Union was teetering and RR gave it a shove. He almost undoubtedly hastened its end, but it was going to end.

PurpleThrobber said:

PurpleJ said:

RaceBannon said:

What is love > What is hip? > What is capitalism

Baby don't hurt me

SFGbob said:

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HHusky said:

SFGbob said:

HardlyClothed said:

RaceBannon said:

The socialist dream around the world was crushed under the coolness of the 80's in the West

We buried them. Nice try Nikita

Reagan won the Cold War by giving a speech being mean to communism is still the funniest right-wing myth in circulation.

The strawman's ass got just got fucked.

The Soviet Union was teetering and RR gave it a shove. He almost undoubtedly hastened its end, but it was going to end.

That certainly wasn't the conventional wisdom in 1980 and it wasn't what our own CIA was saying.

I remember sitting in Herb Ellison’s class in 1980 or 81. He called it then. It sounded like a fantasy to me at the time. He was right.

Wow, that didn't refute a fucking word a I just said but I hope it made you feel better. Hell Reagan said it and he believed it before you heard it from Herb. Btw, am I supposed to know who Herb Ellison is?

The CIA sure as shit knew Herb Ellison. He was probably on speed dial. Being taught by nationally recognized scholars and experts is an advantage of attending a great university. You can love RR and still acknowledge the USSR was growing quite frail. Some of us voted for RR during his lifetime. He wasn’t perfect, but he was the right man for the time.

Again, doesn't refute a fucking word I said. Herb may have been saying it but no one at the CIA was listening to your "expert."



Director Admits C.I.A. Fell Short In Predicting the Soviet Collapse
By ELAINE SCIOLINOMAY 21, 1992


Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems. Please send reports of such problems to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

Responding to criticism that the Central Intelligence Agency failed to forecast the collapse of the Soviet system, its director, Robert M. Gates, today conceded shortcomings in the agency's analysis, but defended its overall performance over the years.

In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association in New York, Mr. Gates, the Director of Central Intelligence, said that although the agency wrote many assessments describing a growing crisis in the Soviet Union, it was not until 1989 that agency analysts began "to think that the entire edifice might well collapse."

Mr. Gates also acknowledged that the agency's statistical analysis portrayed a stronger and larger economy than the one that existed in reality. "From a personal standpoint," he added, "I would contend also that our quantitative analysis always considerably understated the real burden economically of the Soviet military."

During his confirmation hearings last fall, Mr. Gates was widely criticized for having promoted a view of an expansionist, invulnerable Soviet Union in more than a dozen speeches and articles between 1986 and 1988, when he was a senior C.I.A. official. The agency was also faulted for exaggerating the economic and military strength of the Soviet Union.

Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was Director of Central Intelligence from 1977 to 1981, complained in an article last year in the journal Foreign Affairs about "revisionist rumblings that the C.I.A. did in fact see the Soviet collapse emerging after all."

"On this one," Admiral Turner added, "the corporate view missed by a mile."

2001400ex said:

Larry Craig (aka Bob) is struggling in this thread.